I guided it across a partially-collapsed bridge and into what remained of the chamber holding the Vaeloran stone of legend—an artifact that had once been the most powerful conductor of magic in all the realms.
Through the safety of my shadow-self, I took in the sight of what the stone had now become: a blackened, cracked monolith, humming with faint energy. It was still alive, still pulsing with raw, obvious power…butdimmed. Like a dying star.
What would happen if it blinked out of existence entirely?
Nothing I’d tried thus far had brought more life back to it. Nothing increased the flow of its magic that I was trying to feed into the lifestream of Noctaris. No matter how my own powers—and my control over them—grew, I couldn’t seem to gain any more sway over this most vital object.
I could only hope we’d find answers in the things we’d collected from the palace.
With this in mind, I snapped back into my body with a gasping breath, as if coming up for air after a deep dive.
Thalia was watching me expectantly. Most people were unnerved by this particular trick of mine. She wasn’t one of them.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Some power is still flowing from it. I think it’s getting weaker, though.”
“At least it’s not gone entirely dormant. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“It feels like nothing.”
“After all the years I’ve spent in the Below, watching things barely cling to life, it feels like more than that to me.” Thalia shrugged. “Don’t underestimate what a drop of hope can do in an ocean of despair.”
I only managed a nod.
It was true, what I’d said earlier—I had been exhaustively optimistic, once upon a time.
But it was getting harder and harder to see the silver linings around me.
“Maybe I should try pouring more magic into it again?” I suggested halfheartedly.
“Says the woman who currently looks like she’s going to collapse right where she’s standing.” She poked me toward the swirling, fading portal. “Let’s go. I’d rathernothave to drag your lifeless corpse back to Rivenholt. Assuming I could even make it back with your dead self, I’d never hear the end of it from your brother.”
I agreed, but not before casting one last forlorn look at the chamber.
Luckily, returning was always easier than leaving; it was simply a matter of closing my eyes and letting the magic inside of me reach for the energy of that world below us—the one I’d once thought of asHell. Like called to like, so I didn’t have to think about keeping my balance; I only had to allow my shadows to reach for the darkness concentrated in Noctaris’s three kingdoms, in its soil, in its very air.
Feeling those energies rush over one another was like slowly stepping into the sea, letting the dark waters rise around me, drench me, then pull me down, down, down.
Once upon a time, I might have been afraid of drowning.
But no longer.
I couldn’t afford to be afraid.
I held out my hand. Without hesitation, Thalia took it in a light grip, and I let my shadows wash over her as well. The portal rippled, dark and velvet smooth.
We sank through it together.
THREE
Nova
It was always haunting, coming back. Always a moment, between pressing through the portal and my feet hitting the ground, when I was like a hovering ghost, adrift and untethered to any solid realm.
Sometimes, I thought about how nice it would have been to just keep floating, ignoring all the weighty things trying to settle over me—a fleeting, blissful thought that shattered the instant Thalia and I touched down on dusty, black ground, steadying one another as our bodies regained their substance and burdens.
Phantom, in his typical black dog form, was waiting for us exactly where we’d left him, loyally sitting atop a nearby hill next to a large tree with golden, glowing leaves.
