Things had changed.
On one hand, she was eager to be reunited with Aspen and Tol and Orfeyi, these people she’d forged unbreakable bonds with—bonds that seemed to defy all logic now, as she could still find them in dreams, even when they were worlds apart.
Maybe it was the time they’d spent joined together as Atheia’s vessel that made such a thing possible. It was how she knew that Aspen’s sister, Bryony, had made a miraculous recovery from her coma, that the Amberyls were happily reunited, the witches thriving as their Wychwood became lush and green once more. It was how she knew that Tol had helped disband the Fellowship of the Light as it once had been, that the knights were now following the old ways of the Golden Helm, where dragons and eldritch beasts and draconics lived in mutual respect of one another. It was how she knew that storms had ceased in Orfeyi’s world, that music soared once more, that sometimes one might glimpse a winged horse soaring through clouds, their divinity restored.
These dream encounters were how Romie knew the three of them had also been chosen to be part of this new Veiled Atlas and were going to accept.
This was where Romie’s trepidation lay: the idea of following the call of another destiny.
Yet this wasn’t some unshakeable song that pulled them all forward. It was a choice that Romie was free to make on her own. There was no sense of predestined obligation. Just… curiosity. A desire for something new.
Perhaps it would always be in Romie’s nature to want such things—adventure, the unknown. Only this time, she would be in control of who she was and where such an adventure would take her.
And if she accepted, she’d do better this time. She wouldn’t fail the people she cared about like she had before.
Later she found Nisha dozing in front of the fireplace with Duskin her lap. Romie curled up beside her on the sofa. And here in front of the fire, with her arms wrapped around this girl she loved who had stuck by her from the start, Romie knew her choice rested on wherever Nisha was.
“You know,” Nisha mumbled drowsily, her eyes still closed as she pulled Romie’s arms around her tighter, “I never did get to properly see the Wychwood.”
“It’s like one giant greenhouse. You’d love it.”
“Maybe they need help restoring all those plants after the rot set in.” Nisha cracked an eye open. “I seem to recall you’d developed somewhat of a green thumb.”
“Not as green as yours, surely.”
“What I’m trying to say is… maybe we could go.”
“Are you sure?”
Nisha nestled her face in the crook of Romie’s neck. “As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.”
The words settled something inside Romie. She thought of the little greenhouse they’d tended to at Aldryn. Thought of the mess of withering plants she’d never gotten around to fixing. She had tended instead to another dream rooted inside her—the call of Dovermere, of a destiny she felt so certain of and ended up being so wrong about—choosing to ignore the dream that had already blossomed all around her. The budding relationship with Nisha that she had let shrivel up before it had had any real chance to bloom.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Whatever dream they chased after, they would do so together.
73KAI
KAI FOUND SOLACE IN NIGHTMARES. There was a sense of peace in them now. Perhaps going to the very depths of hell had left a mark on him, giving him a better appreciation for this realm of sleep and death.
Or maybe it was that he had shucked away all his anger, so that it did not weigh on him as it once did.
He realized this when he visited Farran in a nightmare, not long after they’d come back from the godsworld. The nightmare seemed to be a blend of memories drawn from both Thames and Farran: They stood in what looked like the Treasury and the Belly of the Beast combined, with the foul stench of the abyss in the air and the incessant ticking of clocks filling their ears, like an echo of the god of balance’s workshop. All the places where Thames and Farran had died and come back and been taken advantage of, imbued with such horror and despair, it had Farran hugging himself like a scared child as tears ran down his face.
Kai pulled on the nightmare’s darkness, gathering it into him untilit wasn’t so frightening anymore. His shoulder brushed Farran’s, who looked up at him with relief, unsurprised at his presence.
“Thank you,” Farran breathed, the lines of him relaxing a bit as he took in the scene around them. “You’d think as a former Fear Eater, I’d be better at confronting my nightmares.”
“You were never as skilled as I am.”
That drew a smile from Farran, but it quickly vanished as he looked at Kai with stark sincerity. “I truly am sorry, you know. For everything I’ve done.”
“Not your fault,” Kai said with a shrug, and realized he meant it. “You were compelled by fate, after all.”
Farran’s brows shot up in surprise. “I didn’t expect to get off that easy from someone who’s repeatedly told me to go to hell. Thought you hated my guts.”
“If there’s one thing hell taught me, it’s to let bygones be bygones. Time to move on.”
