Chapter 3

Karys

I didn't have to go very deep into the palace before I heard Halar's voice booming through the otherwise quiet halls.

I followed the thundering sound to the first staircase I came across, then up to a landing of white stone that shimmered in the glow from a tall window. Here, flanked on either side by statues of winged beasts, was a white door that led into a small library.

The door was cracked, so I let myself in, steeling my heart and mind against whatever venom Halar would undoubtedly fling my way.

As I stepped into the room, my gaze was immediately drawn, not to the occupants inside, but to the walls around them. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves on the walls behind and on either side of me, each one crammed full of books of all shapes and sizes, most of which were well-loved with worn bindings and little bookmarks and slips of paper notes sticking up between their pages.

Books were a rare sight in this realm, as many of the Marr had more efficient, compact methods of recalling and storing the information and stories of our world—magic methods. The Goddess of Stars and her servants, for example; they could conjure up records of realms and their inhabitants in the surfaces of certain reflective objects. The Ocean God, too, could use drops of water and similar spells to his advantage.

But some of the Marr still preferred the feel of actual books, and Dravyn was one of them. He'd once told me of the painstaking lengths he'd gone to in order to create this room, which was apparently a near-perfect replica of a space he'd loved in the mortal-realm palace he'd grown up in.

He didn't usually receive visitors in this cherished place—which seemed like further evidence that Halar must have blown in like some wild, unexpected storm.

One of the shelves to my left had evidence of his wildness: several jagged marks had been burned into the wood, as though the god had flung a handful of sparks into it. The damage was fresh—I could still sense the humming current of magic underneath. There were several books on the floor, as well, and papers scattered about.

My nerves clenched tighter. I forced myself to look past the shelves, and then past Halar himself, willing my eyes not to linger on the faint threats of electricity sparking in the air around the god.

I needed to keep my fear—and my own temper and magic—in check.

Beyond Halar, Dravyn was draped in the chair closest to the fireplace, massaging his temples. The chair was large, almost comically so in the snug room, but he still spilled out of it. Even in this easy pose he radiated poise and power, the edges of him seeming to glow with more than just the fire's light. I'd always found him imposing, but he appeared different to my ascended vision; looking at him was like opening tired eyes to the sight of a brilliant sunrise—my breath caught at the sight every time.

Halar, too, looked different. The sparking magic surrounding him was bolder. The human-like body he had shaped himself into seemed to ripple and bulge with his power, like a more terrible, more true form might burst out of his dark skin at any moment.

It had been easier to approach both of them when I was a clueless mortal with weaker eyes, blind to their true nature…there was something to be said for blissful ignorance.

I shuffled my weight from one foot to the other and took another deep, bracing breath before stepping forward.

The God of Storms spun to face me. "Speak of the demon herself."

"Mind your tongue if you'd like to keep it," Dravyn warned.

Halar ignored him and smiled at me, all sharp teeth and malice. "Were your ears burning, elf? Did you rush back to hear what I've said about you? You needn't have; I'm happy to repeat it for your benefit."

I lifted my chin, refusing to cower. "By all means," I replied, the cool smoothness of the words betraying none of the fire or fear I felt inside. "If you've something to say about me, I'd love to hear it."

The slight challenge in my tone was all the provocation the ill-tempered god needed; in the span of a breath he was inches from my face, his lightning leaping the small space between us and striking a tingling path along my skin.

I held my ground even as the buzzing power rattled my teeth and made me itch all over.

"Go on, then," I snapped.

"Answer a question for me first." He pressed even closer.

I took a single step back, caught myself, and lifted my gaze to challenge his once more. "Ask it."

"How does one live among the Velkyn for as long as you did without realizing the extent of their ambitions, their weapons, their treachery ?" he asked, still smiling his sharp smile. "Did your eyes not work before coming here?"

The question stung. I'd asked myself the same thing countless times over the past weeks, trying to come to terms with all the mistakes I'd made. All the things I'd missed. I'd yet to make peace with any of it—perhaps I never would—but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

I swallowed hard. "My eyes work fine. But the mind sees what it wants to, sometimes." Plucking courage from somewhere in the depths of my aching chest, I added, "Your eyes are much the same while looking at me, I'm afraid. They remain blind and stupid, refusing to see me for what I truly am, despite all the evidence I've given."

"Evidence…" His smile twisted. His hand lifted—

Sudden movement behind him.

And then heat. The room was engulfed in it, such an explosive rush that I nearly dropped to my knees, fighting the urge to shield my face, though it wasn't burning my skin.

Dravyn's fire had never burned me, even when I was fully mortal.

I couldn't see much past the large and looming, terrible figure that was Halar, but it was clear the God of Fire had risen to his feet. The flames in the fireplace leapt higher as well, popping and crackling, casting long shadows over the room.

"This meeting is over," came Dravyn's voice, darker than any of those shadows. The room seemed to be growing even smaller, all of the light and oxygen pulling toward Dravyn.

When he spoke again, the single word was like a door slamming in a deathly quiet night.

" Leave ."

More heat washed through the room. I felt my own magic rising in response, saw the patterns of fiery light like visible veins in my skin, bright amongst the shadows that had settled over me. I tried not to think about how little control I'd managed over those fires thus far. Books would catch much quicker than anything in the garden had…

Halar glanced back and forth between me and Dravyn. He seemed to be weighing the odds for a moment before he swept irritably to the door, pausing in front of it and turning one last glare in Dravyn's direction. "Heed what I said to you. All of it." He jerked his head my direction. "Don't let this one blind you to the truth."

