by Everly Frost
Imatra’s eyes widen as she stares back at me. I guess she thought she’d cut out all of my heart and that, even if I had retaliated, I died afterward. Tears continue to stream down her cheeks, perfect pearls spilling across the ground around her.
Her facial features quickly smooth out. She holds out her hands.
“Come to me, child,” she says, her voice soft and compelling. “Come away from the fire.”
Inside the image, I hesitate, but only for a moment before I crawl through the ash toward her.
Her grasping hands pull me against her side. “I’m sorry, child,” she murmurs as she strokes my hair. A slow smile crosses her face, a smile I never saw from my position cocooned against her chest. “I couldn’t stop the Fell. They took everything from you, but one day… you will take everything from them.”
The bulb goes blank. I stare at the emptiness inside it, trying to process the fact that my heart wasn’t destroyed.
What’s more confusing is that there’s one more bulb resting on my chest.
Nathaniel’s jaw is tight, his muscles tensing. He knows the full truth about how his father died now. His gaze flickers from the remaining bulb to me. “There’s more.”
Crushing the bulb I already hold, I stare, exhausted, at the remaining orb. “I don’t know if I can take any more.”
Nathaniel reaches for my closed fist, his features softening. I allow him to unfurl my fingers from around the vine that has formed and place my hand beside the final bulb.
“Truth is never easy,” he says, a storm of rage lurking behind his expression that he quickly hides from me.
I rub my forehead, the back of my hand resting over my eyes. “She stabbed your father in the back. She killed your people. What more did she do to you? To me?”
I want to crush the last bulb, not look at it. But until I face my past, the glitter field won’t rest.
I won’t rest.
With a steady exhale, I take hold of the final bulb. This one doesn’t knock me into the ground like the others. Instead, a freezing cold chill passes through me as if I plunged into icy water.
I shiver, take a breath, and cough, a wet sound because my mouth suddenly fills with liquid.
Gasping for air, desperate to let go of the bulb as quickly as possible, I hold it up to my eyes.
Inside it, Imatra stands beside the fae palace, its white towers rising up in the background. She teeters at the edge of the Spinning Lake, but its surface is quiet, glassy, not even a ripple.
With a heave, she pitches a glittering stone into its center—a gleaming diamond the size of her fist.
My heart drops.
The diamond falls below the surface of the lake inside the bulb. The moment the rock hits the bottom, there is a soft thud and the water begins to turn. It pulses in time with the heart’s beat until the lake churns smoothly around the diamond at its center.
In the present, icy liquid fills my mouth, choking me. I’ve felt the water’s icy clutches before—this drowning sensation—but I never imagined it was real.
Nathaniel grabs me, shifting so that he can turn me onto my side. Water spills from my mouth, whooshing out with my exhaled breath.
I crush the final bulb in my fist. It’s blank now—empty of memories again—while it rapidly transforms into another sharp vine. Sharp memories.
I curl up on the soft grass beneath me, shivering violently while Nathaniel curves over me, wrapping his arms around me so that his body heat can warm me. The buckles of his weapon harness dig into my side, but I don’t care.
He strokes my back, his hand running over my shoulder blades, down to my hips, but he is silent.
“My heart.” I sob-laugh, cry, and try to breathe at the same time. “The diamond at the center of the Spinning Lake is my heart.”
Chapter 17
Just moments ago, Imatra told me that my heart had crumbled into dust after she cut it out. Once again, she lied. Darkest of stars, I can’t be surprised by that. She will never stop lying.
“She hid my heart in plain sight,” I say, my voice wobbling with shock. “She told everyone the Spinning Lake was a monument to the final battle—to our victory over the humans. Dear stars… I slept in a room overlooking the diamond for the last seven years, and I never knew what it was. I never felt like it belonged to me.”
“We need to get it back.” Nathaniel’s eyes meet mine, his own determined, but I shake my head.
