Alex’s heart stopped. “What?”
Zain’s face showed a storm of emotions. Fury, pain, fear, sadness. It hurt Alex’s eyes just to look at him, and when he didn’t respond, she dreaded the worst.
“Zain, please tell me,” she rasped out.
He swallowed and said, “King Astophe is dead.”
No. Not Astophe. Alex closed her eyes as images of him flew across her mind, from the first time she met him and felt the comfort of his presence, to all the times they shared together in the past—the dinners, the breakfasts, the moments in between. A sharp pain punctured her chest when she remembered how he’d patiently taught her how to play Stix, acting like a proud parent every time she’d won a match. Hours and hours they had played together—but never again.
“What happened?” she somehow managed to ask.
Zain’s jaw was clenched so tight that Alex feared he’d break it. “The king was slain by the sword of the traitor Niyx.”
Alex felt the room spin around her. “What?”
“His fellow Garseth found a way to free him from Taevarg and he went straight for the palace,” Zain said in a hollow voice. “It was the surprise of it all, I think, that gave him the advantage. From what I hear, when he burst into the throne room, the full council was in attendance, but they were all too stunned by his appearance to stop him from throwing himself at the king, spearing a blade right through Astophe’s heart. He died instantly. And in the chaos, the murderous traitor managed to disappear.”
No. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
NIYX! she screamed in her mind. Niyx, answer me, damn it!
But there was no response, no matter how loud she yelled for him.
With watery eyes, she focused back on Zain and, remembering his earlier words, forced herself to ask, “Roka?”
Zain’s eyes closed in one slow, defeated motion, and Alex felt a sob well in her throat.
“He’s still alive.”
She slumped forward with relief. “Oh, Zain. For a moment there, I thought—”
“He’s also… not.”
Her breath hitched. “What—What do you mean?”
Zain stood despairingly to his feet. “Come. I’ll show you.”
On leaden legs, Alex rose and followed him out of the tent and into the crisp, winter air. She had to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sun, blinking to clear her vision, but when she was able to properly see where she was standing, she felt her body lock with recognition. It looked so different to when she’d last been there, covered now in snow as it was. The crescent of mountains still looked the same, with their white-capped peaks, but they reached down to touch a dead meadow reminiscent of a desolate icy tundra, the bioluminescent flowers now a lifeless, sickly grey.
Turning away from the miserable wasteland until her eyes stretched over the open horizon, Alex had to bite her cheek to keep from releasing a sound of anguish at the sight before her. The once vibrant Draekora was now reduced to a bunch of crumpling, ruinous islands. The thriving forests were dead. The lakes had dried up. Even the volcanoes no longer spurted with fiery life. It was as if when the draekons disappeared, they’d taken the heart of Draekora with them.
“Where—” Alex cleared her throat against the raspy sound of her voice and asked the question expected of her. “Where are we, Zain?”
“On one of the floating islands of Draekora, far above the city of Meya, a land abandoned long ago,” Zain said, gesturing for her to follow as he moved through what looked like a makeshift settlement filled with Myrox tents and huts of all shapes and sizes. “We had to find a safe place to set up a resistance now that Aven has taken over leadership of Meya. Or as safe a place as possible.”
Alex’s steps stuttered. “Aven’s taken Meya?”
Zain gave a terse nod. “With Astophe dead and Roka… indisposed… Aven had free claim to the throne.”
“But… What about Niida?”
Hands clenching into fists at his side, Zain said, “The queen was inconsolable with the death of her king and the state of her eldest son. She welcomed Aven back with open arms, surrendering herself and all those unable to escape in time. This”—he indicated towards the scant number of Meyarins wandering shell-shocked throughout the camp—“is all who managed to get away. A handful of Zeltora and a small number of council members, court officials and citizens. There are maybe fifty of us who were able to escape before…”
“Before what, Zain?”
“Before he had his telekinetic humans immobilise our race so he could begin to Claim them all, one after the other,” Zain answered, his eyes pained with the devastation of what Aven had done. “By now, every Meyarin not here with us will be at his mercy, bound to him forevermore.”
