Page 20

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Oralia

Ringing buzzed through the world, rattling my skull.

The skeletal body of the creature crumbled to ash between the three of us, the armor of ice melting away and refreezing beneath our feet. But I could not spare a glance for the monstrous, segmented remains before me—my attention was glued to my hands, inconspicuous beneath the black gloves.

Fire.

A power I’d never known I possessed now coursed beneath my skin, tangling with the dark web of death and bright golden life. Drystan and Aelestor stared with wide eyes. Their ragged breathing filtered through the ringing in my ears, and I realized how vital it was, my growing power. Vital in a way I had feared when Horace had first spoken of it growing.

A gash bled on Drystan’s cheek, knitting itself together, dark blood freezing. He was a demigod, far more fragile than Aelestor and me. Did I have the power to bestow favor as Typhon and Ren did—to strengthen his body and magic? From the gash on his face, the favor he’d been bestowed in Aethera was waning, if not gone.

“Are you injured?” I asked, voice tinny in my ears.

Drystan shook his head, swiping at the now-healed wound with the back of his hand. “That suns-cursed monster only landed one blow. And you?”

I shook my head as well, turning my attention to Aelestor. But he was gazing at me with unreadable gray eyes.

“Oralia…” His tone was soft, barely audible behind the dimming ring, and it was clear he wanted to continue our argument from before.

But I had no more space for it, not as the silver thread connecting me to Ren hummed, pulling me higher up the mountain. So instead, I turned on tired legs. This new magic was a drain on my energy as the shadows had been when I first learned them. If Aelestor spoke, his words were too quiet for my healing ears.

Drystan fell into step but did not comment, only offered me a shoulder as we traversed slick, rounded boulders. I was as grateful for his support as I was that he did not try to ask about this new power, what it meant, or where we were going. The questions would come later, I knew, after the danger had passed for the moment and we were tucked back inside the safety of the castle. But for now, he was my silent companion as always, offering me peace while Aelestor offered questions I could not shake even within the quiet of my mind.

“Here,” I said, reaching out to touch the small opening in the rock.

There was barely enough light streaming through the opening to illuminate the small cavern. Deadly stalactites of ice hung from the ceiling, walls as shiny as the rock outside. But the center of the cavern was odd, strange shards gathered within a circle in the middle.

“It is like a nest…” Drystan muttered, stepping closer to look inside.

“ Stars ,” I cursed, peering over the edge.

It was a nest, with hundreds of egg-like ovals nestled inside, a thin layer of ice protecting them from prey. The tiny, wiggling embryos were nothing more than dark smudges beneath.

“I’d hate to be here when they hatched.” Drystan’s voice was louder than before. The last of my hearing repaired as he squatted to inspect them further.

Somewhere in this cavern, a piece of Ren was waiting for me, and though I searched within the ice-covered nest, nothing jumped out. Not the tip of a boot, or fingertips, or an elbow. I sighed, rose to my feet, and slowly walked the perimeter of the cave. My hands slid over the walls. Aelestor stood within the entrance, attention fixed on me, but I ignored him, stopping before a dark slice of rock.

“Here,” I breathed, the jagged chunk of ice opaquer than the rest and bulbous as though someone had patched it.

I unhooked the knife from my belt, flipped it, and hammered at the ice with the hilt. I did not trust this new magic of mine with such a precise task, not with a piece of Ren on the other side. Frustration bubbled through me as I slammed the handle over and over. Tiny shards fell to my feet while making no headway.

“Let me.” Aelestor’s voice was soft as he placed a hand on my shoulder, gently moving me to the side.

With a swing, his broadsword cracked through the ice more efficiently than I could have, the entire plate of glass falling with a crash before him. But he did not reach in—merely stepped away, allowing me to move forward and reach with tentative hands to grasp at the piece of Ren they’d left behind.

“I do trust you,” Aelestor murmured, offering me a small square of fabric he’d tucked into his belt.

I wrapped the leg, grimacing at the crusted blood, the slow-healing break. “You have a strange way of showing it.”

Aelestor huffed. “I ask these questions because I fear you have not asked them of yourself. Because I am afraid you have not stopped to consider each side.”

Cradling the piece of Ren in my arms, I turned to Aelestor. His hair was wild from the wind, his face was raw like mine and Drystan’s, but his gaze was sincere. He wore similar look I’d seen him wear when discussing Josette, his mate, and her recovering memories.