“It takes a hundred Frost fae to freeze the Lake in winter, and a hundred Solstice fae to unfreeze it in summer. Even with the power I have now, I doubt I’ll be able to break through to where my heart rests on the bottom. Even if I could…”
I close my eyes, taking deep breaths. “The stone in the Lake is broken. It’s what remained after the first shard was cut out. It never felt alive to me. It’s not like the piece you carried with you.”
The life in the shard Nathaniel kept safe all of these years was so immense that I was afraid of it. I have never felt that way about the diamond in the Spinning Lake. The irony doesn’t escape me that the largest piece of my heart never felt like mine, but the tiniest sliver felt like it had an entire universe trapped within it.
Nathaniel continues to rub my back, my arms. His thumb grazes my cheek, smoothing across my tears. “Do you remember the first time I kissed you?”
My body glows, sudden warmth flooding me at the memory. “I’ll never forget.”
He continues, his voice soft. “I thought that we’d done something wrong, because starlight speared up through the Lake. It poured through you into me. I didn’t know why or what to think.”
I become very still. “My heart must have been trying to connect… If you’d been wearing the sliver of my heart at that moment, then the three pieces of my heart would have been in the same place for the first time since Imatra had tried to kill me—the stem inside me, the body of my heart in the lake, and the shard you kept safe.”
“I didn’t kiss you because I felt compelled to.” Nathaniel brushes the hair from my face and wipes the icy liquid from my lips. “I did it because I wanted to. Because you are a beautiful, complicated, loyal woman who surprises me with your strength and your mind. We always had a choice about loving each other, Aura.”
I close my eyes, unable to meet his. “We have choices to make now, too.” I take a deep breath, trying to focus as his hands trail through my hair. “Imatra lied to me at every turn. I hoped that I could trust her word, but I can’t. She promised to bring your weapon to the fight, but she won’t. I know that now. You need the light to kill me—”
Nathaniel’s jaw clenches, suddenly furious. “That will not happen—”
I cut him off. “Without that weapon, you don’t have a chance! Look at how much power I control!”
I allow starlight to flood my body, calming power that could just as easily turn sharp and kill him.
Nathaniel tries to disentangle himself from my arms, the rage that he’s been fighting all day returning to his eyes. Since the moment I woke up tied to the pole, he has been angry, more reckless than before.
He’s fighting the future, but he can’t win.
“You need your weapon,” I say, my hands clamping around his forearms. “We have maybe six hours until midnight. It’s hardly enough time to find the halberd, but I won’t fight you without it. I choose to spend my last hours finding the light. You need to choose too.”
He becomes still, his hair falling across his face, obscuring the darkness of his expression. I can’t follow his thoughts anymore, the rapid changes of emotion hidden behind his hair. I can’t read his rage or sadness or even know if his emotions have turned to stone.
“With Treble, we can fly anywhere,” I continue, not giving up. “We can fly to Bright. We can get your weapon. We can make it back to the border by midnight. We can’t change what’s going to happen…”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes and my voice chokes up.
“We can’t change this,” I repeat, this time a whi
sper. I hold my breath as I ask him, “Will you come with me, Nathaniel?”
He has asked me that many times—asked me to come with him, to trust him. Now I’m asking him to trust me.
His chest rises and falls. His knee still rests between my legs. His attempts to untangle himself from me have lifted me half into a sitting position while he pulls backward so that we balance against each other.
I breathe out my relief when he says, “I will.”
He reaches forward instead of straining against me, sliding his arms around my waist and shoulders but staying apart from me as he draws me upright.
The light inside my chest flickers—hurts—as we rise to our feet.
I inhale sharply when I finally see the field around us.
The glitter stems have transformed.
In every direction, soft waist-height grass sways in the breeze.
The bulbs that were already floating away have become flowers of all kinds drifting quietly toward Bright. My pain isn’t gone, but I don’t need the glitter field to protect me anymore.
I slip out of Nathaniel’s arms, stepping back from him and finally breaking the contact between us.
Nothing explodes.
The field is quiet for the first time in fifteen years.