The enormity of what he’d just said almost brought Alex to her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself, her body shaking uncontrollably at the nightmare they now faced. If Aven had unlimited, unrestricted control over the immortal beings, what chance did the rest of the world have? How could she possibly stop the apocalyptic vision of the future from coming true when he had so much power at his disposal?
“The only reason any of us managed to get out in time is because, after what happened to Roka, we knew we had to get him away, get him somewhere secure, so we were already on the move when they struck. With Aven’s disinherited blood still invalidated as long as Roka remains alive, he can’t access the Valispath to reach us here. While he could command one of his Claimed Meyarins to deliver him—since their own blood still enables them to use the Eternal Path—he won’t risk not having his own means of escape at hand. Because of that, Draekora is the safest, most isolated place for us to rally ourselves and consider what must next be done.”
Alex could tell from his tone that he had no clue what they would do. What they could do.
Niyx, please—I need you to answer me, she called in her mind, desperate to hear from him, but there was still no response.
Rendered silent by the shock of everything Zain had told her—everything that, for him, had happened in the few hours she’d been unconscious—Alex followed mutely as he led her into a circular tent much larger than the one she’d awoken in. There were three people inside, but she barely spared a glance at Kyia and, strangely, Lady Mystique. She only looked at Roka, whose prone body lay so still that he was seemingly lifeless.
Ungluing her legs, Alex walked shakily over to his bedside, staring down in dismay. She couldn’t reconcile this unmoving image of Roka with what she knew of him. He was so full of life, so full of energy… But now… Now something was very wrong with him.
Unable to ask the question, Alex found comfort in watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.
She felt a soft flutter against her hand as trembling fingers entwined with hers, and she forced her eyes up from Roka to look at Kyia standing vigil beside her, her body visibly shaking. The female Meyarin’s clothes were ripped and her normally immaculate hair was like a haystack around her head, but it was the dried tear tracks on her cheeks that revealed the depths of her grief as she looked down upon her beloved.
Alex’s gaze travelled across to Zain and Lady Mystique who stood on Roka’s other side, both of them staring solemnly at the fallen prince.
Pulling herself together, Alex finally managed to whisper, “What happened to him?”
Kyia’s hand twitched in hers but the Meyarin didn’t loosen her grip.
“When the draekon was somehow pulled through the Void,” Zain said, and Alex’s eyes flicked instantly to Lady Mystique, who responded with a slight shake of her head to indicate that no one knew the Tia Auran had been the one to open the abrassa for Aven, “Roka took off to find you, Alex. He was certain his brother was involved, so Kyia and I followed him. But unbeknownst to us, the draekon had already flown you to safety.”
Zain closed his eyes and continued. “We ran into some of Aven’s gifted humans in the forest, ones his Garseth brought through to Meya on the Valispath. It was sheer luck that n
one of the humans we crossed paths with had gifts able to incapacitate us, and we dispatched them with ease. But during the process, we were separated. Kyia and I ended up in one place, Roka in another. And he…” Zain trailed off, unable to say more.
Lady Mystique continued for him. “Roka ran into Aven—and me, though I was struggling to work my way out of chains at the time.”
She held out her hands, showing Alex the painful-looking black welts seared into her flesh. The traesos coils hadn’t done that to Alex—but then again, she wasn’t Tia Auran. Who knew what effects the dark matter had on other beings?
“With us were a handful of Meyarin Rebels but also another human,” Lady Mystique continued. “One with a gift the likes of which I’ve never seen nor heard of before.”
Alex knew that was saying a lot, coming from her, and none of it was good.
“Aven was furious over losing the draekon,” the old woman said, “but with his ultimate goal being to take the throne, Roka’s appearance was an unanticipated boon. He already had someone in place to take out the king”—Zain was quick to snarl Niyx’s name, but Lady Mystique ignored him with deliberation and continued—“but he hadn’t dreamed he’d be able to get rid of them both at once.” Her tone suggested she struggled to believe it herself. “Roka was always the more capable of the two when it came to a fair fight. So when they engaged in battle, Aven soon turned to cheating.”