“I think of nothing but those questions. Each night I fall asleep wondering if I have done the right thing—if I am endangering my people instead of saving them. And the only answer I get when I reach deep is to trust my magic.” I clutched the bundle tighter to my chest. “If our roles were reversed, Ren would be here as well.”

Aelestor laughed, shaking his head. “If the roles were reversed, this whole world would be nothing but shadow and ash.”

My lips twitched, and I nodded, offering my elbow while Drystan’s hand covered my shoulder. “Wherever Ren is, I have no doubt he has made his displeasure known.” I pulled the shadows around us before we took the step toward home.

* * *

“Oralia…” Drystan’s voice was unobtrusive behind me as I stared at the two pieces of Ren laid out on Thorne’s work table.

Strange to see these pieces laid in such a way as if they were broken remnants of a statue laid waste and not my mate. When I touched them, there was some lingering residue of his magic, but it was merely the echo of what once was. The promise that perhaps there might be again, but nothing more now.

Thorne stood opposite with his wide hands curled around the stone table that had once held Caston on the edge of death. He was gazing upon the pieces with a strange mix of fear and wonder, no doubt considering the same question: how would we resurrect him?

“Yes.” The word was not a question, more an acknowledgment that Drystan had spoken. My shoulders hung heavy, rounding forward until I was in danger of sliding to the floor. I’d hoped to feel some sort of…triumph as we gathered these pieces of Ren, but there was only the climb of dread through my throat, threatening to pour out my mouth.

“We need to discuss what happened,” he said, choosing his words.

Thorne’s attention flicked up to us, auburn brows tugging together into a line. “What happened, Your Grace?”

The title rankled. It was Ren’s title, not mine, and I had not had enough time within Infernis to adapt. Even now, I had the urge to look around the room to see who Thorne spoke to.

My hands opened and closed before me, the same scalding heat thrumming through my veins. I’d been unable to push it back as I could with my other powers, that merely waited beneath the surface. This power was strange like a limb I had not known I possessed or a stranger that had attached itself to my back. A part of me, but unknown. I explained what happened on the mountain—how the heat had built inside of me like a pyre and how my shadows turned into ropes of flames. But I spoke each word to the pieces of my mate, afraid of what I would see when I looked at Thorne.

I had not known I’d burned Aelestor and Drystan. In the moment my magic had changed their skin had blistered—even Aelestor’s. It was Drystan who filled in those blanks, who explained that when the fire had manifested it burned like its own monster—he’d seen strange shapes within the flames.

“ Stars ,” Thorne cursed.

I swallowed back the nerves as I looked at him.

Slowly, he circled the table, stopping before me to press a hand to his heart, his head bowing. “We are blessed by the universe to have such power on our side. It is a gift , Oralia. A gift.”

Biting the inside of my cheek, I nodded. “It feels untamed like a wild creature within me.”

“Your shadows were the same, were they not? Before you and Ren trained, before Morana assisted, I heard you say many times that they felt as if they had a mind of their own and you feared them.”

With a frown, I looked back at the table. Of course, the entire kingdom had heard the way Ren and I argued within the grounds, stomping around the kingdom on each other’s heels, desperate for the last word.

“Are there any here within Infernis who have such a power?” Drystan asked when I did not respond, lost within the memory of Ren.

Thorne pursed his lips, the corners of his eyes tightening.

“What is it?” I pressed when he did not respond. “Are there none here?”

With a shake of his head, Thorne ran a hand down his beard. “There is but he is…strange. Zayne holds a seat within Ren’s inner circle and has for millennia as a child of a timeless god, the same as I. But he is reclusive like Morana, preferring to spend his time within the maze rather than the castle.”

The maze. It was a strange creation of nature between Rathyra and Pyralis I’d looked at often, though never explored. Odd that a god would prefer to spend his time within, but I gave a small noise of acknowledgment.

In the morning, I would find Zayne and ask him about his power to see if he could offer me any sort of insight into my own. But for now, my footsteps were heavy as I climbed the stairs, unable to find the energy even to gather the shadows to bring me to our chambers. And I was sure I was asleep before my head even hit Ren’s pillow, a vision of his face already swimming through my mind.