Page 7

I woke with a gasp, my body aching from the unforgiving surface beneath me. A breeze tousled my hair, and I winced as the sun beamed into my eyes.

“Careful, star-touched,” Takoda said, his hazy silhouette coming into view. The healer regarded me with soft, worried eyes. “We were unable to move you. You remain where you fell.”

Bits of last night flashed before my eyes in violent strikes of lightning and earth. Panic erupted in my chest. Not from barely escaping Erovos or the presence of death that picked at me like crows on a carcass, but by the pain I had inflicted on Rowen.

Was he still alive?

“Rowen?” I pleaded, my fingertips searching for him. Those nearest to me jumped back and avoided my arm.

“I’m here,” came the deep voice that called to me from across the galaxies, but it was strained. Hurting.

My vision expanded. White-haired members of the Summit hovered over me, their faces creased with concern, and I noticed several warriors nearby, resting their hands on their weapons.

“Do not touch her,” Takoda warned as Rowen pushed through the crowd. Despite his emerald presence filling my view, a painful distance lingered between us. It mirrored the moments when he’d held back, the times he feared his true emotions would put me in danger.

When the false queen Aliphoura cursed Rowen, she vowed that if she couldn’t have him, no one could. And the forced separation felt like a painful reminder of our past.

The air pulsed with energy as I examined his exquisitely sculpted face. He appeared exhausted, with a thicker beard, new worry lines, and deep purple smudges under his eyes. It looked as if he’d lived a thousand tortured lifetimes since I’d been gone. “Keira, you . . .”

“I shocked you,” I whispered, guilt hanging from my heart like an anvil.

I’d launched Rowen into a tree as if he weighed nothing, which was a feat, considering his body burgeoned with strength and power.

His size had always been intimidating, but now it was fearsome.

It was as if he’d doubled in muscle mass overnight.

“That explains why Sabra wouldn’t let me touch her.

Though I’m not sure why this is happening. ”

“Whatever transpired with you and Erovos, it has caused the Alcreon Light to surge to the surface of your skin,” Takoda said, his tone clinical yet concerned. “Without a proper channel to guide it, the Light is spiraling out of control, threatening to overwhelm you.”

Wonderful. Where my Light had barely come to me in the past, it was now a weapon I couldn’t control. Even the beautiful dress I’d fashioned was gone, flashed out of existence like a broken bulb, and I realized I was completely naked beneath a linen blanket.

“We were unable to dress you,” Takoda said solemnly. “Or even move you to my dome. We quickly made you as comfortable as possible, hoping you would wake soon. ”

I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest. The destruction I had wreaked upon the Wyn village surrounded me. The shame sat heavy in my gut.

My gaze darted back and forth, taking in the once vibrant landscape, now dull and dying, to Rowen’s changed appearance. “How has all this happened in one day?”

“Keira,” Rowen breathed my name. His gaze traced over my face, drinking me in like I was a long-awaited oasis. “You’ve been gone for nearly three moons.”

“That’s not possible,” I choked out, clutching the sheet tighter. “I went with Erovos yesterday.”

Rowen released a ragged breath.

“It has been a season’s turn, star-touched. Rowen speaks the truth,” Takoda said, resting his hands on his knees.

I was going to be sick. My existence as the Alcreon Light had only felt like moments, not a robbery of time. “Is Ven alright?”

“Ven is well. He is the one who told us you left with Erovos to save him and Sabra,” Rowen said, his features twisting. “I searched for you every night in the Hymma. I thought I found you many times, but then you would slip through my fingers like liquid starlight.”

During my time as the Light, I’d felt Rowen’s touch ripple through me, and I’d turned away. “Erovos changed me, deconstructed me down to the purest form of the Alcreon Light. It took me a while to remember what—who I was. I’m sorry I couldn’t remember sooner.”

Rowen’s face paled. “Don’t apologize, my flame. You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

I gathered my legs beneath me, keeping the blanket wrapped around my body.

My hair was somehow longer, thicker, and billowed around me like an underwater forest. Even my nails, normally bitten down to the quick, had grown long, healthy, and strong.

