Page 44

Kiara

The lost will not always be this way

just as the broken can mend;

But those wh o have been neither

lost nor broken cannot understand

what it is to heal

Asidian proverb

T he night stretched endlessly. I was enveloped in stars, wrapped in darkness, below, above, inside .

I was the night covering the realm and the quiet peace of cool nothingness. I stepped forward, my body a shadow, a wisp of black. The stars below my boots glimmered, winking, causing pleasant tingles of awareness to creep down my spine.

I’d entirely forgotten everything that had occurred until this moment—down to who I was. I felt weightless and free and utterly intoxicated by the beauty I witnessed.

Below, Asidia spread out like the veins of a leaf , the large cities, the foreboding capital of Sciona, the many villages littering the countryside. It all shined for me, the light emanating from the towns battling against the radiance of the stars and a shy moon.

I glided, floated, and soared over the scene, unable to do anything but worship the darkness , how it embraced us all, blanketing our skin and kissing our sight.

Peaceful. So peaceful.

I might’ve flown for hours or days or years, time didn’t matter, but eventually, the sky rippled, gusts of wind whooshing forward to tickle my cheeks.

Squinting, I watched as silhouettes exited the gaping chasm in the clouds, the universe seeming to rip open. Claws and teeth glimmered. Red eyes sparkled. Gravelly roars drowned the soothing winds.

Before my eyes, nightmares stole the spotlight, cascading down upon the sleeping realm like a plague. Worry tensed my phantom shoulders. My body was growing too heavy, unable to float.

I sank. Lower and lower I plummeted, dropping like the nightmares that were blocking the heavens. Through it all, fear remained absent, like I recognized the haunting forms fluttering to earth and found no imminent danger. At least, not to myself.

Nightmares were the price of the dark, and nothing beautiful ever came without consequences.

Yet I knew I’d missed something vital, that I was forgetting pieces of myself. A memory teetered on the edge of my subconscious, taunting me. A face, all angles and crowned in raven locks, hovered in front of me, though the details remained obscured.

Down I fell, the earth ready to swallow me up, the tops of the black trees rising to meet me. Fear trickled into the place it had once been missing, gradually filling the crevices. The closer I got to the world of men, the more that fear grew like a ravenous weed…or perhaps it wasn’t simply fear, but a mixture of anticipation and adrenaline.

I collided harshly with the soil, though I experienced neither pain nor much of anything else. And that face…it loomed above me now, in a meadow of Midnight Blooms and charred trees.

All my missing memories rushed back in a crushing wave.

Jude.

He stood before me, seemingly solid, not some horrid illusion sent to destroy me.

Jude drew closer, his brown eye glazed in gold, his right one a storm of ivory and blues, two jagged lines of red slashing across. I breathed him in, my body shaking with every step he took.

“Kiara.” He rasped the name like a plea, his deep timbre sending goose bumps down my arms. He was feet away, gliding toward me on a breeze. “You went too deep. You’re lost inside yourself.” Frustration caused the crack in his voice, his eyes lined in wetness.

“Are you real?” I had to ask, had to make certain. I lifted a trembling hand, too afraid to graze his skin.

“You can feel me now, can’t you, Kiara? You know I’m real. That I’d follow you into the dark and catch you if you fell.” Jude reached for his chest, touching his scar. Light radiated from underneath his palm.

I slipped my own hand to my chest, right above my heart, its beat matching Jude’s pulsating glow.

He was inches away in my next breath, his hands winding around my waist, the solidness of his touch grounding me in this realm of shadows and nightmares.

“I’m here,” he murmured, almost to himself. “And I refuse to let you fall alone.”

I was awash with relief and fear, the combination causing my knees to buckle. Jude tightened his grip, holding me up.

“How—how did I get here?”

“Shhh.” Jude cupped my cheek, his thumb wiping at the wetness dampening my cheeks. “You got lost. Just as we’ve all been before.”

And he’d found me. The question was where ?

I tilted my chin and peered around the obscure woods we stood in. I didn’t recognize a thing, and panic caused my chest to expand unevenly. I’d been…I’d been in a void of fog, brilliant white light highlighting three mirrors. Cirian had appeared, his mask had fallen, and then I’d stared at my reflection in a mirror surrounded by silver vines and thorns.

