The thought of going into that chamber alone was infinitely worse, though.
“I’ll speak with him about joining us,” I said quietly.
No one seemed overly enthusiastic about this plan, but no one could muster up any clear objections, either. So it was decided: we would leave that very evening for the middle realm.
I didn’t linger after this decision was made. I wanted—needed—an afternoon alone to prepare for what lay ahead.
But though I tried to slip away unnoticed, my brother caught up to me at the end of the hallway.
“Nova.”
I stopped but didn’t look his way, my gaze instead fixing on a portrait of Calista hanging to my right. The artist had depicted her with a stern, almost cold expression—so much different from the fiery, youthful version of her that I’d witnessed in Lorien’s memory.
Bastian cleared his throat. “I know things are difficult between you and Aleks at the moment.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “And?”
He met my eyes, unflinching. “And I’m just…I’m sorry.”
He said it like he was apologizing for a death. As if Aleks was already gone, and I was the only one who hadn’t admitted it yet.
Denial surged through my veins, hot and fierce. I turned to face him more fully, my head lifted high. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. He and I have weathered worse storms.”
We are not a tragedy.
“We’ll survive this storm, too.”
Bastian held my gaze for a long moment. “Yes.” He nodded slowly. “You will.”
It didn’t escape my notice how he had emphasized me and not Aleks. His typical, overprotective brother behavior, but it stung nonetheless.
“We both will,” I told him, firmly. But the words felt heavy on my tongue, weighted down with a fear I couldn’t seem to shake off.
I turned and walked away before Bastian could see the cracks forming in my armor.
TWENTY-FIVE
Nova
Evening arrived too quickly for my liking. I moved through the day like a puppet on strings, some unseen hand pulling me along, moving my limbs and putting words in my mouth that felt hollow and disconnected from my mind.
I’d found Aleks and discussed our plan, as I’d told the others I would. But he hadn’t agreed easily, and I didn’t see him for hours afterward—not until the sun was sinking below the horizon and I stood near the western gates, preparing to leave for Nerithys.
The sight of him coming toward me made my stomach flutter and my chest tighten from an odd combination of relief and anxiety. I stepped to meet him, my mind racing with all the things I wanted to tell him, the conversations I’d been rehearsing in my head all day.
But when I reached him, I only managed two words: “You came.”
“You asked me to.” Despite his reassuring tone, his gaze was troubled, fixed on something in the distance. “Did you honestly think I would let you face this alone?”
“Aleks, about what happened this morning…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
He cut his eyes toward me. “Not right now, it doesn’t. Let’s survive this next ordeal. Then we’ll talk.”
I didn’t want to wait. And I was tired of the two of us merely surviving. But before I could object to anything he’d said, we were joined by the rest of our company.
