Chapter 21 21
ARIA'S POV
I locked the door behind me and then I collapsed, gratefully, unrestrainedly.
The chamber was one of Kael's guest rooms in Elaris, all beautiful and ethereal with walls that spilled in colors that shone like mother of pearl. If it had not been so, I should have thought it very captivating. Right then, all I could see was yet another cage in a world where I’d never asked to be imprisoned.
I managed to go three steps before my legs went out from under me. I sat down on the floor, my back against the door, and allowed myself to cry. Not quiet, dignified crying. That was ugly, gasping sobs that were ripped from my chest like something was being torn out.
The child had vanished, merged with cryptic advice. Kael was nearly lost to shadow corruption. One of us had to die by my hand, the last test. The Fifth King arrived in two days. The realms were tearing apart.
And everybody was looking to me to make it better for all of them.
My hands rose to claw at my face, and I felt the mark on my wrist throbbing with five different powers. The four sigils that bound the kings to me, and a fifth — the crown itself, wrapped in chains. All of them scorched now, pulling me five different directions until I felt myself being pulled apart.
“Stevie Rae,” I sighed into the empty room. "I'm so scared. I don’t know myself anymore.”
It felt like my old life had been a dream. The bookstore, the cramped apartment, quiet evenings in front of the television. Ordinary worries such as paying rent and buying groceries. I’d bitched about that life here and there, made it feel too small.
I would do anything if I could have it back.
I got down on my hands and knees to the mirror, pulling myself up to look at my own reflection. The woman looking back at her was a stranger. Dark hair tangled and wild. Hazel eyes that glimmered slightly with some kind of force I would never know. The brand pulsating with the power of god. Bruises from training and fighting.
Did I Aria Nicholas, twenty two year old human from New York. Or had I been the Celeste, primordial goddess who brought four realms into existence and destroyed it all with her will?
I didn't know anymore. And sometimes I remembered events that had never happened to me, felt emotions of which someone else was the owner. I was dying, slowly but surely.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered to my own reflection. “Everyone thinks I’m this powerful goddess who can save the world, but I’m not. I'm just a girl and I'm so messed up.”
“All that talking to yourself is normally a sign of one of two things; genius or madness,” a voice rang out from behind me. “With you, I’m guessing it’s a little of both.”
I glanced up to see Lucien loom in the door, shadows hanging from hi. His red gaze focused on me, nonjudgmentally.
"Get out," I said, my voice ragged. "I don't need an audience."
"Too bad. I'm staying." He entered the room and plopped down next to me on the floor. Not touching, just present. “My shadow sense brought me here to you. You’re shining distress as if it were a beacon.”
I was silent for far too long, then spoke up without thinking: “What if I’m not strong enough? What if everyone’s belief in me is misplaced? What if I am going to fail and everyone gets killed?”
I expected sarcasm. But Lucien remained quite still, and then, with unwonted solemnity, he said.
"You want to know a secret? Clouds: Those are exact questions I’ve asked myself each day for a thousand years. What if I’m not strong enough to remedy what I’ve done? What if I'm fundamentally broken?"
I looked at him, surprised.
“It’s crushing with the weight of guilt and responsibility,” he added. “I’ve carried it for thousands of years, and so many times I wanted to quit. But that doesn’t mean it’s about never breaking, Aria. It’s not about the stage, but rather, making a choice to get back up when it is easier to stay down.”
He shifted slightly. "You're asking what I remember from our past lifetime? It was this fight, in the beginning. An army of void beings rose against it, attempting to unmake what Celeste had done. You were scared, I could see that. But you did it all the same, on that battlefield, because people needed you to. Not that you were not afraid, but because despite your fear, you chose to be brave.”
“I don’t recall that,” I whispered.
"I know. But I do. And the woman from that memory is this same woman now sitting here.” He looked at me. “You always were strong, little soul thief. You just forget sometimes."
The nickname made me pause. "Why do you call me that?"
"Because that's what you did. My soul was taken the first time I saw you, stolen without an effort. And you have been carrying it around ever since. His smile was crooked, vulnerable. In truth, you’ve been toting all our souls. Keeping us from destroying ourselves."
This time tears rose in my eyes, but they were not the same kind of tears. Drowning, not so much as release.
"I'm so tired, Lucien. I’ve had it with being strong, I’ve had it with making impossible choices.”
"I know," he said softly. “And you have permission to be tired. You can break down and cry. That doesn't make you weak. That makes you human."
He rose and held out his hand. "Come with me. I would like to show you something.”
I let him pull me to my feet. He shut his eyes, and softly they flowed out of him, shadows coalescing in sensitive strings.
The room shifted, morphed. The Fae construction disappeared, and became something heartbreakingly familiar. My apartment. My real New York apartment, in spot-on detail replicated.
