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“He’s very powerful, and Cyrene must have a very strong grip on him. I don’t blame her; he’s an asset she can’t afford to lose.”
“I thought we could do it. I want it, Nylah. At least, I thought he did. Isn’t it a matter of will power?”
“It is,” Nylah said, nodding slowly. “He’s very powerful, and it might not be that simple.”
“Apparently not.” I hung my head. “I thought we could do it, but it went wrong, and now…” Tears welled in my eyes.
“There’s more to it than just Erol’s journey back to the light, isn’t there?” Nylah asked.
I nodded, knotting my fingers together.
“I love him,” I said. “And…” More tears streamed down my cheeks. “I think it’s too late. I think it’s over.”
“Tell me what happened,” Nylah said, sipping her tea when we were finally alone.
“Erol is my mate, but because of Cyrene’s hold on him, we will never be together. But it’s not just about me, even though I want to be with him more than anything. The kingdom is at risk because he can’t let go of the darkness. Even if we can’t be together, I want him to come back to the light. But now, it seems impossible.”
Nylah’s brows drew together in a frown, so I started from the beginning. I went all the way back to when I’d run into Erol in the palace hallways in Jasfin and what I’d felt then. The spark, the light, the small flicker of hope that had started everything that had followed.
As I talked, tears flowed, and I didn’t try to stop them. I might have, in any other circumstance, but the pain was real, and it had been days since I’d seen Erol last.
“He cut me off, blocking our bond,” I finally said through my tears. “I don’t know what to make of it. The bond was forged, and that doesn’t happen when it’s not real, does it? It has to be real.”
“Terra doesn’t take the bond lightly,” Nylah said, though she seemed hesitant.
“But?” I asked, urging her to finish her thought.
She took a deep breath, studying my face. “I don’t know how it works when one of you is a Conjurite. The mate bond between two Fae is already partly a riddle; no one truly knows how it works. When one party is a Conjurite, it might change everything. I’m so sorry I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for.”
It wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear from Nylah. I’d needed her to tell me something I could hold onto. I’d hoped for an answer that would set my soul at ease. Right now, I felt torn apart, shattered into a thousand pieces. I was sick with worry about Erol. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he okay?
Without the mate bond between us to find him, to know what he was feeling, I was left completely in the dark.
It was ironic, since he was the one captured in darkness, not me. Still, I felt lost and alone, forgotten, wandering without a beacon to lead me home.
“Did he truly love me?” I asked. “Was it all a lie, a game that his Conjurite side enjoyed? I feel like he played with me—he’s a cat, and I was a naïve, trusting little mouse. What if he just got bored with me and cast me aside when the game got tiring?”
Nylah frowned, watching my face as she listened to my words. It didn’t look like she was looking atme, though. It was like she looked right through me. Her face changed, and her eyes glowed and churned so that I didn’t know the depths of them. I was too scared to find out, so I looked away. The power Nylah possessed, although good, was terrifying in how strong it was. She was closer to Terra than anyone alive that I knew of, and it was scary to be that close to the Goddess.
Nylah turned her head toward the window, but what she saw wasn’t in this realm.
“Hazel, young one, fear not,” she said in a strange voice. “From pain sprouts joy, and from sacrifice sprouts everlasting life. You walk in the shadows, but this is not the end. The light will prevail. Stand strong, child. The darkness is thick, but it is always darkest before the dawn. A new sun will rise, and you will look back at the night and wonder why you feared it so.”
Those weren’t the words of Nylah herself. She’d spoken with the words of the Goddess Terra.
She blinked her eyes, and when she looked at me again, Nylah’s eyes were her own.
“It doesn’t feel like everything will be okay,” I admitted.
“I know.” Nylah leaned forward and hugged me, holding on tightly. “It never does, but Terra is true to her word, and she wouldn’t have offered a vision, a prophecy, if it wouldn’t come true. Have faith, my friend. You’ll be okay.”
“Will we learn how to do this? Will Terra show us an easier way to help the Conjurites, a better way to help Erol find his way back?”
“Terra reveals all in good time. I trust her when she says that this isn’t the end.”
I wanted to believe that it was true. Terra had always come through for us before; her prophecies had never been wrong.
I just didn’t know if it meant that Erol and I would end up together, if he cared about me at all. The words were only that the darkness would pass. Did that mean that my time with Erol would end, too?