“But where are we?” I finally asked, gathering the strength to form the words. Each one burned my throat. We weren’t on earth, not in the true sense, and I had the suspicion Jude following me to this place was nothing short of miraculous.

“You shouldn’t have looked into that final mirror, Kiara. It’s too powerful for any other being besides a god.” Jude lowered his head, his brow touching mine. “You were enchanted by it, and fell into yourself , into your darkness.”

My darkness was Asidia’s darkness, its loss of faith.

I peered around Jude, looking over the land that I’d known my whole life. A place of both misery and desperate hope. But it was home, and I couldn’t squash the desire to protect it. To protect myself. However dark I may be.

Jude grasped my chin, tilting my eyes back to his. “We don’t have much time. I stunned Isiah with my magic to follow you through the mirror, but he could be ready to cut our throats as we speak.”

“Wait…” I pushed at his chest, staring up at him in alarm. “Did you say Isiah was there?” That wasn’t possible. I watched him die.

But then I went still.

I’d seen his body shudder with an inhale before we left him in the Mist. I’d assumed exhaustion had been the cause of my misplaced hope, but…

Jude squeezed his eyes, a tormented noise rumbling in his chest. “Yes, I saw him, but I don’t know what’s real at this point. If he’s the Moon God or if it’s another twisted illusion. I didn’t deem it possible, but…”

I made a point of scanning our surroundings. “But nothing is impossible anymore, right?”

We were stranded in an in-between world where nothing felt solid and nothing certainly felt real . Our physical bodies were somewhere else, likely still beneath the temple and under the watchful eye of his duplicitous brother.

“We need to leave,” I said quickly, my magic flaring in my chest. I wasn’t sure how time worked in this place, if it slowed or froze entirely, but Isiah wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if we were laid out before him, defenseless in his temple.

Jude nodded, opening his mouth as if to reply. But I perched on my tiptoes and silenced him with a tender kiss. In that press of our lips, I experienced a lifetime of dreams that would never pass.

Us waking up every morning, limbs tangled, and the sun shining through the curtains. Jude and I on horseback, traveling the continent—farther, even—discovering new lands and peoples and adventure. Us settling down each night, sitting comfortably before a fire in one another’s silences, feasting upon the precious moments in between that most people overlook. Seeing and feeling and adoring the truths of each other with simple touches and embraces. Smiles and laughter.

Knowing we both had found home.

I realized that my magic was growing too strong, too potent to be kept inside my flesh.

With Jude in my arms and the taste of him on my tongue, my love for him flowed through me, rivaling the power of the Moon God and the dark beast I possessed. No. It was greater .

We were soul to soul .

There was a way out of this.

For one of us.

My power could be used to Travel—proven when I’d transformed into shadows and ventured into Jude’s cell, into the very skies. Maybe there was just enough dark magic in me to give to Jude. To get him out of the temple and away from Isiah.

If I could gift him both of my powers—the dark and the missing light from Raina—he could escape. Be strong enough to save the realm and everyone we’d ever cared about. I could do this, relinquish myself. All of me.

A warrior was born to die, after all.

I drew back slightly, my lips a centimeter from his. “I love you, Jude Maddox. With everything I am and all that I ever could’ve hoped to be.”

It was different from when I said it before.

This time, there was no hesitation. No physical barriers. No fear.

The sky erupted, an odd sort of tingling causing my body to grow heavy, too heavy. But Jude…he wavered in front of me, lighter than air, as weightless as the shadows I commanded.

The sun priestesses and their prophecy were right—the sun would return to the skies when the darkness fell for the light. And Jude had fallen into the darkness to save me. To love me. True love was nothing if not sacrifice, and I had just paid the ultimate cost.

Jude didn’t have the time to protest, but the fear in his eyes relayed he understood exactly what I’d done.

The prophecy had been fulfilled. Except there’d be no happy ending for me.

Somewhere far away, I heard the shattering of a mirror, the flood of divinity breaking the ancient pools of enchanted silver. Prayers escaped, their frantic pleas shooting out across the world. Finally free.

Yet in the chaos, I garnered the energy to whisper those three little words one final time as Jude vanished entirely, slipping away into the dim, and taking the blazing sliver of the divine power I held…along with all of my darkness.