Chapter Thirteen

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN

‘Now, who might you be?’

I zone in and out of focus as Hira speaks from her throne. I watch as her lips move, as her fire eyes flame from anger and I do nothing to fix it.

‘Now, who might you be?’

My head slants to the side as another phoenix named Col, seated beside Hira on a winged throne, shakes her head in disapproval.

‘Now, who might you be?’

The third phoenix, Ara, can’t even look at me.

‘You disobeyed a direct order!’ Hira slams her staff against the marbled flooring, and I think she expects me to flinch, to react, to at least show how worried I should be. ‘Do you realise the dangers that my people face now that you have the stones?’

Col scoffs. ‘Aurum won’t show mercy; he will come here, swords at the ready, to take back those stones and his nephew, and when he does, you know we cannot take any more responsibility. We’ve already risked too much by letting Hira take so many of you into our land.’

I bite the inside of my cheek. The thought has already crossed my mind one too many times. ‘The treaty no longer exists. If you choose not to fight, then you are no better than Aurum,’ I say, and I notice Hira shake her head at me.

‘You should never sacrifice yourself for love, Nara. It does not end well.’

What she says sparks something rageful inside of me, and I cannot tamp it down in time. ‘I didn’t just do it for love,’ I snap. ‘I did it for everyone.’

Hira’s steely gaze does not falter as I march towards the three Aerians seated in place.

‘Our world is slowly dying, Hira,’ I say. ‘Soon, the real threat won’t be Aurum; it will be that our crops are dying, the animals struggling, and we are fending for what is left of it all. So, yes, maybe it was selfish of me to go after Darius when he doesn’t even remember who I am, but I do not regret it. Sometimes, a sacrifice must be made, and I chose what I felt was right. We were only delaying what would come sooner or later.’

The following silence feels heavy against my chest as the three leaders ponder my words. I’m unsure what to do with my hands or legs as I stand there waiting for them to berate me for talking this way to such Aerian warriors. Warriors who can tear me apart in their Phoenix form just as quickly.

‘You should never have brought them here, Hira.’ Col is the first to speak as she chews on her tongue with a furious gleam in her eyes. ‘You and your soft spot for humankind—’

‘Enough.’ Hira snaps her head towards Col and effectively shuts her up with just one glance. ‘Remember your place.’ As Hira looks at me, a gentle smile peels her lips back, though it is barely noticed by her sisters. ‘She is Solaris’s reincarnation, after all.’

A few quiet beats pass as relief sweeps over me. Hira has a softer soul than her siblings. I have noticed it ever since I first met her on Noctura night.

‘Well, if—’ Ara starts to say, when the double doors are pushed open and Link and Rydan burst through with Tibith.

From their dishevelled appearances and wide eyes, I instantly know what this is about.

Darius.

I’m charging down the brick stairs to where the dungeons are situated within the palace. Link, Rydan and Tibith are hot on my trail, telling me to calm down, but it’s futile to even suggest that.

‘Now, who might you be?’

I shake my head and the bright light from the sconces stings my eyes. After our attack on Aurum, my brothers took an unconscious Darius to the infirmary to rest. According to Link and Rydan, when he awoke, he began to attack Aerians despite his inability to use his powers. It took over five warriors to subdue him and throw him in a cell for their own safety.

‘Now, who might you be?’

I grab hold of the coin around my neck and clutch it tight as I stop beneath an archway where Gus stands with a torn expression on his face. Water drips from the brick ceiling, and flashbacks to the time Darius was inside Emberwell’s dungeons make my throat thicken.

‘Miss Nara, why am I not allowed to see him?’

Glancing down at my feet, I see Tibith’s big round eyes looking up at me, and my heart might as well just shatter to pieces. ‘It is safer if you stay up there with the rest,’ I say quietly, knowing that Tibith won’t understand why. He thinks Darius remembers him; he thinks it is all just a matter of Darius needing rest, and he will be better again.

I so wish it could be.

‘Ambrose,’ Rydan says. ‘Do you really think—’

‘Take him to your room and do not let him out until I am back,’ I order, and I can see it in his eyes that he wants to reason otherwise. I pin him with a stare that says I am not up to negotiating. He and Link start to turn away from me, but their gazes remain on me as they look over their shoulders. Tibith soon follows them, his head hung low and ears flopping downwards with disappointment.

I heave back a breath, squaring my shoulders before I whirl around to face Gus. ‘Please?’ My voice cracks with desperation. ‘Let me speak to him.’

‘Nara, he doesn’t—’ He’s lost for words, anger swirling in his eyes like the ones Darius beheld me with back at Aurum’s palace. ‘Whatever Aurum has done, Darius only seems to believe in another reality. One where you do not exist.’

His answer feels like I’ve been struck with a whip one too many times.

‘Now, who might you be?’

‘His life revolves around the idea that he grew up with Lorcan and Rayth, that Aurum never died, and that Tibith, you, Terranos, none of it crossed his path.’

I feel Gus’s hand touch my arm in a comforting way, and looking up at him, I make the conscious decision that whether or not he knows me, it will not stay this way for long. I promise that. ‘Then I will make him remember,’ I say and barge past Gus as I hear him sigh before calling out my name. But it is too late to start listening because, as I round the hallways of the dungeon, I pause by one of the cells where Darius sits against the wall with one knee raised to his chest and the other straight out in front of him as his head lolls back.