Alex’s eyes flicked down to Roka then back up to Lady Mystique again. “What did he do?”
“The human who was with him, a man named Grimm Helkin, he… did something to Roka,” Lady Mystique said, her eyes filled with sorrow. “One minute Roka had nearly overcome Aven, the next Aven ordered Grimm to incapacitate his brother. I may not have been able to break free in time to prevent it, but I did manage to escape just in time to save Roka from the killing strike of Aven’s blade.”
Kyia’s hand twitched in Alex’s again, and Alex tightened her grip, sending as much strength towards her friend as she could muster.
“I delivered him to Kyia and Zain, telling them to get as many people out of the city as possible, certain that Aven would head straight there,” Lady Mystique said. “In return, I promised I would find you and bring you safely to Draekora.”
Sudden understanding washed over Alex at the meaningful look in the old woman’s eyes. The reason she was magically back in the winter clothes she’d worn on her varrungard, the reason no one had questioned why she’d been found wrapped in a blanket in the cell of an escaped prisoner—an escaped murderer—was because Lady Mystique had covered for her.
Overwhelmed by the lengths to which the Tia Auran had gone to protect her—or so she presumed, though really, Alex had no way to be sure of the woman’s true motives—all Alex could do was send her a small smile, which was returned, if sadly.
“I only had a chance to examine Roka properly after we all arrived here,” Lady Mystique continued, her voice quiet. Careful. “From what I gather, the diagnosis is… not good.”
“But he’s alive, right?” Alex asked. “I can see him breathing—that means he’s alive.”
“Yes, child, he’s alive,” the woman confirmed softly.
“So, what? He’s just unconscious?” Alex looked at the downcast faces around her. “I don’t get it—he’s a Meyarin. If he’s not dead, then surely whatever this is can be fixed. Why don’t you just force some laendra down his throat and… encourage him to wake up?”
Lady Mystique shook her head regretfully. “He’s not injured, Alexandra. There are no wounds to heal.”
Alex read into the words she wasn’t saying—if there was nothing wrong with him, then not even a blood-bonding ritual could be used to wake him.
“Then what’s wrong with him?” she demanded.
“He’s in a coma, Alex,” Zain answered quietly. “The gifted human Grimm Helkin did something to shut down his mind and send him into a deep sleep.”
Kyia’s grip on Alex turned painful, but Alex didn’t try and loosen her fingers, relieved to have them as an anchor.
“How do we help him?” she whispered out. “How do we wake him?”
“We kill Aven,” Zain said in a hard, unrelenting voice. “Then those he has Claimed will be free, as will the effects of their gifts.”
“No!” Alex blurted out, her tone shrill. “You can’t do that!” When Zain’s eyes narrowed into slits, she quickly explained, “If you kill Aven, you won’t be freeing those he’s Claimed—you’ll be killing them.”
It was Kyia who spoke then, a broken whisper of sound. “What?”
Alex turned to her. “The link between them—if you hurt Aven in any way, that will funnel out to everyone he’s connected to. Ignoring the unspeakable fact that most of your race is now Claimed and would be wiped out in one go, consider the idea that if the bonded humans die, we don’t know what that would mean for their gifts. It could swing either way—with Roka awakening, or with him remaining like this forever.”
Kyia’s already pale face turned so white that Alex worried she’d collapse to the floor. Zain too looked stricken. Lady Mystique merely held Alex’s eyes in support.
“If we can’t kill Aven, then does that mean all hope is lost?” Kyia whispered.
“All hope is never lost,” Alex said firmly, unsure where her confidence was coming from but knowing someone had to offer it to them. “We just have to find a way to free everyone from his bond before we defeat him.”