The Light’s influence had changed me from the inside out.

When I came to my feet, I remembered I hadn’t fallen at all. I’d been caught. Someone had come up behind me and wrapped me in their arms. But they hadn’t been affected the way Rowen had. “Who stopped me?” I asked, remembering that the stranger had a power like mine, and he’d used it against me.

“It is difficult to understand . . .” Takoda began as Rowen wrapped an overcoat around my shoulders without touching me. His welcoming scent enveloped me in a cloud of charcoal, musk, and sandalwood.

“One of our prisoners,” Nepta, the Elven-head of the Wyn answered, her commanding voice strong yet tinged with grief.

What happened since I’d been gone?

“We don’t know how the prisoner escaped to get to you. To lay his hands on you,” Rowen seethed as his temples pulsed with fury. “There was no damage done to his cell. He may have used a dark portal to get to you.”

“Who?” I asked, utterly perplexed.

“A man who claims to know you personally. He won’t tell us any more than that. He says he will only speak with you,” Takoda replied.

I wracked my brain. “I don’t know anyone here. Unless it’s someone who escaped the Crystal Crypts.”

“Possibly,” Rowen said as his fingers itched toward me. “It’s quite a coincidence he showed up the exact morning you left.”

My mind reeled. “The day I left? I don’t understand.”

“It could be a trap from Erovos, or the false queen. Her body was never recovered,” Alvar, the captain of the Wyn warriors chimed in, his prominent brow furrowing over dark brown eyes.

“The interloper refuses to tell us anything. His lack of cooperation does not bode well. We have no idea what his intentions are. He is not to be trusted. ”

Curiosity clawed at me. The Wyn village had been imprisoning a man for months. One they feared enough to detain yet somehow knew me. “Take me to him,” I said, brushing the long, unruly strands of hair from my face.

“The prisoner can wait. No one is to see him until the best course of action is decided,” Nepta said, her quartz headdress displaying the authority of her decision. “He is well guarded. It is more urgent that we know what happened with the Dark Spirit?”

“Oh. Of course,” I said as I relayed how Erovos rid me down until I was nothing but Light, intending to use me as a gateway to other worlds.

I recounted how I’d trapped him in the crevice, buying whatever time I could.

How I’d been the everything and nothing of the Light for the last three months.

And how the Dark Spirit had been using the Sylvan Mother Tree to drain Luneth dry.

“I should have suspected Erovos would use the sacred Mother Tree. It is a great and unforgivable sadness,” Nepta said, the creases around her marble eyes deepening.

“The crevice won’t hold him forever,” Alvar remarked, managing to sound somewhat impressed.

“No,” I agreed. “It won’t.”

The war captain traced the scar on his chin with a weathered finger. “Much has changed since your disappearance: the earth trembles and quakes. And now we know why. The Dark Spirit is fighting for release.”

I stiffened in dread. Even though I already knew it wouldn’t hold him forever, guilt swarmed me. I should have thought of a better prison.

“You did well, child. Had Erovos escaped to other realms, there would be no stopping him. At least now we have a chance,” Nepta said, somehow sensing the remorse that engulfed me. The crystals from her headdress swayed around her neck. “Did you learn of any weaknesses?”

I pulled Rowen’s coat closer. “No.”

“And Demil? Where is that coward?” Rowen snarled.

“He helped me in the end, and I . . . I locked him away with Erovos,” I said, my voice containing no emotion. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Demil sacrificing himself. Was I grateful or remorseful? Both felt wrong, considering he put me in that position in the first place.

“He will most likely be tortured,” Alvar commented solemnly.

“How I would like to torture him myself,” Rowen said, a fire darker than anything Erovos could conjure flaring in his eyes. “Though I hope Erovos does a skilled job of it.”

Nepta’s stare passed through mine and latched onto something much deeper within my soul.

“You are quite a force, child, battling two warring dragons within. One breathes great life and healing unto this world while the other wields destruction. You must choose which beast to nourish, the one who heals or the one who destroys.”