The air is sweet and warm despite the chill, the scent of new growth mixing with Nathaniel’s body heat and filling my head.
Treble has already risen into the sky from the edge of the field where we left him, lightning sizzling around his body as he soars toward us. His wings crack as he exercises a new freedom to fly as close to the meadow as he wants. This place was once deadly. Now he lands on the grass beside us and extends his wing for us to climb up, his neck arched and his eyes gleaming.
I race up his wing and settle onto his back while Nathaniel follows me. Despite the distance we are starting to put between us, Nathaniel’s arms close around me as we settle onto Treble’s back.
All around us, night has fallen, a heavy dark while the space around me glows. I can’t dim the light that shines from my body. Maybe with practice I would be able to, but it’s not the most important use of my time right now.
I only have a few hours left.
I plan on using them to do all of the things I need to do.
“Treble, do you sense the squadron above the mountains?” I ask, pointing to the specks in the distance. Evander, Talsa, and the others will be waiting there to protect Bright from more glitter bulbs. They won’t know that the glitter field is no longer a threat. “I need you to take me to Talsa. She knows where Nathaniel’s weapon is.”
The last time I saw the halberd, Talsa was walking away with it. She never told me where she put it or what became of it. I pray to the stars that she knows, since Imatra could have hidden it somewhere—or tried to destroy it. I regret now that I revealed to Imatra how important the weapon is to us.
Treble rises into the air, spearing a path straight for the mountains. I relax in Nathaniel’s arms, stealing his warmth and nearness like a hungry thief.
Casting a glance into the grassy dark beneath us, I can’t tell where the transformed glitter field ends and the flower fields begin, but as we approach the mountains, I can see where the glitter bulbs exploded. Parts of the crystal peaks have been chipped away, the glittering gemstones they concealed now exposed in the moonlight. Other sections have been blasted open by the bulbs, widening the pass through the peaks. Jagged edges jut dangerously on all sides.
Treble beats his wings but doesn’t crack them as we speed upward. At the same time, Cadence drops from the clouds above, soaring down to meet us. I catch sight of Talsa’s coral hair as her thunderbird follows, while Calida, Mia, and Serena span out, alert and on guard, staying focussed on the sky around us.
“Aura!” As Evander draws level with us, the wind dies down and the air quiets. He’s controlling it so that we can speak without shouting.
Nearby, the quiet concentration on Talsa’s face tells me she’s communicating with all of the thunderbirds, asking them to continue coasting near each other while we speak.
Evander’s arctic-blue hair is braided back from his face like usual, but his blue-gray eyes are dull and strained. He never appeared angelic, but right now, the edge of rage in his drawn-down eyebrows and the stern line of his lips make him appear savagely angry. His gaze passes across my face, my hair, and all of the changes that must be as startling to him as they are to me.
Squeezing Nathaniel’s hand, I rise on Treble’s back before I judge the distance to Evander’s bird and leap across the space between us.
I land in a streak of light on Cadence’s back, just behind her saddle but still securely on her body, bending my knees to maintain my balance, while Evander slowly rises to stand.
“Aura?” He speaks my name like a question now.
Nearby, Talsa draws closer, her pink lips parted in surprise as she studies me.
I give my brother a half-smile. “It’s me. I have so much to tell you, but there’s no time—”
The air rushes from my chest as Evander steps across Cadence’s saddle and scoops me into a sudden hug, his big arms wrapping around me, the scent of frost and ice enveloping me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m not fae,” I whisper, blurting out my revelation, finding it easier to speak the truth than I thought it would be.
Evander slowly draws back, a smile tugging the corner of his stern mouth. “I can see that.” A light of hope enters his eyes. “Does this mean you’re released from the Law of Champions?”
I shake my head. “I’m afraid not.”
His hope vanishes, his paleness returning.
“I didn’t kill your mother,” I say, gripping his arm urgently. “I didn’t kill the humans during the final battle. I don’t have time to tell you everything, but I need you to believe me.”
