49
A PHOENIX RISING
ELYRIA
“What happenedto the other half of the crown?” Cedric’s question was a crack of lightning splitting the air.
For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved. Elyria looked between the knight and the elder, then to Ollie, Jocelyn, Thraigg, Shep, and even Zephyr in turn. Her brow furrowed but she kept herself from speaking into the silence, spewing an onslaught of questions all her own. It was Cedric’s turn to demand answers. He deserved them. He’d just been dealt the emotional equivalent of Polonius rear-kicking him in the chest, for fuck’s sake.
Elder Larkess blinked—slow at first, then rapidly, as if trying to clear her vision. “What do you mean?”
Cedric’s brow furrowed. “The Crown of Concord.The...half-crown? In the Sanctum, Aurelia told us that the other half was given to the lost princess. To my”—his throat bobbed—“to my mother.”
Elder Larkess took a slow step forward, her gaze narrowing, sharpening. “You don’t have it?”
A strange tightness gripped Elyria’s chest.
“No,” he said carefully. “I never had it.”
The elder’s eyes widened in alarm. “What do you mean?” she asked again. She turned to Elyria, searching her face as if hoping she might contradict the knight. “You have it, yes? Tell me you have the locket.”
Cedric blinked. “The locket?”
Elder Larkess threw her weathered hands up, her voice tinged with hysteria. “Yes! The locket! Your mother’s locket! She only wore it every day of her life.” She looked pointedly at Ashrender, slung at Cedric’s hip, then to his and Elyria’s interlocked hands and the silver ring sitting on his finger. “You have those, surely you have the locket too? Don’t you?”
When Cedric didn’t answer, her face went pale. “Earth Mother save us, if you don’t have it ...” She wrung her wrinkled hands together, pacing back and forth with a slow shuffle of her feet. When she spoke again, it was as if she was only talking to herself. “No, no, it’s all right. It’s fine. I would know. I would know if the magic had been undone. Even if it is lost, it will be?—”
“What are you talking about?” Elyria asked, cutting through the elder’s rambling.
“What does my mother’s locket have to do with the crown?” Cedric asked at the exact same time.
Larkess looked up, eyes wide as her gaze darted between them. “The locketisthe crown.”
Shocked silence settled over the group. The way Thraigg’s mouth popped open might have been comical, had the context been anything other than what it was.
“Say that again?” Elyria said, enunciating each word as though the elder was speaking another language entirely.
“The crown is the locket. The locket is the crown. Transfigured. Transformed.”
“Verdancy,” Cedric whispered, and the elder nodded.
“The Earth Mother’s blessings are many, though not all of us are able to wield them in the same way. Access to the Verdant Veil allows us to do many things. Change ourselves.” She made a point of looking at Zephyr. “Change other things, to a degree. And for a cost.” Her hands shook as she gestured to herself. “My magic has kept half of the Crown of Concord masked in the form of your mother’s locket for almost two hundred years.”
Cedric finally withdrew his fingers from Elyria’s in order to rake both hands through his hair. “I don’t—Fuck. I don’t want to say ‘I don’t understand’ again, but I don’t know what else to say. I hardly know where to begin. This is—I can’t—Fuck.”
Elyria could feel his panic, could feel the rising swell of his power, like the two were tied together and searching for an outlet, for release. And despite agreeing with his general sentiment, because she, too, was still finding this all difficult to comprehend, Elyria forced herself to remain calm. She refused to add to Cedric’s distress.
Admittedly, this was not an easy task for her in the best of times. But for him, she would try.
“Just breathe,”she said down the bond, and Cedric blew out a breath.
“I know it is a lot to digest, dear boy. To not only learn of your lineage, of your role in the prophecy”—she glanced at Zephyr—“but also of Varyth Malchior’s interest in you? And to now know the state of the crown? It is enough to break any man.”
“He is not breaking,” Elyria said sharply, and when Cedric turned to look at her, his mouth had curved up to one side.
“Because he is not just any man,” the elder said, nodding in agreement.
“Ye said a mouthful right there, that’s for sure,” Thraigg muttered under his breath, and Elder Larkess chuckled, some of the tension in the air releasing.
