Page 8

W hen I woke next, Tess was sitting in a worn oak rocking chair at my bedside, a book in her hands. The thought of Tess voluntarily reading something that wasn’t a fashion magazine stirred me from my haze and I sat up, wincing at how sore my muscles were.

“Sleeping beauty finally wakes,” Tess said with a smile that only turned up the corner of her mouth.

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked, my voice rough as sandpaper, sounding more akin to a croak from disuse.

Tess mused for a moment before answering. “Three days. No… four. Four days. On and off.”

Her gaze lifted from the book to hold mine.

Silence fell between us as I realized I had let almost an entire week slip by.

The only bathing I had done was the bath Tess had forced me to take, and my auburn curls were matted into a braid that hung messily over my shoulder.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes before stretching, the true passing of time tangible within each muscle that protested.

“What are you reading?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. .

Her gaze met mine once more over the book.

“You know, there isn’t that much to do to pass the time here on the outskirts of Prins. Nothing but the sea, really. It’s peaceful. I understand why Amiyah loves it… but I have been bored out of my mind.”

The ghost of a smile crossed my lips as I imagined Tess helping around the small cabin. Fishing with Puck in the Myrene Sea. Taking long walks with Zion as he hunted for our next meal. All the while… I slept.

“I know you needed this time to yourself,” she began, straightening in the rocking chair and placing a receipt in the spine of the book, resting it on the driftwood nightstand, “but it’s time to wake the hell up.”

“I am awake,” I protested, running a hand through my mess of hair. No amount of detangler was going to help me fix this mess.

“No, you aren’t,” she insisted, her expression turning stern.

“Tess—” I wasn’t sure how to explain. How to put into words the loss I was experiencing. The cavity that had opened in my chest.

She shook her head, defiance in her eyes. “You are a survivor, Diana. You have had your time to grieve, but now it is time to wake up . This isn’t you. Seeing you like this…” tears filled her amber eyes as she held my gaze, her head giving a soft shake.

“I’m sorry. ”

The words were empty. Hollow. What else could I say?

“I know you didn’t mean to scare us. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but you are a fighter .

To see you slip into a coma… it has had us all on edge.

This didn’t even happen when we spent three months in the Stormvault being interrogated and tortured.

Have you given up? Do you want to go home? ”

The word ‘home’ made me flinch. I paused before answering, the reality of the situation settling in my gut as if it were a weight. I gave my head a gentle shake.

“This is my home now.”

Tess’s lips formed my favorite smirk as her eyes sparked with mischief. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Tess needed me.

Istmere needed me.

I had lost Nik to this war but that didn’t mean I was ready to give up yet.

I couldn’t go back to the mortal realm—my tail between my legs—and leave Istmere to Donika.

Mother only knows what she has been up to since our last run in.

She would never stop torturing and persecuting the innocent people of Istmere.

As long as she was alive, she was never going to stop.

I was going to stop her.

It was time this war came to an end, and Donika would meet hers at the end of my blade. A sharp pang reverberated in my chest that Nik’s gift to me, Stormslayer, would be the blade to end this all—that he wouldn’t be here to see it.

I sensed my storm magic surge within me unbidden, and I knew it was time.

I had grieved long enough, and my magic propelled me out of the sheets and towards my feet as if it had a will all its own.

It was storm magic after all. In a way, it did.

No other magic in the realm had such sentient tendencies.

“First things first… you need a shower.” Tess exaggeratedly plugged her nose as she slung her arm over my shoulder. “I’ll set out some fresh clothes for you. Meet us outside when you are ready?”

I nodded, thankful that I would have a few more moments to gather myself before I had to face everyone.

I barely recognized the bathroom. The last time I had been in here I had been in a haze.

I stripped down and entered the shower, letting the hot water run down my skin until it was flushed from the heat.

I turned the water even hotter, letting the sensation invigorate me.

Once I had surely burned off my first layer of skin I toweled off, dragging the brush through my hair until it fell in wet, heavy strands down my back.

I found the white T-shirt and black shorts Tess had left out for me. I shrugged into them, pleasantly surprised that the clothes were baggy enough that I could still scent the salty ocean wind against my skin.