“I do.”
His response is so immediate, so certain, that my glow flickers. Warms. I’m slowly becoming acquainted with the new sensations inside my chest. The variations of warmth and light that tell me whether I’m happy, sad, afraid… or hopeful.
Now, some of the tension leaves my body. When I last saw Evander, Imatra announced that I was responsible for the death of his mother. I didn’t want to live my final hours with the weight of Evander’s grief on my shoulders. “Thank you, brother.”
Evander switches his attention to Nathaniel for a brief moment, giving him a firm nod, before he turns back to me. “It’s not safe here. The glitter field has been sending out bulbs all day and now the field has gone dark. There’s magic at play—”
I take his arm. “The glitter field is gone. It’s safe now.”
“What? How?”
I give him a regretful look. “It’s another thing I’d explain if I had more time—I want you to know that you don’t have to worry about defending Bright against the bulbs anymore—but I also need your help.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Evander refocuses. “What do you need?”
“Actually… I need Talsa to tell me where Nathaniel’s weapon is.”
Talsa’s thunderbird has drawn closer to us during my conversation with Evander, its wings swishing in time with Cadence’s, a synchronized movement that allows them to fly close together. All three thunderbirds appear to be deep in silent conversation and I’m relieved for Treble. The other thunderbirds shut him out before. Now, I’m sure he’s telling them everything he saw in Fell country—everything that happened. Because Talsa is a Dusk fae who can commune with animals, Talsa’s thunderbird will be able to relay everything to her after we leave.
Talsa becomes very pale as she considers my request for information about the halberd. “Aura… I don’t think it’s a good idea…”
I sense her reluctance to give me information, but I won’t accept evasion. She’s one of the few fae whom I trusted before Nathaniel entered my life—especially after I found out that she and Evander had decided to commit to each other. I try to soften my voice, but I can’t kee
p the hard edge from it. “Don’t keep the truth from me, Talsa. I’m done accepting lies.”
She presses her lips together. “Nathaniel’s weapon is being stored beneath the Inner Sanctuary. I only know this because…” Her gaze flicks to Evander, who is suddenly tense beside me. “I was trying to find out what happened to Crispin.”
“Crispin?” My question is sharp. The last time I saw my adoptive father was after Nadina threatened him at his home in the western mountains. He and the Springtime fae had spoken up about the boys in the mountain community who were allowed to die from the Ebon Rot. When the men in the mountain community spoke up, Imatra threatened their homes and their lives.
I now suspect that Imatra was draining the boys’ bodies to feed her dark magic—not in small, collective amounts like Cyrian does, but in a concentrated, targeted way that quickly killed the children she drained.
“What has Imatra done to Crispin?” I ask.
“The Queen imprisoned your father beneath the Inner Sanctuary,” Talsa says. “He disappeared, but nobody knew where he was. Then I overheard a conversation between Nadina and the Queen last night, and I followed Nadina into the Sanctuary. There’s a hidden panel at the back, similar to the one between your room and the Queen’s. The Queen doesn’t dare kill Crispin before the fight in case you hear about it and retaliate. Her future rests in your hands.”
Anger rises inside me. I recognize it in the sudden heat within my chest: sharp, biting flickers. “She continues to play games with me.”
“Nadina caught me while I was trying to free Crispin,” Talsa says, her shoulders hunching. She gestures around the group. “We’ve all failed or disobeyed the Queen in one way or another. So she sent us out here to die protecting the border. Now that night has fallen… Evander, Calida, and Serena will weaken. I don’t think we would have survived the next batch of glitter bulbs.”
I scan their faces as they glide down and draw level with us. Serena, the former champion, is a Solstice fae who failed to kill Nathaniel on the first day. Calida, also a Solstice fae, failed to defeat me in the arena to become the new champion. That was in addition to the constant trouble her family was causing the Queen. Mia is the Captain of the Queen’s Night Guard, but she spilled secrets about the Queen to me at the celebration ball after the Winter Ascending.