Nepta’s words chaffed. The line between ruin and renewal was thin, and I feared I had lost the boundary altogether. But both the beasts inside me agreed on one thing. We needed Rowen’s touch. Desperately.

As if reading my mind, Rowen stepped directly in front of me and said, “I would like to try touching you again.”

“Rowen, you only woke moments before Keira. She did quite a number on you. I’ve only just managed to slow your heart rate and stop the bleeding from your nose and ears. Not to mention how I had to put your shoulder back into place,” Takoda said, motioning to his propagated medicines and supplies.

I felt the color drain from my face.

“We will test it again,” Rowen offered me with a weak smile .

Takoda sighed. “You must be able to pull back, Keira. If you hold on for too long, his heart could give out.”

I blanched, but Rowen cut in before I could refuse. “Keira, I trust you.”

“That makes one of us!”

“Please,” he begged. “Try.”

“As lightly as you can,” Takoda instructed.

I was terrified of injuring Rowen again, but I was willing to try. For him. And I nodded reluctantly.

The healer glanced at the warriors surrounding us. “Others, brace him. We don’t want him flying into the trees again.”

The warriors latched onto Rowen’s shoulders, their arms holding him in place. His deep-cut, linen shirt was low enough that it exposed his skin. His massive chest, dappled with dark curls, rapidly rose and fell with each desperate breath.

Surely, the spirits weren’t cruel enough to keep me from Rowen once again, especially after having left him alone and frightened for three long months.

I reached out and touched him as lightly as I could, barely pressing the pad of my finger to his chest.

Rowen’s eyes immediately rolled into the back of his head. He convulsed violently, triggering a chain reaction that struck the line of warriors with my current. I jerked back in horror, helplessly watching as they all struggled to regain their balance.

Takoda darted to one of the warriors who had fallen to the ground. “Keira, I am sorry, but you are to touch no one until you have mastered your powers. And no one is to touch you. Not even your soul flame,” he said with a pointed look at Rowen.

So the spirits were that cruel.

“No,” Rowen growled fiercely as he swayed on his feet. “We have a few sprouted noxlilies. Give her one. Heal her,” he demanded as the veins in his temples bulged .

“Rowen, she is not ailed,” Takoda said with pained honesty. “She is uncontrolled.”

I grimaced. I’d been called similar names by my parents.

The treatments they put me through, forced me through, still pained me like a break that would never heal.

I couldn’t believe I was reliving the same situation, only this time with people who truly felt like family.

And as if on instinct, a protective shield raised around my heart.

“Perhaps I could brew a few petals into a tea, but the flowers are slow to bloom and should only be used for grave injuries. Like Sabra. It is only because of the noxlilies that she is healed.”

“He’s right, Rowen,” I whispered, my body aching to hold the man I was forbidden to touch. “Save the noxlilies for those who need it.”

Rowen’s jaw tensed, but he nodded in agreement. We’d only been given a few precious nights to touch and hold each other the way we’d always wanted to but had been denied. And though our separation only felt like days for me, it had been months for him.

My heart plummeted with a gut-wrenching force, but I agreed with Takoda. If my touch was hazardous, it was out of the question for me to get too close to anyone, even if it was the man I loved with every shattered and broken fragment of my being.

Nepta turned her regal stare to Alvar. “Now that we know the cause of the quakes, and where they originate, we must gather warriors to guard the crevice. Have them report any movement from our enemy.”

Alvar’s scarred chin dipped in compliance. “We will be the first to know if anything slips through the cracks. The mare must dress and show us the way,” the war captain said, keeping with the nickname he’d granted me.

Rowen tensed beside me. “She’s not going anywhere tonight. She just got back. ”

“I know the way,” Takoda interjected before Alvar or Nepta could refuse. “I shall show you. Let them rest.”

“Yes, get some rest, Keira. But your powers mustn’t go untamed for long,” Nepta said in an unspoken warning, and the air rang with the words she didn’t say, for if you don’t, who knows what’s to become of you.