Kit groaned, what little color remained leaching from her face. She needed that healernow.
Cedric turned to Elyria. “Go,” he told her. “I will return to Havensreach. I’ll need to explain everything that happened here to Lord Church, to...to the king. Perhaps they will know something of Varyth Malchior’s movements, will have some information we can use to track them down.” His voice was as solemn as he could make it when he added, “I will not let either of them get away with this.”
A promise.
A vow.
Elyria’s throat bobbed, reluctance written into every silver fleck in her eyes, but she nodded. “Try not to get yourself killed while I’m not around to save your ass, will you?”
Cedric huffed a laugh. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
For a moment, they stood there, a silent understanding—a silentfarewell—passing between them. Cedric wanted to reach for her, wanted to feel the grounding touch of her one final time. There was so much they’d never had the chance to talk about. So much they never would. Because the next thing he knew, Elyria was slinging Kit’s other arm over her shoulder and with one final meeting of emerald-green and golden brown, she walked away.
“Sounds like you havea lotto catch me up on, Ric.” Tristan’s buoyant words had perhaps a touch of caution laced between them as he pulled Cedric into a quick embrace, rapping his fist three times on his back.
Cedric was surprised to feel the inner corners of his eyes pricking when Tristan released him.
“Seems like an understatement,” Hargrave said, clapping Cedric on the shoulder.
“Should make for an entertaining trip home,” Thibault added from a few feet away. The distance he maintained made Cedric realize that both Nox and Aurelia still lingered nearby.
“What will you do?” Cedric asked the nocterrian, who was tracking Elyria, Kit, and Thraigg’s exit from the hall. It wasn’t until they passed through the doorway and disappeared from sight that the nocterrian answered. It wasn’t much of an answer at that.
“I’m afraid it’s back to the shadows for me,” they said, and with a final look at the vanishing form of Aurelia and no further explanation, they stepped into a shadow and disappeared.
The celestial had nearly faded, her white robes translucent. Through them, Cedric could see the Gate, no longer glowing, no longer beckoning. Sealed. Locked. Forever, he supposed.
And thank the stars for that, he thought.
“It is not over,” she said, and once more, Cedric found himself doubting the star god’s claim that she was not, in fact, omniscient. Sorrow filled every layer of her voice. “I fear it has only just begun. There is still much darkness ahead if we are to usher in a new dawn.”
Cedric inhaled deeply. “As dawn brings a new day,” he replied, citing the prophecy. But Aurelia was already gone, faded into the ether, swept back into her prison.
Tristan, Thibault, and Hargrave surrounded Cedric in a protective halo as they made their way to the end of the hall, navigating through the few spectators that lingered. They surged forward with their questions, requests, demands. Cedric did his best to answer what he could, to provide reassurance where he was able. And it wasn’t until he passed through the city gates at the entrance to the Lost City—no longer lost—that he dug down deep inside himself, searching for the light at the end of that tether, still tied somewhere behind his ribs.
The Arcanian and human traveler camps were still assembled to his left and right as he exited Luminaria. Cedric let his gaze travel across each in turn, before turning his eyes to the horizon where an unspoken promise held fast, stretching across the distance like a golden thread.
58
RESOLUTION
ELYRIA
Eight weeks later
Aerithia had always beena little too bright for Elyria’s liking. She stood on the balcony of her room at the Ravenswing estate, a cool coastal breeze lifting the ends of her loose hair as she stared out at the city. Her eyes roamed over the white stone streets, arched bridges, and gold-domed roofs of Nyrundelle’s capital, gleaming under dusk’s lavender sky. It all seemed too cultivated, a little too pristine. Too unlike the rest of the realm.
During the years Elyria spent living here with Evander and Kit, she’d never felt wholly like she fit in. Even now, with an air of cautious optimism palpable in the streets, rumors regarding the tenuous truce struck between King Lachlandris and KingCallum in the wake of the Crucible’s completion whispered at every corner, Elyria still felt that deeply rooted sense ofunbelonging.
True to his word, Cedric appeared to have told his noble lord the truth of what happened in the Sanctum. Of what they’d learned. That the Crucible had awarded only one part of the Crown of Concord, and that Varyth Malchior had been exerting his dark influence for too long. That Princess Selenae had not only escaped Malakar’s wrath but might still be somewhere out there with the other half right now.
Lord Church told the human king, who, shockingly, believed the whole tale. Both kings did, in fact. Elyria learned from Kit’s mother—the duchess—that Nyrundelle had been the first to extend the olive branch to the humans, willing to cede part of the Midlands for access to Havensreach’s shores, that they might seek out Varyth and the Cult of Malakar.
Tensions were still heightened, the average citizens clearly waiting for the metaphorical boot to drop, but things were...changing. Reported skirmishes between Arcanians and humans in the Midlands were fewer and fewer, the last breath of a dying storm. The kingdoms had performed their first successful prisoner exchange since the Shattering. And though peace had descended upon Nyrundelle with all the pomp and circumstance of a sloppy coat of paint, it appeared that Aurelia’s appeals to the value of unity had, in fact, had a foundation.
Ever the realist, Elyria suspected both sides had their own, very specific, very opposing, reasons for the agreement. Surely both kings had every intention of claiming both halves of the crown, and who knew how long this fragile peace would last once their location was discovered. All the more reason Elyria was determined to ensure she would be the one to discover it.
Her end goal had not changed. Celestial power did not belong in mortal hands. She would unite the crown and seal the Chasms, one way or another, and find a way to destroy it after. She would find Zephyr or find Varyth Malchior, possibly—hopefully—both.
