Chapter Forty-Seven

Eadric wasn’t waking up.

Gritting her teeth, Asterin stood over him and blasted ice water directly into his face.

The captain jolted upward, coughing and spluttering. “Wh-what in hell?” he gasped, teeth chattering.

She grabbed him by the underarms and hauled him onto his feet. “No time for questions. We have to figure out a way to get back to the Immortal Realm.”

The disorientation clouding Eadric’s expression evaporated faster than mist in a desert. “Absolutely not. Not alone.”

She shook her head. “We need to go back now. Orion and Harry might be in trouble.”

Eadric threw his hands into the air. “Exactly! Asterin, that was the God of Shadow, for hell’s sake! We can’t take him on!” When she opened her mouth to retort, he grabbed her by the shoulders. “I want to rescue them, too. But—”

“Fine,” she said. “We have to get back to the palace, then.”

He blinked. “I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t have to,” she muttered. Exhaling heavily, she wrapped her arms around herself. Even though her next words sent a pang of remorse through her, she gritted them out. “You’re right. We can’t risk running headfirst into danger. Not with their lives on the line.”

He considered her for a moment more before nodding. “Calling for reinforcements is the right choice. If what Harry said was true about the . . . nature of Orion’s relationship with Eoin, we might not even have anything to worry about.” He dusted himself off and exhaled shakily. “Also . . . thank you for saving me.”

She merely nodded. It had only been thanks to sheer luck that Asterin had managed to spot him in time. The portal had jettisoned her about a league away from their current location. If she hadn’t seen the tornado from afar, or if the portal had transported her any farther away . . . “Nice tornado, by the way.”

“You mean until everything went to shit and I ripped all of the trees out of the ground?”

She offered her hand to him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He gave her a look of confusion but entwined their fingers nonetheless. “Er . . . why are we holding hands, again? It’s not exactly helping my ego.”

She only rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to comfort you.” Wind howled at her summons. “Fortunately for us, the portal dropped us off right on the outskirts of Eradoris. We’re flying back to the palace.”

“Ah.” The blood drained from Eadric’s face. “Fortunate for us indeed.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked as his palm grew increasingly sweaty against hers.

He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled. “Nothin’. All good. Ready to go whenever you are.”

Something clicked in the back of her mind. Heights. “Ah.” But they simply had no other choice. As the wind around them picked up and scooped them off the ground, she helpfully muttered, “Just . . . don’t look down.”

His grip crushed hers with every foot they climbed in altitude. “Not going to look at all, thank you very—aughh! ” A gust knocked them sideways, sending them tumbling, but Asterin managed to right them quickly enough.

“Arms over your head,” she instructed in the calmest tone she could muster. “Keep your body straight and rigid, like an arrow.”

“Like an arrow,” he mumbled.

With their arms still extended high above their heads, Asterin twisted midair and pressed her back to Eadric’s, hooking her ankles around his shins. He stiffened slightly, but she pressed onward. There was the river, sweeping westward across the land below. If they only flew alongside it, they would reach the capital.

Asterin narrowed her eyes at the low gray clouds flush with storm up ahead. She called the wind to swoop them lower, until they were skimming the treetops. Each gust spurred them faster, until the ground became an indistinguishable blur of greenery. She caught sight of their tangled bodies shadowing the landscape whenever the sun escaped the clouds, shooting across the land like a freakish, wingless bird.

Soon enough, houses began to cluster the riverbanks. They were grand houses, with sprawling courtyards and gardens and stables. Towering fir trees dominated the earth as they drew nearer to the inner city, obstructing their view of the more modest houses huddled beneath their great boughs.

Eadric let out a queasy groan that rumbled against her back. “Asterin?” he hollered over the wind.

“Yes?” she shouted back. They swerved beneath a V of flying ducks.

“How exactly are we planning on getting into the palace? What with the wards?”

As if she’d forgotten. Magical wards protected each of the nine castles and palaces. Usually, they were controlled by an entire team of wielders hailing from a diverse range of affinities, but for the palace of Eradore . . . “Remember when Harry shadow jumped us inside the Eradorian palace? Rose said that the Wardens somehow knew beforehand. So if they could sense Harry, they can’t possibly miss us falling out of the sky.”

