I could hardly contain my surprise at his unconcerned tone.
“…Happy to help,” I said.
Light was starting to break through the hazy canopy of clouds above us, brighter than I’d ever seen it over this palace. It still wasn’t a morning like the ones I remembered in Soltaris, but after so much time spent down here in the dark, it seemed almost like a normal sunrise.
There were swaths of black marring the sky far in the distance, though—places where the awakening sun clearly didn’t reach.
“Renvar is growing impatient,” Bastian said, “and he’s not the only one. With every ounce of magic that rains down from Nerithys, they only want more.” He shielded his eyes from the breaking light, focusing on the farthest patch of brightness we could see. “They don’t understand Nova’s power. Or its limits. They don’twantto study the history, the nuances of Shadow and Light, how they intersect, or the warning signs within these erratic ebbs and flows of magic—all the things I’m desperately trying to make sense of. They want easy answers. But nothing about this iseasy. Our world isn’t as it once was.”
I settled on the steps in front of the meeting room, laying my borrowed sword down beside me.
“Meanwhile, my advisors want to focus on a coronation,” Bastian continued. “Crowning Nova to further secure Rivenholt, at the very least. All of our potential allies are counting on her to carry on the tradition of the first-born taking the thronewithout question.” He sighed. “But now shealsohas the matter of Lorien’s curse to deal with, on top of everything else.”
I found myself understanding his exact point, even though he never outright said it—because I felt the same thing.
There was so much he couldn’t carry for her, even if he wanted to.
Quietly, he said, “I’ve made the mistake of asking too much of her in the past.”
I thought of how she’d fought her way into the Kingdom of Midna, alone, and forced Lorien’s hand. Of how she’d walked willingly into death at the start of all this. Of everything we’d talked of last night before going to sleep: her kingdom here in the Below; the mess that remained of the middle realm; the looming shell of Rose Point above, with all of its ghosts—her mother among them.
All the things she was desperate to fix.
I said, “She asks too much of herself, too. It runs in your family, apparently.”
Bastian let out a humorless chuckle.
“She isn’t fragile,” I reminded him.
“No. But strong things break, too.” He was silent for a moment. “All these wars…” he eventually muttered, raking a hand through his hair. “I hate the idea of sending her off to faceanyof them without going alongside her. But it can’t be helped, can it? I’ll have to continue to hold the line down here. You all will have to return to the Above. And maybe we’ll manage to balance it all before the end.”
I nodded in agreement with this plan, even though he seemed to be holding a private council, trying to convince himself rather than me.
He shifted his attention to his sword again, swiping and slicing through the air with heavy but smooth motions. The blade’s handle caught a piece of sunlight, and I noticed a familiarsymbol in the center—a circle divided diagonally by a vine-wrapped sword.
The mark of the Void Order.
Noticing me staring at it, Bastian said, “Another war I’m trying to figure out.” He held the weapon up for me to inspect. “This is one of the many relics Nova and Thalia have brought back from the middle realm over these past few weeks. I’m noticing, now, just how many things from that realm carry this symbol, even though it’s often much smaller and less noticeable than this. I think that Order may have been more involved in the Vaeloran Cycle, and all its workings and weavings, than we previously guessed.”
For some reason, whenever I looked at the symbol, I was struck with a wave of unease. Bastian didn’t seem to want to meet my eyes all of a sudden, either, which did nothing to settle the anxious churning in my gut.
Was there something he wasn’t telling me?
Before I could venture a guess as to what it might be, he cleared his throat and said, “Answer a question for me.”
“What is it?”
He glanced my way, but still didn’t quite meet my eyes. “Nova claims you are back in control of your own body, your own magic. And yet, my servants who witnessed the magic you used against Lord Renvar seemed terrified when they reported it to me. It apparently lingered in that room long after you’d left, so powerful that most of them refused to even go inside for a closer look.” He inhaled deeply. “So, before I send you off on this quest with my sister, I’m forced to ask: How much of our enemy still lingers within you?”
I stared at the symbol on his sword for a long time.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, honestly.
“Do you still feel him?”
“I feel…different. Not like him, though.”
“But do you feel likeyourself?”
