Chapter 73 Chapter Seventy-Three
Night had swallowed the desert, but the heat hadn’t loosened its grip.
It clung to Julian’s skin like a second hide—heavy, suffocating. Every breath scraped his throat raw, lungs burning as if they’d forgotten how to draw air properly. His tongue felt swollen, useless. Dry enough that swallowing hurt.
His legs moved on instinct alone.
One foot. Then the other.
Boots dragged through sand that no longer shifted—it crunched beneath them now, hard and unyielding. Muscles screamed with every step, calves locking, thighs trembling. His shoulders ached from the weight of his pack, straps biting into skin already rubbed raw.
They were running on nothing.
The last of the water had been gone for hours.
Jace stumbled beside him, posture slumped, breaths shallow and uneven. His face was pale beneath the grime, lips cracked and bleeding, eyes glassy with exhaustion.
Julian didn’t remember when they’d stopped talking.
Talking cost too much.
The desert stretched endlessly ahead—dark, merciless, stars burning cold above them like witnesses who didn’t care whether they lived or died.
Then—
“Julian.”
Jace’s voice was hoarse. Barely there.
Julian forced his head up, vision swimming. The horizon blurred, doubled, then steadied again as he blinked hard.
“What?” he rasped.
Jace lifted a shaking hand, pointing.
“Please,” he said, a broken edge of disbelief threading his words. “Please tell me you see what I’m seeing.”
Julian followed the gesture.
At first, he thought it was another trick of dehydration. A hallucination born from desperation. His heart stuttered painfully in his chest as he stared.
Dark shapes broke the monotony ahead.
Not sand.
Trees.
Real ones.
Low at first—scraggly silhouettes—but unmistakable. A shift in the land. A whisper of green where there had only been death.
And then—between the shadows—
Moonlight glinted.
Water.
Still. Reflective. Small—but undeniably real.
Julian sucked in a sharp breath that tore at his chest.
“No way,” he whispered.
He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, blinking hard, then looked again.
It was still there.
His heart slammed against his ribs, sudden and violent.
“I see it,” he said, voice cracking. “I—yeah. I see it.”
Jace let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
They didn’t say another word.
Both of them dropped their packs where they stood and broke into a run.
Pain vanished beneath adrenaline.
They reached the water and collapsed to their knees at the edge, hands plunging in, not caring about dirt or sand or anything else.
Julian scooped water to his mouth again and again, drinking like a madman, choking as it spilled down his chin. He dunked his face beneath the surface, gasping as the cool shock hit, then splashed water over his head, his neck, his chest.
Jace did the same beside him, laughing breathlessly between gulps, hands shaking as he dragged water over his face like he was afraid it might disappear if he stopped.
Julian lifted his head.
The haze that had dulled his thoughts for days was gone—burned away by water, pain, and proximity to something else. His vision sharpened. His heartbeat steadied. Instinct surged to the surface like it had been waiting for permission.
He pushed himself to his feet and turned back toward where their packs lay abandoned in the dirt several yards behind them.
Jace groaned faintly but didn’t stop him.
Julian crossed the sand with purpose now, boots crunching over dried earth. He dropped to one knee beside his pack and yanked it open, fingers going straight for the inner pocket. The map came free—creased, worn, edges soft from being folded and unfolded too many times.
He spread it across his thigh.
His eyes traced the inked lines. The landmarks. The warnings etched in a hand long dead.
Then he looked up.
At the trees.
They rose from the edge of the desert like a wall—dense, twisted, dark even under moonlight. Their branches tangled together overhead, blotting out the stars. No wind moved through them. No insects sang. The forest stood in unnatural silence, like it was holding its breath.
Watching.
Julian swallowed.
Slowly, he folded the map and stood, walking back toward Jace.
“This is it,” he said, his voice low but certain.
Jace squinted at the treeline, then back at Julian.
“This is thee forest?”
Julian nodded once.
He took a step toward the shadows, eyes never leaving the trees.
“Yeah,” he replied. “This is the last stretch before the Gate.”
Jace let out a breath that broke into a laugh—ragged, disbelieving.
“We made it,” he said quietly. Then louder, like saying it twice might make it real.
“We fucking made it.”
He staggered a step, dragging a hand down his face, eyes bright with something dangerously close to hope.
“Holy shit, Julian. Do you realize—?”
“Don’t,” Julian said.
The word cut clean.
Jace froze, the grin dying on his lips.
Julian’s eyes never left the forest. The way it swallowed light. The way it felt like it was staring back.
“Don’t celebrate yet.”
Jace followed his gaze, the silence of the trees pressing in, excitement bleeding from his expression.
Julian finally turned, his face carved from something grim and unmovable.
“Everything before this,” he said, “was just the toll to reach the door.”
He lifted his hand and pointed toward the treeline.
“This is the threshold.”
A brief moment of silence passed.
“This is where shit gets real.”
“The sentinels,” Jace said—and the word landed heavy between them.
Jace dropped heavily onto a rock, dragging a hand through his hair. Whatever adrenaline had carried him to the water was gone now—burned off, leaving only weariness behind.
“So,” he said hesitantly, staring at the treeline like it might lunge at him if he blinked. “What’s the plan?”
Julian didn’t answer right away.
The night pressed close around them, heavy and watchful. Even the stars seemed dimmer here, as if the land itself knew what waited beyond those trees.