Well, at least, she hoped.

In response, the captain merely groaned again.

A perfect ring of translucent quartz polished to a smooth shimmer marked their arrival to the inner city. Unlike the Wall surrounding the Axarian palace, the barricade itself wasn’t impressive in size. Ten feet tall, perhaps, and manned by a handful of watchmen dressed in forest-green livery. But above the lip of the barricade extended a dome, an opalescent honeycomb of energy, separating the palace and Academia Principalis from the rest of the capital.

They soared above it. When the watchmen craned their necks to ogle at the sky, Asterin couldn’t help but throw them a cheerful wave.

The mist from the waterfalls spilling out of the rock crevices beneath the Eradorian palace billowed upward to swirl around its towers in a hypnotizing dance. Whenever the mist caught the sunlight, the entire palace shone with a dazzling golden aura. Asterin had to squint past it to spot the wide, flat bridge on their right, connecting the palace to the Academia via the royal library.

She adjusted their course and aimed directly for the bridge. “Here goes nothing.” From the corner of her vision, she managed to glimpse the subtle telltale glare of the wards shielding the palace. Like in Axaria, they were layered atop one another in a thick, glittering sheaf, about thirty strong.

“Could you do a countdown?” Eadric asked in a small voice. “Before we fall.”

They hovered over the barricade and the wards and the earth below. “Of course,” Asterin reassured him.

And then, without counting down at all, she freed them from the wind’s grasp.

Eadric screamed. A proper, high-pitched scream usually reserved for small children throwing tantrums. “ASTERIN!”

“Counting would have made it worse!” Asterin argued as the barrier approached. She had never seen anyone force their way through a ward, but she doubted it would end well. Or that it was legal. Or that there would be a body left to prosecute in the first place.

Please let us in, she prayed to the Wardens. Please don’t fry us. They hurtled toward the barrier, the wind tearing at their clothes, gaining speed the closer they drew. Please, please, please . . .

At the very last moment, a patch of the barrier flickered and cascaded inward, a tiny fissure for them to slip through unharmed. Her muscles tensed as the power of the wards crackled along her skin like an electric shock.

But they made it through in one piece.

Gritting her teeth, she called upon the wind to slow their fall.

Except she hadn’t expected how damn heavy Eadric would be.

She scrambled to summon more wind. Except they were falling too quickly. It was all Asterin could do to brace Eadric upon her back and take the brunt of the impact herself.

They crashed onto the bridge.

Asterin’s vision went white as pure pain splintered up both of her legs. Eadric let out a shout as her knees gave out completely, sending both of them sprawling to the ground. She lay on the bridge, her mouth agape and her chest stuttering to absolute stillness. Completely paralyzed, forgetting how to breathe. Terror seared through her veins. What had she done to herself?

Eadric scrambled over to her, his eyes wide with horror as he whipped out his affinity stone with shaking hands and frantically attempted to heal some of the damage. “What—what in hell were you thinking?” he yelled at her.

No way could she muster the strength to respond. The pain was so great she was far beyond tears. She struggled to inhale.

“Asterin!” hollered a voice. Boots thundered across the bridge toward them and a moment later Taeron and Rose were blocking out the sky above.

“Stay still, Immortals have mercy.” Rose ordered. “You’ve butchered your legs. Haelein.”

Asterin hissed angrily and clawed at the ground as Rose began mending her shattered body. The bones in her legs shifted, realigning into their proper positions beneath the Eradorian’s touch. An eternity passed before the pain subsided to a dull throbbing, and a few moments later it had faded away completely.

Asterin shuddered with relief. “Thank you, Rose.” If she hadn’t showed up immediately . . . could one die from pain alone?

“Of course.” Rose put her arm around Asterin’s waist. “Come on, let’s get you onto your feet.”

“Is everything all right?” she asked, noticing the worry lining Taeron’s brow. “Where’s Quinlan?”