I gasped, spinning around. The tired old couch with the blanket pulled over one arm. The small kitchen, the chipped coffee mug. The bookshelf overflowing with paperbacks. My refrigerator picture of me and Stevie Rae.
"How?" I whispered.
"Pocket dimension," Lucien explained. "I took it from your mind, that memory and I brought it to life. It will be only an hour, but for those 60 minutes you can be the person you were before all this.”
I stared at him, overwhelmed. "Why would you do this?"
"Because you need it. Because you deserve one hour where you don’t have to be the Oracle Queen or Celeste reborn. You can just be Aria Nicholas, normal human girl.
He sat on the sofa and materialized a TV. "Now, I think it's pizza and mindless entertainment?"
I laughed, a watery but real sound. “You’re actually going to watch trashy reality TV with me?”
I have, in fact, lived for over a millenium. I’ve witnessed empires come and go. “But I’ve never gotten people competing to win someone they don’t even know.”
“That’s the thing,” I said, sitting down next to him. “It’s absurd and dramatic and inconsequential. It's perfect."
He called for phantom pizza, with the greasy box. For the next two hours we sat like normal people, eating and laughing at the as something absurd unfolded on our screen. Lucien also threw in some funny color, doubting everything.
"Why is she crying over him? They’ve spent three days together!”
"That's reality TV. Logic doesn't apply."
"I have never been more confused in all my years, and I've been to Fae court orgies.”
I almost choked on my pizza I was howling with so much laughter. And for sixty glorious, dazzling minutes, I didn’t. To hell with prophecies and trials, the Fifth King. I was just Aria, hanging out on her couch with someone who had made her laugh.
As the hour came to a close, the apartment started to disappear, reverting back into Kael's guest chamber. I ached, but I also felt steadier.
"Thank you," I said quietly. “That was … I needed that more than I realized.”
"I know," he said simply.
I stared at him, properly looked at him, through the demon king to the man beneath. The one who bore his guilt but was kind nonetheless.
I kissed him. Not desperate and passionate, but gentle. Grateful and gentle and affectionate.
He paused, surprised, then kissed me back with a tenderness that belied his demon heart. He cupped my face in his hand and brushed a tear away with his thumb.
When we drew back I found something in his eyes I’d never observed there before. Peace. Only for a moment had the darkness in him been still.
“Aria,” he began, but there was a knock on the door.
"Aria! Lucien! We have a situation!" Ronan's voice, urgent.
The moment shattered. Lucien opened the door.
Half shifted, the hair running over his arms was a ripple of fur as Ronan stood there. “There have been three assassination attempts in the last hour. Three. On three distinct kings, all at once.”
"What?" I moved to the doorway. "Who was targeted?"
“Draven, Kael and me,” Ronan said. "All coordinated attacks, all professional. All of the assassins had that mark.” He showed us a symbol. A crown wrapped in chains. "The Fifth King's symbol."
Ice ran through my veins. "Where's Draven? And Kael?"
"War room. Calling an emergency council. But that is not the worst part. My premise on "forming pack bonds"? It's caused a rift. “It’s split in each king’s court, half who believes in it and another half who sees unity as weak, betraying tradition.”
“Yes they do,” Lucien grumbled.
Ronan led us into a room where Draven and Kael were gathered next to maps littered with reports.
'It's even worse than we realise,” said Draven when he entered. “The assassination attempts were the least of it. Rebellions are occurring simultaneously in all four of the realms. Coordinated slaughters, ambushes on supply lines, infrastruc ture, the military installations.”
Kael pointed to the maps with red marks for conflict zones. "Look at the pattern. All of the attacks are intended to create as much chaos and throw as much distrust into the air.”
"The Fifth King isn't only after Aria," I realized. “He’s gutting our kingdoms from the inside out.”
"Exactly," Draven confirmed. "Which is our way of saying we're losing time. Two days before the blood moon. Three more trials. And our worlds are crumbling.”
Before any of them could reply, all the windows blew inward with shadow magic. Dark, snaking tendrils curled like live things, etching words into every available surface:
"I KNOW SHE LIVES. I KNOW WHERE SHE IS. AND I KNOW WHO WILL BETRAY HER AGAIN. THREE WILL STAND, ONE WILL FALL AND SHE WILL BE MYN BEFORE THE RISING OF THE BLOOD MOON. YOUR MOVE, LITTLE GODDESS."
The messages would linger for five heartbeats, and had disappeared by then, leaving behind only the smell of sulfur.
The room erupted into chaos. But I was frozen there, looking at where the words used to be.
He knew I was alive. Knew where we were. Knew about the betrayal coming.
And we couldn’t do anything to stop him.