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Apparently not.
Cedric ran the locket along its chain, from one side of his neck to the other. Nox recalled how they’d offered to hide it in the shadows, to keep it safe alongside other precious things, but the knightling had politely refused. They supposed they understood why.
Zephyr shuffled a few paces into the room before lifting her doe-like eyes and meeting multiple glares with a roll of her shoulders. “Elder Larkess has agreed to undo the locket’s transfiguration. She knows how we can restore the crown.”
Kit scoffed. “So you can steal it again?”
Zephyr’s spine stiffened. “No, so Cedric can claim it in earnest. It’s his anyway.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she added, “It always was.”
The knightling cleared his throat. “Once the crown is claimed, Aurelia should be freed from the Sanctum. She can help us find Malakar. She will help us find her.”
“You make many assumptions about just how willing the celestials are to intervene in mortal affairs.” Nox stroked a finger down the side of one of their horns. It was not a terrible idea, as far as ideas went. Still, if anyone knew what the celestials were capable of, the depths of their spite and possessiveness . . .
Cedric inhaled sharply. “She owes us.”
Nox decided not to voice their doubt that the banished star god would see it that way. After all, who were they to know how Aurelia would or wouldn’t react? She was not her siblings—that much was evident.
“So, back to Elderglade, then?” Jocelyn’s voice cut through the chatter that had started to rumble through the group.
Cedric looked at Zephyr, and they both nodded. “Some of us to Elderglade,” he said, voice strengthening. “Some of us will need to keep an eye on things here”—he looked at Tenny, who gave a tight nod, then at Ollie and Jocelyn—“while others chase down additional leads. I will not leave anything to chance, not when it comes to this.”
Not when it comes to her.
The words were unspoken, but they trailed through each member of the group like a bolstering wind.
“Whatever you need, Ric,” said Tristan.
The others nodded in agreement, and Nox tracked the color returning to the knightling’s cheeks—as though just having some semblance of a plan, this renewed purpose, was already bringing him back to himself.
And that was good, mused the nocterrian.
Because if anything was going to turn the tide in the battles sure to come, it would be him.
It would be them both.
The Phoenix and the Revenant, sun and shadow. Forged in fire and bound by something deeper than blood. But . . . perhaps bound by blood eventually too. As long as they could get her back.
Nox let their gaze drift once more around the room—to each face, shining with the barest hint of hope, then to the shadowcat prowling between legs, and finally out the broken window to the horizon that lay beyond the city. The echoes of the prophecy rang in their mind, a refrain that was equal parts hopeful and horrifying:
A shattered crown shall be united, a sundered land restored.
A severed people shall be made whole—or fall to darkness once more.
“Malakar will want to reignite his war,” Nox said. “The storm is coming.”
Cedric’s hand moved from the locket to a spot between his neck and shoulder, his palm lying over his collarbone. He held it there, the air pulsing with promise. “And so are we.”
PART I
DARK
1
THE VOID
ELYRIA
Six weeks after the events at Seastone
