Elyria faced the celestial. “Will they be safe here?” She looked pointedly from Kit to Zephyr to Thraigg to Nox. In the light of all they’d endured in the Crucible, one part of the prophecy was patently clear: two bloods, two people, were needed to earn the crown. This must have been why the Arbiter—whyAurelia—had urged them toward unity from the beginning. Two had to be deemed worthy.
You are the only one among them who is worthy.
Despite Evander’s words, or perhaps because of them, Elyria wasn’t entirely convinced that she was. But she couldn’t let that stop her from trying.
“No further harm will befall them,” said Aurelia, her many voices aligned in solemnity. “I swear it.”
Elyria worried her bottom lip between her teeth, still hesitant.
“It has to be you two, Elle,” Zephyr said, voice quiet. She slipped a green hand into Elyria’s unbandaged one, then did the same to Cedric. “Take this to the end. For all of us.”
“Aye,” said Thraigg, exhaustion evident in the way he leaned heavily on his hammer. “We’ll keep an eye on Kit. Ye just focus on workin’yer magic like ye have all along, eh?”
“Claim the crown, Revenant,” added Nox, another flash of fang appearing as they grinned at Elyria. “After all, you’ve already been through the first three quarters of hell at this point. What’s one more?”
The corners of Elyria’s eyes burned as Zephyr drew their hands together, placing Elyria’s in Cedric’s before stepping back. Bolstering warmth flowed into Elyria from the contact, hot resolve surging from the place their skin met.
Thattugin her chest pulsed.
She squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back, looking at their linked hands with an expression that danced on the line between surprise and affection. And maybe she imagined it, but something greater than that too.
Elyria cleared her throat, slipping on her proudest, most imperious mask. “Well,thisbitter rival”—she waved a hand down her front—“is quite done with wading through ‘heartbreaking ends’ and would very much like to get on with the ‘bring the dawn,’ portion of the show.” She met Cedric’s eye—that ring of gold in his bold brown eyes burning into her own. “Think our two bloods will do, Ric?”
She thought his eyes might’ve widened at her use of his nickname, but he did little more than grunt his assent, reaching for his sword before Aurelia cut him off with a gentle click of her tongue.
“You won’t be needing that,” she said, before gesturing toward the shimmering door.
Elyria gave the celestial a quizzical look but did not protest, putting down the dagger sheaths she had begun to strap to her thighs.
Aurelia’s voice carried through the chamber like a dozen whispers on a soft wind as she went on to say, “Come, champions. The crown awaits.”
48
A LONG WALK
CEDRIC
By the timeCedric and Elyria emerged on the other side of the door, Aurelia was nowhere to be seen. Cedric kept his hand wrapped tightly around Elyria’s, feeling exposed without the sword normally slung at his hip. He would never admit it, but he was also afraid of what might happen if he let her go. Like she might very well disappear if he did.
She held on just as tight, and for the life of him, he could not discern what she was thinking as the two of them strode forward down a long corridor. Night had fallen, and as moonlight filtered in through high windows, mixing with the flickering torches lining the walls, Cedric was hit with a powerful wave of deja vu.
The feeling deepened as Elyria began humming, adelicate melody that seemed to match the tone of the ancient magic vibrating around them. For a moment Cedric was in another corridor, under another beam of moonlight. He was perched on a bench of stone, the most mesmerizing song drifting into his ears. He was looking up and seeingher.
In the present, he glanced at their hands, still laced together, hanging between them as they walked, their footsteps echoing off the stone walls on either side of them.
“I owe you an apology.”
Cedric’s gaze flew back to Elyria’s face—her furrowed brow, the tick of her jaw. “Why? For what?”
“For many things,” she said. “For berating your indecision outside the labyrinth. For doing the same thing, for freezing, when Ev-Evander...” She closed her eyes for a heartbeat. “It took me entirely too long to act, to do what needed to be done. Even after he hurt Kit like that, even while he was fighting you all, I just?—”
“I know,” Cedric said. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Because he did know. He knew the paralysis that came with the knowledge that the lines one had drawn in their head might have been wrong all along. That nothing in here was as simple as it was out there. Humans versus Arcanians, past versus present. In here, it all blended together, a muddy whirlpool of rights and wrongs, of actions and wishes.
It was why he’d hesitated to act when Belien and Leona charged into the labyrinth, even after Gael was hurt.
“Betraying your own kind. Becoming atraitor. And for what? So they can steal the crown right out of your hands when you make it to the end?”