Taeron averted his gaze. “When was the last time you saw him?”

Asterin blinked at the offbeat question. “Earlier today . . . ?”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Just that he wanted to talk,” Asterin replied with a frown. “That he really wanted to talk, but I told him to wait because Harry had just told us about—” Remembrance jolted through her. “Oh, Immortals, oh—we have to go back to the Immortal Realm. We found Orion. We tried to bring him back.” The words spilled out, accelerating, beginnings catching ends in an all-­consuming cascade. “We entered through the portal but then Eoin showed up, and the portal started closing and we left him behind again and—”

“Whoa,” Rose said, gripping the sides of Asterin’s arms hard enough to bruise. “Slow down. You found Orion?”

Thankfully, Eadric stepped in. “Harry confessed to us that he knew of Orion’s location. Except Orion suffered some brain trauma that resulted in severe memory loss, so he was originally hostile to the idea of returning to the Mortal Realm.”

Asterin nodded frantically. “And I insisted that if I just talked to him, he would remember. Then, out of nowhere, he communicated with us through my vanity mirror. He told us to come and—”

“Vanity mirror?” Taeron interjected in disbelief.

Asterin’s eyes widened. “The mirror! Immortals, the hand mirror!” She thrust her hand behind her to draw out the hand mirror she had almost unwittingly stuffed into her pocket during the madness of rescuing Orion. “It allowed him to contact us from the Immortal Realm. Eoin enchanted it for him.”

“Eoin,” Rose repeated. “As in—”

“Eoin, the God of Shadow, yes,” Asterin finished impatiently, waving the hand mirror in front of their faces.

Taeron caught her wrist and took it from her, his expression knitted in deep thought. After a beat of silence, he asked, “Do you know if the mirror only allows for one-way communication? Between the Immortal Realm and the Mortal Realm, I mean. Or might it work the opposite way as well?”

“Maybe,” said Eadric. “He didn’t say.”

The Eradorians exchanged a serious glance.

“What is it?” Asterin asked. “Were you hoping to try and contact someone?”

“We need to get to the Immortal Realm, too,” said Rose. “We finally solved the mystery of my maps. The triangle symbolizes the Trinity of Gateways, as well as their locations on the map. The three gateways lead between the Mortal and Immortal Realms. Initially, we were going to sail to Qris. It’s the nearest gateway to the Immortal Realm after Volteris and Artica, but it would still take a few days and we have no idea how to actually find the gate itself. It’s a huge risk.”

Now it was Asterin’s turn to be befuddled. “Hold on. Immortal Realm? Why?”

Rose bit her lip. “It’s Quinlan.”

Asterin’s heart lurched.

“A servant found him lying in front of your door, halfway through a seizure,” Rose explained. “By the time we got to him, he wasn’t moving.”

The world didn’t just tilt beneath Asterin—it felt like the earth was giving way under her feet, like the sky was toppling down. Eadric had to grab her by the arm to keep her from collapsing.

“The twins prepared an analgesic for him beforehand,” Taeron went on. “More importantly, it also works to tranquilize and suspend all bodily functions. Quinlan only would have taken it if he thought the blight was approaching fatal, so . . .”

Asterin covered her mouth in horror, tears springing to her eyes. “He . . . he was trying to tell me that he was sick,” she whispered. Only Eadric’s arms kept her from keeling over.

“Not just sick,” said Taeron grimly. “Dying.”

The tears spilled down her cheeks. “And I—I turned him away . . .” She had known something was wrong. Of course she had. She’d even guessed that it had something to do with his injury—only, no idea of how seriously it was affecting him. “I turned him away even when he told me how important it was. When he begged me to talk.”

Eadric rubbed her back. “Asterin—”

“I told him,” she said, her voice tight with shame and rage at herself, “that whatever he needed to tell me—” She choked on her own words, a sob tearing through her chest, “—that whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be more important than finding Orion.” She raked her hands down her face. “And I didn’t even tell him that I was going to find Orion because I didn’t want him to come.”