Said like that, Alex realised how ridiculous it sounded, especially since it was unlikely he would willingly Release any of his captives, which meant they had to hope like crazy that they would find one of Niyx’s revered loopholes before too much damage was done.
“Look,” she said, reading the disbelieving faces around her. “It’s obviously a work in progress. For now, what we have to do is focus on keeping Aven contained long enough for us to figure out how to save them all. He’s going to start going after the mortals soon, as we always knew he would”—the vision of burning cities and screaming people of all races filled her head again and she shook away a shiver—“so we need to do what we can to prepare them for what might be coming.”
Alex’s eyes returned to look down at Roka as a rough plan came to mind. “The humans of Medora have an active military force, and while I know they won’t stand much of a chance against the power of Meya”—and she did know that, mostly because she’d seen it—“there are other races on this planet too, right? Shadow Walkers, Flips, Jarnocks… Plenty of other beings who we can rally to our side.”
Zain was shaking his head. “They won’t aid us. Aven presents no threat to them.”
“But he does,” Alex said, knowing from her vision that it was true. “He despises humans most, but his hatred is so strong that his vendetta is against all mortals, spilling out to the other races.”
And all because of me, Alex’s mind whispered, but she swatted her thoughts away, unable to deal with that right now—perhaps never.
“What are you suggesting we do, Alex?” Zain asked, crossing his arms. “Create an army of mortals to defend against him until we can find the means to free those under his command and thus strip him of his power?”
Alex ignored his derisive tone and simply said, “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She then looked around the tent that was definitely a far cry from the Meyarin palace and amended, “Or, that’s what I’m going to do. You have to make sure Roka stays safe up here from Aven. Because even if you don’t think he’ll have someone use the Valispath to bring him here, that’s not a risk we can afford to take.”
Zain and Kyia stared at her like she was mad. Lady Mystique, however, wore a small, satisfied smile.
“Since we now have a plan,” the old woman said, “I think it’s time for Alexandra to return to the academy.” With her eyes on Alex, she finished, “If my timing is correct, your classmates will soon be arriving back from holidays in preparation for your classes to begin again tomorrow.”
Incre
dulous, Alex just responded with, “You’re joking, right? I can’t go back to Akarnae—not now!”
The woman’s gaze was firm on hers when she said, “I can’t stress the importance of this enough, Alexandra. Right now, there is no place safer for you than at the academy and within close proximity to the Library. Not to mention, you’ll need easy access to the doorways so you can visit the other races inhabiting Meya. All the while, naturally, keeping on top of your studies.”
With her last words, Zain lost his morose composure and snorted. Kyia also managed a slight curl of her lips. Alex, while pleased to see them lighten even if just a little, still couldn’t believe Lady Mystique thought that after everything that had happened, she should go back to her classes. Yes, she desperately longed for the comfort Akarnae provided and she couldn’t wait to see her friends and family again, but with what lay ahead…
“Have no fear, child, for all shall work out just as it should.”
Alex’s gaze shot back to Lady Mystique when she reverted to the melodic language of her people, repeating words she’d said just weeks ago—but really millennia ago.
The old woman gave a knowing wink to Alex before she nodded at Kyia and Zain, placed a gentle hand to Roka’s cheek, and, with a flash of light, promptly disappeared from sight.
Not even blinking at what Alex still considered a seriously weird but increasingly common happenstance, Zain sighed and looked over at her.
“It would take a stronger Meyarin than I to go against the wishes of the great Aes Daega,” he said, moving away from Roka’s side and gesturing for Alex to follow. “Come, little human. Let’s do as she said and get you back to Akarnae.”
With a nod of resigned agreement, Alex leaned down and pressed a kiss to Roka’s cheek, whispering a promise into his ear that she would find a way to wake him. She then turned and hugged Kyia tightly, the Meyarin trembling only slightly now, and Alex offered her the same whispered promise, feeling Kyia’s arms wrap even tighter in response. When they broke apart, Alex wiped away a single tear and followed Zain outside, stepping close as he activated the Valispath to leave Draekora behind.