I opened the door to find that everyone had congregated a way down the beach. There was a long teak table set out on the sand, wooden backed chairs arranged around it. The sun beat pleasantly against my skin as it warmed me even further, and I finally felt as if I was coming back to life.

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get through this war without facing Nik as Noctani, but I was praying to the Mother that I could.

If I could end Donika and thus end her Noctani as well…

all the better. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t falter beneath hi s cold, dead eyes.

I didn’t think I was strong enough to face him when he was in this form.

Zion sat at the head of the table, his leg propped up on his knee as his head fell back, soaking in the sunshine.

Annelise sat to his right, her gaze never leaving mine as she watched me approach.

Tess and Puck were on his left, and Puck followed Annelise’s gaze to where I stood, a smile crossing his lips.

“It’s good to see you up and about, Diana.” He pulled the chair out next to him and offered for me to sit.

Across the table sat Saanvi and Kenna, Amiyah at the other head of the table. I sat, my bare feet burying themselves in the warm sand as I rest my hands across the tabletop. The rays of sun beating down on me had already begun to dry my hair—frizzy wisps curling against my cheeks.

“What are you all discussing?” I asked, my gaze meeting each of those seated at the table. When my gaze fell on Amiyah, it lingered only a moment before falling to my hands folded before me.

I couldn’t help but drown in guilt when I met her honeyed gaze. Her only son was dead, and if it weren’t for me and this war, he would still be here. With her.

“We were discussing what to do next, but only as your advisors,” Zion spoke, his gaze boring into mine.

A pang resonated in my chest as I realized the one advisor I truly needed was also Noctani, trapped in Donika’s clutches.

Isaac.

I pressed my eyes closed, my hand moving to my chest as if it could quelch the physical pain I was experiencing there. But it was no use. The sun stung the back of my eyelids and all I could see was red as the light bled through.

“And what, exactly, do you advise?” I asked, my jaw tight as I opened my eyes once more to meet his gaze.

In Isaac’s absence, Zion stepped up to take on the lead advisor role in the resistance, though our forces were scattered across Prins at this point. I was thankful that it was only a small group of us that had been ambushed in Siraleth, and the majority of the resistance was still safe in the city.

“Our initial plans will need to be… revised… but the fact still stands that we need to march against Donika, not wait for her to come to us,” he responded.

He leaned towards me, inclining his head.

“We are down two of our strongest Shades, but we still have hundreds willing to march. Maybe even thousands.”

“Aren’t you forgetting one key detail?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun as my gaze squinted beneath the rays.

“And what might that be?” he asked, raising a brow.

He would listen to whatever it was I had to say, and I was thankful to have his support in a time like this. He couldn’t replace Isaac, but someone needed to step up to take the charge alongside me. I couldn’t do this alone, and I was thankful that I didn’t need to.

“I’m unbound,” I bit out.

Without the binding, I had no control of my storm magic, and thus, no hope of controlling my magic against Donika.

A storm could easily turn on me and kill me.

Or steal my magic for itself if it chose to do so.

Without the binding I was useless, and it wasn’t as if I could simply bind to another. A magical binding was a one time thing.

Puck shot to his feet as realization crossed his features. He leaned over the table, his gaze hardened on Annelise. “But she isn’t dead…”

“So?” I asked, my gaze shifting to meet his. “I can’t do any magic without the binding. How do you expect me to stand against Donika?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he answered, shaking his head as his gaze returned to Annelise’s. “You said during the binding ceremony that if he died, so would she. She doesn’t appear dead to me.”

Annelise and I had already discussed this on the shore a few days ago. My gaze fell, eyes traveling back and forth over my hands as I reasoned out what Puck was saying.

“The binding isn’t severed, it isn’t gone. It is broken. Something that is broken can be fixed.” Puck spoke the same words I had spoken to Annelise on this very beach. She had said she would try to help me any way she could…

My thoughts were wild with possibilities as Zion stood to join Puck.

“Now, we don’t know exactly what that means,” he said, his hand reaching out as if to calm us all down. He didn’t want us getting too excited.