Silence met her. A cruel, crippling silence that threatened to break her in half. She didn’t dare look at the others’ expressions. What were they seeing?

“Why didn’t he just tell me?” Asterin clenched her fists and kneaded them into her eyes. She had never hated herself for anything, but at this moment, nothing and no one disgusted her more. “This is all my fault. I-I could have found a way to save him.”

In the darkness of her closed lids, warm hands found hers and gently pulled them free. “No,” Taeron murmured. The tender sorrow in his eyes drained the anger from her body. “It’s not your fault. And nothing you could have done would have saved him. Only the God of Shadow can help him now.”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Quinlan found a book in the royal library,” Rose murmured. “Taeron read through the whole thing earlier. That’s how we found out about the Trinity of Gateways. Artica, Qris, Volteris. Each of them lead directly to three different locations in the Immortal Realm.”

Taeron nodded emphatically. “Besides that, I might have found a cure.” Just as hope surged within Asterin, he grimaced and amended, “Well, not exactly a cure. A remedy, perhaps?” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Shadow magic has the ability to save people from the brink of death.”

At what cost? Asterin couldn’t help but wonder. But it was something, at least.

Rose pressed on. “Since we have the mirror, we need to try and contact Harry to open a portal for us to bring Quinlan through . . . cure or not.”

Asterin held out her hand for Taeron to return the mirror to her. Praying that it didn’t need some unknown charm or spell to activate, she gazed into it and thought of Harry,

Relief poured through her when the surface rippled. Yet a moment later it darkened completely, obscuring whatever might have been on the other side from view.

“May I try?” said Rose. As the mirror passed between them, the surface reverted to its normal reflective state. The Eradorian closed her eyes, and then, for a second time, the mirror went dark.

Dread pooled low in Asterin’s gut.

“If Harry can’t open a portal for us . . .” Taeron murmured, anxiety lining his features, “then no one—”

“Wait,” Asterin interjected. She cringed. “There is . . . there is one other anygné that I know.”

And even though she suspected that conjuring the anygné in question was a terrible, terrible idea, what other choice did they have?

Show me Lady Killian, she commanded the mirror, part of her already regretting it.

Her heart climbed into her throat as its surface revealed an umber-skinned girl sitting on a stone wall, staring wistfully into the night sky beyond. Her legs swung back and forth, the toes of her high-heeled boots not quite touching the ground.

“It worked,” Asterin breathed.

The anygné’s gaze narrowed. She glanced skyward. “Who said that?”

Asterin nearly dropped the mirror in her shock. “You can hear me?”

“Obviously.”

“Perhaps it’s because she’s in the Mortal Realm, too,” Taeron suggested. “Intra-realm communication and whatnot.”

Killian’s brow knitted further. “Again, who’s speaking, please?”

Asterin drew herself to her full height. “This is Queen Asterin of Axaria. I—”

“Oh,” Killian drawled. “You.” Apparently, she had no qualms about speaking to one of her past targets, or any concern for a disembodied voice speaking to her through thin air. “What do you want?”

Asterin took a deep breath. “A few things.”

The anygné grinned at the stars. “What’s in it for me?”

“Honor?” Asterin tried hopefully.

Killian nearly fell off the wall in laughter. “You’ll have to try a tad bit harder than that, sweetheart. I’m intrigued, however, so do go on.”

Frustration coursed through Asterin. “What could an all-powerful shadow demon possibly want from a mortal?”

At that, Killian snorted. “Oh, don’t you worry your pretty head about that. I’m sure I’ll think of something. How does a favor for a favor sound? I do enjoy calling those in at the most inconvenient of times.”

Asterin hesitated. “Fair. In theory.”

Killian grinned wolfishly. “So it’s a deal?”

She sighed, heavy and full of reluctance. “Fine.”

“Lovely.” Killian hopped off the wall and sketched a bow. When she straightened, her pupils and a barely visible ring of amber had swallowed the whites of her eyes completely. The vicious little smile on the anygné’s face filled Asterin with fear, but it was far too late to turn back now. “Well then, Your Majesty. Consider me very unhumbly at your service.”