He let out another quiet laugh. “Easy as that, huh?”
“Easy as that.”
He didn’t seem convinced—and neither was I—but some of the tension did eventually slip from his body. We sat in silence, watching the shadows on the walls shift with the firelight. I’d started to doze off against him when the door opened, jolting me awake.
My brother stepped inside, armor damp from the rain that had started to fall outside. Without a word, he handed me a folded piece of parchment.
I scanned it quickly, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room fixed on me. I couldn’t meet anyone’s gaze as I lowered the letter. But I forced myself to lift my head, to don a mask of confidence.
Because Severin had agreed to meet me, and now all that remained was to see my plan through to the bitter end.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Nova
We traveled on foot toward the woods that lay just beyond the northern edge of Tarnath.
My brother, Thalia, and Phantom walked alongside me. Severin had insisted on a more intimate meeting, so we’d kept our numbers low; Eamon had stayed behind, as had Zayn—after finally admitting that his injury would make him more of a liability than an asset.
We’d brought several of our most skilled soldiers to round out our party, though, and we also had others who would be waiting not too far in the distance, should we signal for more help; I didn’t trust Severin to keep to the agreed-upon terms. Voss waited with this second regiment, positioned where he could keep one eye on the city and one eye on whatever was happening in our direction.
Lorien walked at the very back of our group, his hood drawn up to hide his face. We’d agreed he would stay out of sight untilthe last possible moment, doing all he could to cloak his power—the Order couldn’t know he had returned with me. Not until I was ready to reveal him. Not until we were both ready to unleash our final attempt to undo them.
The last time I’d walked this path, it had been daytime. It seemed like an entirely different landscape as I passed through it now—a much more lively one. Glowing insects buzzed between the trees. Creatures scurried in the brush, tempting Phantom more than once. And perhaps it was the proximity of Calista’s grave and the echo of her magic, or maybe just my imagination, but the shadows seemed to be as alive as everything else, twisting and turning in a spellbinding dance.
Welcoming me in, almost.
Strange flowers bloomed along the forest floor, their color like translucent starlight, the petals neither fully solid nor fully spectral. They swayed without wind, their movement hypnotic, their soft radiance lining a path that led deeper into the woods.
As we started down this path, Phantom pressed close to my side, his ears flat against his skull. (This place still smells like death. But it’s teeming with life, too. I don’t like it.)
I gave him a comforting pat on the head. It made my senses uneasy as well—the way death and life intertwined so strangely here. I would have sworn I occasionally glimpsed the blood that I knew had once coated the ground, yet the wards Calista had created were also at their strongest here, a reminder that life and death were forever bound in this world.
As the first glimpse of her grave came into view, I drew to a stop.
“I need to handle this next step on my own,” I reminded the others.
My brother looked hesitant to leave my side, even though this was part of the plan we’d all decided on. I would go first, because there were things my magic and I needed to do. AnswersI needed to divine from the sacred ground. He and the others would keep watch while I gathered these last pieces of the puzzle I was putting together and prepared myself for what came next.
Thalia put a hand on Bastian’s shoulder. “You know the plan. Let’s not stray from it.” She gave me a meaningful look, and two taps on her heart, before turning away. Phantom huffed in reluctant agreement before bounding after her.
Bastian lingered a moment longer. “Be wary,” he said quietly. “And listen for our warning signal.”
“I will.”
He turned back and began giving orders for our company to spread out and take their defensive positions.
I walked the last stretch of the path alone, and with each step, the world became quieter.
Calista’s gravesite sat in the heart of a depression in the earth, as if the land itself had bowed in reverence—or recoiled in horror—from what had happened here. The trees that ringed the clearing around it were curved in unnatural shapes, their trunks smooth and black. Almost like twisting shadows that had petrified over the years.
As for the memorial itself…it seemed smaller than I’d remembered. Less imposing. Just a circle of dark rocks, its widest point barely twenty feet across. The ground within this circle was covered in a carpet of black moss that released tiny puffs of luminescent spores when I stepped onto it, making the air around me sparkle with ghostly light. In the center, a grave marker rose almost haphazardly from the moss—white stone, rough-cut, unadorned except for a single dark symbol carved deep into its face.
The mark of the Shadow Vaelora.
A myriad of feelings washed over me as I stared at that mark—grief, reverence, doubt, determination. All the many thingsI’d lived through since realizing my part in the ancient cycle of magic.
Focus, I told myself.You came here for a reason.
