I whip my head, in time to see my king’s eyes go wide. To see him stumble.
And only then, do I notice the blade sticking through Niko’s abdomen, and his brother standing behind him with a mad grin.
Horror stuffs itself into my chest, my scream buried somewhere far beneath it, as I reach for Niko. As I reach for Dawson. As I reach for my magic.
But I find none of it in time.
With a wild peal of laughter, Pan’s golden magic lights in his chest, the glow blinding.
And in another flash, Niko, Pan and Dawson are all gone.
Chapter fifty-five
The heat of my rage has driven me forward for so long, but there is no heat to it now. It is a blizzard whipping through my chest, glacial and deadly, as I hurtle through the second star after them.
Infinite colors and worlds spread out before me, the paths to each paved with sparkling dreams. I fly past them all, my heart filled with one dream—the dream of Niko and I together for eternity. I don’t know if it’s my magic or pure fucking will that keeps me moving through the web of the universe.
But I cling to it desperately, having no choice but to follow the echoes of my own heart, and hope it will be enough to lead me to its other half.
A moment, or perhaps, a thousand of them later, I land hard on my back. The air crashes from my lungs in a painful cough as my spine collides with the ground. I scramble upward, blinking frantically into the darkness, and praying to the star above I’m in the right place. That I haven’t veered somewhere wildly off course.
As I take in my surroundings, dread and determination fill me in equal measure. The air is humid, thick with the buzzing of insects and the distant warbles of various birds. Trees far smaller than those in Letum spread around me, their trunks still springy and new. Beyond them lies a quaint house set between the rolling verdant hills.
I turn, already knowing what I’ll find. Three headstones.
My sister’s. My father’s. And mine.
The Aeternalis has not only taken Niko to the mainland—he’s come to the home I grew up in.
I swallow roughly, staring at the cracked gray stones. When I returned here after my escape from the camps, seeing my own name carved beside theirs felt like the cruelest of taunts. They’d gone somewhere together I could never go, and left me alone with an eternity of pain spread out before me.
The Aeternalis means to unsettle me with memory—means to haunt me with the wishes of the past the same way he is.
But I have grown. I have shattered and rebuilt. And in my rebirth, the bitter haze of memory has given way to a softer understanding.
Beloved daughter.
Not carved in mocking, but as the desperate dream of a broken father.
The past built the foundation of who I am, but it is a muted shadow in contrast to the colors of the future spread before me.
A future I will not allow him to take.
I pull my gladius from the sheath. The Aeternalis could not beat us with the full power of the island flowing through our veins, so he came to a world without magic thinking it would weaken us—that it would put us on equal footing once again.
But I have never needed the supernatural to carve my vengeance into the universe. Only my rage.
Anger I now wield like a celestial weapon, honed by injustice.
I begin toward the house.
The path is still familiar beneath my feet, like no time has passed. Like I am on my way home from an imagined adventure in the forest, Celie at my heels, her tangled hair flying behind her like a golden flag.
I climb up the crumbling porch, carefully stepping over the rotted wood. The apparent disrepair of the house settles heavily over me, like the structure has decayed along with my memories—crisp edges softened by the wash of time. The once-white paint has all but faded away, the wooden shingles remaining bloated with rot.
The front door is ajar like Pan left it open for me to come through but when I duck inside the threshold, the house is near silent. There is only the soft scamper of mice that have made homes in the walls, and the scrape of the dead leaves I unsettled by opening the door. Old furniture is scattered throughout the living room, and half-rotted curtains sway in a breeze that blows through the broken glass of the kitchen window.
I spent so long running from my past, but now I walk through it with my head held high toward my future. Up the rickety stairs. Toward Niko.