“We do know, Zion.” I stood to join them, Kenna and Saanvi nodding out of the corner of my eye. “If he were dead , I would be too. But I stand before you. If he isn’t dead, he can be saved .”

“Diana, we don’t know that—” Zion started, but Amiyah cut him off.

“She is right, brother.” I almost flinched that Amiyah still saw Zion as her brother, after everything Annelise had put him through. “You know this, Anna. You have seen it.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my blood pumping fast enough through my veins that I could hear my own heartbeat drumming in my ears.

“Let’s all sit down,” Zion replied, motioning for us to return to our seats. “We need to calm down.”

“Annelise…” Amiyah’s voice was a plea as we all sat. Annelise avoided her sister’s gaze.

“We don’t know for certain, Amiyah,” Annelise replied, her voice curt. Her gaze remained fixed on the table before her.

“Simply because the spell has been lost to time, doesn’t mean it never existed, Anna. Enough with your secrets.” Amiyah’s voice was cutting, and I sat back in surprise.

This was at odds with the soft, quiet woman that had greeted me when I had first arrived here. She was filled with Kotova fire, same as me. Same as all of us, apparently.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my gaze on Annelise. “What secrets do you keep from us now, Mother ?” My words dripped acid as she flinched back from me.

“There is a spell…” she began, her eyes tentatively meeting my gaze. She shrank back at what she found there. I raised a brow at her, daring her to continue. “A spell that once belonged to the Kotova grimoire.”

“And what spell might that be?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. My eyes narrowed on her, unsurprised that more of her secrets were coming to light .

“An… antidote of sorts,” she finished, not bothering to elaborate.

“An antidote for what, exactly? Being Noctani? Because there is no mention of that anywhere in the Kotova grimoire. I have combed it front to back numerous times, and there is no mention of the monsters Donika has created.”

“No… not for Noctani.” It was Amiyah who spoke, her disappointed gaze resting on her sister. “For siphoning.”

“An antidote—for siphoning? I don’t understand.” My brow furrowed as I turned to meet Amiyah’s gaze.

“What can be done can also be undone. All magic must find a balance. The grimoire… it may have been in my sister’s possession these last years, but the book of shadows is no stranger to me.

I have seen and studied the spells hidden within its leather binding.

Those that might have resided in it, but reside there no longer… ”

“You ripped another spell out of the grimoire?” I accused, my voice seething as I stood.

My gaze seared into her. “Not just the key? You ripped more spells from that sacred book?” My nails dug into the table hard enough that they turned white.

My magic surged forwards and pressed against my skin from the inside, begging to be released.

I closed my eyes, calming myself. I couldn’t allow my unbound magic to release itself.

I took a steadying breath. “How could you?”

“I was trying to help a friend,” Annelise replied, her gaze flitting to Zion for support. Zion’s fist curled against the table, and he did not return her gaze .

“Out with it. That’s the same excuse you used last time, when you had knowledge of a spell we desperately needed. I won’t ask again. Where is the spell to reverse siphoning?” Venom dripped from my words as I sensed the fire within me surge back to life.

There might still be hope to save Nik, if only my mother didn’t hide this, too.

“I’m not sure where it is now, but I know who would,” she replied, swallowing hard. “Alastir.”

“Alastir, the seer?” Amiyah asked, her brow wrinkling.

“Yes, the very one.” Annelise still refused to meet her sister’s gaze.

“Whatever is done can be undone. If magic has been siphoned, even if it wasn’t the same spell from our grimoire, it can be returned to the source.” Amiyah nodded as she spoke, as if trying to convince herself, too.

Maybe we could save Isaac too.

Save all the innocents Donika turned into Noctani.

“And what will happen when the magic is returned to the source?” I asked, my nails still digging into the table.

Amiyah shook her head. “There’s no way to be certain all will go back to normal.”

“But there is a chance,” I said, the words coming out as a statement more than a question.

“Yes, there is a chance,” she replied.

Saanvi spoke up for the first time from across the table, hope sparking her autumn gaze as her lips curled into a smirk. “Looks like we’re going back to Prins.”