I could feel everyone watching me, shifting uncertainly, but it was Eamon who actually caught up to me and jerked me to a stop.
“We need to be careful. He’s acting…strange.”
I tried to shrug out of his hold. “I know he is, but there’s an explanation, a chance we could?—”
“Hekilledthem, Nova.” The words left him in a breathless rush.
I stopped trying to fight my way out of his grip, my gaze flying to his, certain I’d misheard.
He dug his fingers into my arm. He seemed to be trying to keep his hand from shaking. “The ones who didn’t know where you were, or who refused to tell him anything, he was just…he was just slaughtering them left and right.”
The room spun. Bile rose in the back of my throat. I swallowed it down, bracing a hand against Phantom’s back as he brushed against my leg, whimpering softly.
“And he’s…he’s looking for me,” I whispered.
My brother stepped forward, shaking his head. “No, theOrderis looking for you. Aleks is only doing what they’vecommanded him to do. And you can’t just keep throwing yourself so willingly at him.”
I leveled a glare in his direction, but there was little fire behind it.
Because I knew he was right.
He’d been right all along, I guessed. Aleks was dangerous, hadalwaysbeen dangerous, and I couldn’t go to him now without potentially triggering something even more cataclysmic than what we’d already witnessed tonight. He was looking for me because of my magic. Because of what I was, and whathewas—what he’d been molded into.
A monster they created to destroy me.
But if I didn’t stop him…
“He’ll tear this palace apart to get to me.” I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice from breaking. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t let everyone else suffer while I hide.”
Bastian opened his mouth to argue, but he seemed to be struggling to find the words. He only shook his head again, still refusing to agree with me.
Months ago, I might have deferred to his judgment. But I had changed. Maybe it was the weight of the crown I now carried, or maybe it was simply that I’d lost too much to keep still. I was surrounded by so much loss and chaos that the only option seemed to be pushing through—to keep moving so I didn’t drown.
I lifted my chin. “I’m going to face him.”
The declaration hung like a death sentence in the air.
Zayn moved first, breaking through the settling dread as he stepped to my side. “And I’m going with you.”
Thalia moved to my other side, catching my eye as she silently tapped her hand over her heart.
The conflict was clear on my brother’s face—the desire to protect me warring with the realization that I had already made my choice, and there was nothing he could do to change it.
Finally, he turned to Eamon and said, “Continue evacuating as many as you can, and make sure riders have been sent to the soldiers we have stationed throughout the outer establishments. We’re going to need reinforcements before this is done.”
Eamon nodded grimly and departed along with the guards who had been keeping watch for us.
Taking a deep breath, Bastian turned back to me. “Lead the way.”
I looked to Phantom and his nose for the second time that evening. “I know it will be difficult with the chaos and all the conflicting scents, but if anyone can find him quickly, it’s you.”
His tail gave a single thump—clearly pleased by the praise and unable to suppress it even in these awful conditions. He gave me his typical, critical huff, followed by a sneeze, but then he put his nose to the ground and started to work.
It took longer to find the trail we needed, this time, but eventually he managed it.
My eyes were no longer blurring with tears, but I still kept them fixed only on Phantom as he led the charge through the palace. I didn’t want to look too closely at the things we were passing. The proudly-hanging banners of Rivenholt. The paintings of Noctaris’s wider history, and opulent artifacts tied to the Vaeloran who had protected them in ages past…all these things that had felt normal for a fraction of a moment last night, when I’d walked past them as a new queen with the sounds of celebration still ringing in my ears.
Maybe it had always been an impossible dream, to think that I could walk so easily into the next part of this story. That taking up a crown and pledging myself and my magic to this realm would be enough to fix such a broken world.
