“I’m giving you a minute,” he repeated. And then he turned and continued up the steps.
My anger only grew as I watched him disappear into the palace. Grew and grew until it consumed me, blinded me, made me so hotheaded and delirious I didn’t even know what I was angry about anymore.So many things. I couldn’t have possibly picked one to focus on.
I thought about following Lorien, demanding him to take me back to the Below.
I thought about just trying to go back myself, even though I knew I was in no state to attempt it. Crossing the realms was dangerous even when I could focus—it would be asking for disaster in my current condition.Moredisaster.
And what was the point of going back if I didn’t know how to fix anything?
In the end, I simply collapsed on the steps.
I sat with my anger for far longer than a minute. Long enough that it had time to turn into grief, into regrets that wound so tightly around me I could barely breathe. I kept trying, though.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Ilasted only a few minutes more before finally breaking down, burying my face in my hands and letting sobs wrack my body. All my mistakes, all my losses, hit me in merciless waves, each one forcing my body to curl a little more tightly into my grief.
I should have tried harder to figure out what Aleks was truly fighting against. We’d buried too many things, avoided too many difficult conversations. I’d convinced myself that I could fix everything if I just kept pushing forward, unflinching. I lovedhim, and that was the beginning and end of everything, the truth that had carried me to this point, but now…
Now, I understood that love alone was not enough.
Whatever vows we’d made, whatever feelings we shared…none of it mattered without action. Without the courage to face what was broken, rather than just marching stubbornly forward. None of it counted if I couldn’t save him from the Order’s control.
And if I couldn’t save him, then whatcouldI save?
I might have stayed there for hours, letting that question torment me into a comatose state, if not for the gnawing worry that eventually made me lift up my head.
I couldn’t just curl up here and weep forever.
I had to get back to Noctaris.
My body felt like it weighed ten times what it should, but I forced myself to stand. On shaky feet, I climbed the steps and walked through the ruins of the palace, trying to see it all with new eyes. Trying to understand more of what I’d missed.
The heaviness in my bones persisted, but I could learn to walk with it, just as I’d learned to walk with all the other heavy things I’d collected throughout my life.
I found Lorien sitting on the broken bridge that led into the Aetherstone’s chamber, staring at the mountains in the distance.
I hesitated before approaching him.
I was finally calm enough to truly look at him—to see a strange combination of the monster I’d first met, woven together with all the different memories I’d witnessed. He still had an undeniably cruel, calculating look in his eyes, but they no longer burned with the same reddish tint as before; they were closer to his natural shade of deep brown. His lips curved up in a way that almost looked thoughtful—yet I still shivered when I looked at them, knowing how readily that smile could turn feral.
I’d once heard a legend that the blood of gods ran in his veins. That he had been such a powerful Vaelora because he was already divinely-touched, even before the gods had granted him the dominion of Light.
Sitting there under the overcast sky, with the soft glow of magic warming his beige skin, highlighting every sharp and powerful line of his body, he almost looked the part.
But I could also see the toll the past centuries had taken on him. The haunted expression that flickered over his face any time he started to let his guard down. The way power radiated off him, yet he was still gripping the stone edge of the bridge like he was afraid of tumbling over. Like a fallen god who had yet to figure out how to carry the weight of his broken wings.
Whatever he was, as I stared at him, I finally, truly admitted to myself that he wasreal, even if he was still a mystery I couldn’t make sense of. And I had revived him, somehow. Was that why he’d saved me? So that we were even?
And what the hell did he intend to do next?
We need to make a plan, he’d said.
