Page 21 of The Reaping Rose

“We’ll be ready.”

I close the distance between us, wrapping my arms around Callum’s shoulders. It takes him a moment to hug me back, and when he does, I sense the fear he isn’t voicing. The doubt we both have but are ignoring.

He stays at the gate while I walk to meet Greer and Letia at the prison door.

“I’ve heard stories about this place,” Greer says, peering into the pitch-black darkness. “None of them captures whatever this is.”

She plants her palm on her stomach, her face turning queasy.

“I don’t feel it,” Letia says, eyebrows pinched.

“That’s a good thing,” I remind her.

I grab Letia’s hand, then Greer’s. We share a silent look. Everything has already been said. Promises have already been made. I squeeze once and then let them go to face the prison.

Endless darkness stares back. Empty and somehow also full. The depth of a night sky without stars. A bitter tinge marks my tongue as I press closer, and the chill that runs through me has no beginning or end.

It’s physical, yet it’s in my mind.

I glance back with a final nod as my friends back away.

This might be the last time I see any of them. It might be my last view of the sky.

With eyes wide open, I tip my head back and stare at the clouds, painting shapes in the gray overcast. Pressing my hand to my chest, I burrow into those tunnels within me. I search the dark threads for one flicker of gold. One hint of aether that is not there.

I close my eyes and look through the darkness, hoping if Wilder hears nothing else of me, he hears this.

“I know you can’t find me where I’m going,” I whisper through the thread in my mind to Wilder. “So if I never make it out, I’m sorry. Once again, I’m not choosing us, even after I promised I would. But right now, I can’t. Not when everything else is at stake. And as much as it hurts, I hope you’re doing the same. In Vaelier, for your people. I hope you choose them because they need you. You doubt yourself, but trust me, they need you. Just like I do.”

My throat aches even as my words are in my mind. My chest burns with the absence of him on the other side.

“I think I always knew what you were to me. Not in my mind but in my bones. In my heart. Before I ever truly understood what mates are, something always held me back from connecting with anyone else. This missing piece that nothing could fill. Until the first time I heard your voice. Gods, you were such a pain sometimes. Never letting me off the hook easily.”

I think back to Wilder in my ear, taunting me, always pushing me to fight harder, long before I understood why he cared.

“I knew you were my other half before I understood I wasn’t whole. Even if this is all we get, thank you for helping me see through the stars. Thank you for finding me in the darkness. I hoped we’d have a chance to work through what happened at the Rite. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. Either way, don’t stop fighting, and I won’t either. No matter what.”

I wait for a moment, staring into the dark. A single hollow thread stares back. Not so much as a stir of magic flickers through it. Maybe when I heard his voice on the beach the day after I arrived on Alyssium, I imagined it. I heard what I needed to give me hope to get me to this point.

As I gaze into the emptiness of the threads, the mark on my chest warms. But it only makes the cast of doubt surrounding me heavier.

Slowly, I pull back, sliding out of my mind and into my body. I leave Wilder in that place in my heart that is only his, and I harness my confidence. My entire life, I’ve let others guide me.

My father.

Callum.

And even after I discovered my magic, my decisions were not my own. I’ve been the pawn between Crowns. The hope and destruction of the realms. As I take a step forward, I make a choice. I make a promise that I will not fear what I find in the darkness. I will use it.

Stepping into the prison, I leave the light behind.

Chapter 8

Elorie

The first step is cold.

Like a bare foot in the sea. Except I’m not on the beach. I plummet when my foot finds nothing but an icy wash of fear that swallows me.