The small, barred window above him doesn’t let in much light, but I can still make out his face in the dimness as the flames from the sconces behind me flicker. A few skeletal bones scatter the ground, and I shake my head, despising the thought that he was brought here because he wanted to defend himself.

His eyes are closed, but he smiles as if he knows I am here. ‘I’m receiving so many visitors today,’ he drawls, deep and teasingly. He tips his head forward and gestures to the tiny space around him. ‘Welcome to my humble abode; please, come sit.’

My lungs feel as if something is compressing them, two walls closing in on me and crushing my organs. I can’t find the words I want to say, so I stare silently.

‘No?’ he says. I don’t answer. ‘Fine. Suit yourself.’ He drops his head back against the wall, quickly dismissing me.

Devastation slams across my face like a crushing blow. ‘Do you truly not know who I am?’

He pops one eye open to look at me. ‘Should I?’

I shake my head, wishing I could reach inside his mind and thrust it back to reality. A reality where he remembers me. ‘Yes, very much so.’

He stares at me. He is no longer wearing the jacket I first saw him in. It is just his shirt, unbuttoned and ripped.

‘All right.’ He suddenly rises to his feet and makes his way towards the bars. I don’t make any movement to step back, even as he closes in on me and leans against the cell wall. ‘Then what are you to me? Because I highly doubt I would be close with a mortal.’ He cocks his head to the side, a cunning smile twisting his lips as he studies me. ‘My uncle says humans are only useful for one thing: following orders. You don’t strike me as someone who follows orders.’

‘Not when they are set by your uncle.’

He chuckles. ‘You hate him.’

‘As do you.’ My heart crashes against my ribcage as I watch him tilt his head and smile at me like I am something of an oddity to him. An anomaly in this world.

‘What is your name?’

I want to scream.

Just hearing him ask me that feels like a punch to the gut. ‘You already know what my name is.’

‘I don’t think I do.’

‘Darius, I . . . We were—’ The unfinished words bottle up inside my throat before I sigh out of frustration. I turn my back to him and run a hand through my hair as I try to get a grip on myself. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?’ I slowly twist around upon his silence. It’s difficult enough having to look at him, but it’s worse knowing that when he looks at me, all he sees is a stranger. ‘We were children,’ I whisper, letting a tearful laugh escape me. ‘We played for hours, and then I gave you this coin.’ Gently, I reach for the coin necklace. His stare burns through it, yet there is no hint of reminders in his eyes. ‘It is also the first time you made me forget who you were in order to protect me.’

As I step forward, there is a severity in his eyes, and he pushes himself off the cell bars.

‘The second time we met,’ I say, ‘you were running away. We bumped into each other and dropped our carvings. The sun and the moon. Yours belonged to your mother, which she gave to you, and mine was one I’d made myself, because of how much I love to carve. Then, the third time we met was at a jewellery shop. You were stealing, and all I wanted to do was capture you. Do you remember that ?’

He eyes me with a brutal look, one that digs into the pit of my chest. I let a second go by, wondering if it is my imagination, but I know better now that what I see is finally a faint recognition as his features soften, and he turns his head to the side, finding solace in staring at the brick walls instead.

Desperation clings to me like an unwelcome guest, and from my pocket I pull out the ring Gus gave to me. ‘This ring.’ I raise it to the side of my head. ‘This ring belongs to you.’

His eyes dart to the obsidian-cut jewellery.

‘You handed it to Gus the night of your birthday. Noctura. The same night I helped you retrieve your mother’s pendant. It is made from your scales. A ring for a wedding. Our wedding.’

I wait, holding my breath before his smile turns lethal.

‘Do you want to know what I remember?’ His grip tightens around the cell bars as he tilts his head to the side and scoffs in my direction. ‘You raiding the palace and then kidnapping me. So, to answer your question, no, I don’t remember you. You mean nothing to me . . . You never will.’

The words sting to hear, and he knows it.

Embarrassment pricks the back of my eyes over how much of myself I have just laid out for him. Every moment we’ve shared is gone, vaporised from his mind. The first moment we met, the dance we shared at the Noctura ball, the den, the Screaming Forests, Terranos . . .

To keep the tears from falling, I clench my teeth and raise my chin, holding Darius’s gaze for five more seconds until I finally turn and walk away.

Gus is still there where I left him, waiting with his hands tensely plucking at his ebony hair in anticipation of my return. When he sees me again, he sighs with relief. His mouth moves as though to speak, but I pay him little attention. I know he’s telling me we’ll figure it out, but my gaze drifts to the keys at his waist that I presume unlock Darius’s cell. I think back to another time when he told me I was all but an asset to him, that I meant nothing, and it had turned out to be a lie.

‘He’s lying,’ I whisper, and Gus snaps his mouth shut as I slowly drag my eyes up to him. ‘ He’s lying .’

It all happens within a matter of seconds.

Me snatching the keys from Gus, and him yelling my name as I storm off in the direction of Darius’s cell.

‘Nara, don’t—’

I whirl and press my forearm against Gus’s chest. ‘Stay here,’ I order, and he looks as displeased as ever. ‘If I need your help, I will call for it.’

He gives me a look as though he thinks I am mad. I suppose I am. ‘He almost killed you once,’ he says, ‘Do you think he won’t try it again?’

It is a risk that I do not care about. I will happily tempt fate with Darius if it brings us a step closer to recovering his memories. ‘Two minutes,’ I say. ‘Just give me two more minutes.’

A steady beat of silence cuts between us.

He sighs. ‘Two minutes, Nara, and then I’m coming to get you.’