“We don’t rush it,” Julian said finally. “Not tonight.”
Jace let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Good. Because if you’d said run headfirst into whatever the hell that is, I was gonna have to knock you out.”
Julian huffed faintly but didn’t look back. “We’re exhausted. Dehydrated. We can barely stand without swaying.”
“Yeah, I’m depleted,” Jace muttered. “My head feels like I’ve been hit with a sack of bricks.”
“We’ll both need every ounce of strength we have,” Julian said quietly. “We need to shift, eat, rest.”
Jace followed his gaze again, unease crawling up his spine. “And what if that’s not enough?”
Julian’s mouth tightened.
“I can’t guarantee that it will be,” he admitted. “I don’t know what these sentinels look like. How they move. Or how they kill. All I know is that nobody’s ever made it past them.” He paused. “And if anyone did… they didn’t come back to tell the tale.”
The silence that followed felt deliberate.
Jace shifted, suddenly unable to sit still. “Then we rest,” he concluded. “We go in at first light.”
Julian nodded. “We rest.”
His eyes were once again pulled back to the forest.
To the place where the desert ended—and something else began.
“And tomorrow,” he added, voice low, “we find out exactly what stands between us and the Gate.”
—-
Kaelani found herself in the Seelie Court again.
The air was frozen in a perpetual breath—cold, colorless, wrong. Light filtered through towering crystalline arches, but it held no warmth.
Life seemed to wither here without ever being allowed to die.
Kaelani’s footsteps echoed too loudly as she moved forward, the sound sharp in the suffocating quiet. Each step sent a faint ache through her chest, like her body recognized this place as something wounded.
She was back at the Seelie Palace.
The corridor before her stretched long and narrow, its walls carved with reliefs of ancient victories and blessings that felt like cruel mockeries now. The farther she walked, the colder it became, until the chill seeped through her boots, her bones, her very blood.
Seelie guards lined the corridor.
Dozens of them.
They were frozen mid-motion—caught in a single heartbeat of chaos. Some leaned forward as if running. Others had weapons half-drawn, expressions twisted in alarm or fury. Cloaks flared behind them, hair lifted as though by a wind that would never finish passing through.
They had been responding to something.
A call. A threat.
Kaelani slowed as she passed them, unease curling tight in her stomach.
Their eyes were open.
Not glazed. Not lifeless.
Watching.
She swallowed hard, the sound too loud in her ears.
As she moved down the corridor, she could swear their gazes followed her—just slightly. Not enough to be movement. Not enough to be alive.
But enough to be aware. Enough to make her skin prickle.
Her breath caught as understanding slid into place, cold and immediate. She didn’t need to see the throne room to know who waited beyond those doors.
No.
The word screamed through her mind.
This was wrong.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t a dream meant to be walked. This was forbidden ground—sealed, protected, off-limits.
Panic fluttered in her chest as she tried to pull herself back. Tried to seize control of the dream the way she always did.
Nothing happened.
The world didn’t bend.
Didn’t blur.
Didn’t release her.
It was as if the dream itself had frozen—locked in place, rigid and unyielding, just like the Court around her.
Slowly, deliberately, she turned away from the towering doors at the end of the corridor.
One step.
Then another.
Her steps ricocheted through the hollow palace. Her shoulders tightened, every instinct screaming at her to run—but she forced herself to keep moving, step after careful step, putting distance between herself and the throne room.
She was almost convincing herself it would work.
Until—
The doors flew open.
The sound cracked through the palace like thunder shattering glass.
Kaelani froze.
The cold rushed in behind her, sharp and absolute.
She turned slowly.
The throne room yawned open—vast, dark, and impossibly still. Shadows pooled along the floor like spilled ink, and the air beyond the threshold felt heavier, older… watching.
And then she heard it.
A voice—soft, ancient, carrying power that didn’t need to raise itself to command the world.
“Child of two realms.”
Before she could react, something seized her—not hands, not magic she recognized, but raw force. Her boots scraped violently against the floor as she was yanked forward, lifted clear off her feet.
“No—!”
She shot down the corridor in a blur, the guards streaking past her vision, the doors of the throne room swallowing her whole.
She slammed to a halt midair.
Suspended.
Right before the throne.
Lyressa sat frozen upon it—beautiful and untouched by decay or mercy. She was held in perfect, unnatural stillness—neither alive nor dead, neither asleep nor awake. Her expression was caught between fury and agony, lips parted as if a scream had been stolen straight from her lungs.
The voice echoed again—deeper now. Closer.
“See.”
Kaelani’s pulse thundered in her ears.
“See?” she repeated, struggling against the invisible hold. “See what?”
Suddenly, Lyressa’s hand tore free.
It lunged forward and clamped around Kaelani’s forearm.
Kaelani nearly screamed as Lyressa’s face snapped forward—impossibly close. Blood streamed from Lyressa’s eyes in thick, crimson trails, carving dark paths down her cheeks.
She spoke again.
And this time, the word wasn’t echoed by the room.
It was screamed directly into Kaelani’s soul.
“SEE!”
Kaelani jolted awake with a violent gasp.
Her body snapped upright in her bed, lungs burning, heart racing like it might tear itself free. The room was dark. Silent. Safe.
But her arm ached.
And the echo of that word still rang in her bones.