And with that he was gone, slamming the door on his way out.

The room cooled. The fireplace settled; the flames shrinking in both height and intensity until they were casting a much softer, warmer glow over the room.

Dravyn stared at the door as if expecting Halar to burst back through it.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

As my pulse finally calmed—and with it, my magic—my gaze went again to the marks scorched into the shelf. "You two weren't playing nice at all, were you?"

Dravyn muttered something indistinguishable before prowling back toward his chair. He seemed to consider flopping back down upon it, but instead went to the nearby desk, bracing his arms against it and studying a large piece of parchment stretched across the shining mahogany top.

I moved closer, curious; whatever he was looking at was carving deep furrows into his brow and rapidly dulling his eyes from their usual shining silver-blue to a murky, frigid grey.

It turned out to be a map.

Before I could ask why he had it out, or what exactly concerned him about it, Dravyn spoke: "Valas found you, I'm guessing?"

I frowned. "So you did send him after me."

He didn't try to deny it. "The other courts are teeming with unease today, with a need to… act . Halar's obtained some information that's managed to get everyone riled up, all of them arguing about what to do next. It's not just the God of Storms who's restless and dangerous at the moment."

"Dangerous? Even in our own territory?"

He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as though redistributing the weight of the world sitting upon them. "These are strange times."

I considered the worry in his tone and found I couldn't come up with a convincing argument to dispel it. "And I'm a strange new piece in this puzzling place," I acquiesced, absently watching an ember as it escaped the fireplace and fell in a slow, twisting dance, landing and dying against the stone hearth.

"The strangest in quite some time." A corner of Dravyn's mouth quirked as I looked back at him.

My frown only deepened. "Still, you don't need to worry about me so much," I said. "There are more concerning things."

He gave a thoughtful hmm , almost a sound of agreement—even though he was suddenly looking at me as though I was the only thing he'd ever been concerned about.

Tilting my face away to hide my blush, I mumbled, "I can take care of myself."

"I'm well aware." He stepped closer. "But perhaps I like taking care of you." He reached for my hand, pulling me toward him. "Humor me, Wildfire."

His thumb absently stroked my palm. His other hand cupped my face as he leaned down and pressed his forehead against mine, sighing and relaxing against me.

We stayed pressed to one another for a long moment, huddling against the outside forces threatening us.

I might have stayed like that all afternoon, letting him lean more fully into me and trying to shift some of his worry to my own shoulders—but I was also determined to keep the conversation on track. To find out more about what he'd been discussing with the God of Storms.

"It's all just venting and throwing their weight around where I'm concerned," I insisted, taking a step back. "They'll tire of hating me, eventually. Halar is my greatest detractor, and even he seemed more subdued toward me than usual today." My eyes darted toward the door. "He left with so little argument…"

Dravyn looked to the door as well, his gaze unfocused, his mouth drawn in a tight, unconvinced line. "He was distracted."

"As are you."

He blinked, met my eyes, and gave me a small, tired smile that made my stomach flip. "Maybe."

"So what is it that's distracted the two of you? What did Halar find?" I moved away from him and circled around the desk, leaning over it as he had done, trailing my fingers along the same paths his had traveled. "This is a map of the northern territories, isn't it? The Kingdoms of Galizur and Terrath, and the no-man's land between them. The Hollowlands , I've heard that middle space called by human-kind, I think—though the elves have another name for it."

He nodded in confirmation, and I studied it closer.

Several of the places upon it were labeled strangely to me, the letters odd, the spellings slightly different from what I knew, while the notes along the margins were written in a language I didn't recognize at all. But the landmarks were unmistakable—the Duskryn mountain range, the upper and lower Berlnath rivers, the great Bloodroot Canyon.

I felt a strange pang in my stomach as I looked over it all, remembering the mortal realm I used to call home. "Valas told me he overheard Halar saying they'd found something of interest near the northern kingdoms, but he, too, was scant on the details with me."

Even as I spoke of those human kingdoms, my eyes kept fixing onto the black space between them. The Hollowlands. Or Belethyn —that's what the elves called it. A land forsaken by mortal kings and forgotten by the gods…but not truly empty, despite the dark hole representing it on the map.

There were elven dwellings dotted throughout the blackness…or at least, there had been when I was a child; I remembered my sister and father telling plenty of tales of the great warriors, deadly assassins, and respected leaders who had been shaped by the inhospitable features of that area. My sister used to say she was going to make a pilgrimage to it one day, perhaps journey deep into the darkness and carve out a greater reputation for herself within the abyss.

"Our own court has confirmed nothing," Dravyn went on, "but there are a lot of… interesting stirrings in the area. Rumors of a growing darkness in these so-called Hollowlands, a movement that seems to be concentrating in a village near the edge of that desolate place."

"A movement of elven-kind, you mean?" I pressed my palm to the yawning abyss on the map. "We called this area Belethyn. This map doesn't show them, but there are more elven dwellings here than human ones."

"You're right," he agreed, looking oddly uneasy about having this knowledge, as though he had firsthand experience he didn't want to dwell on. "Anyway, the rumors have it that those dwellings have increased in size and number lately. The Velkyn are reaching outward, threatening the human establishments along the edges, while planning and preparing for who knows what else from the strongholds they've made within those shadowy lands—strongholds we suspect they've been reinforcing in recent years."

I started to reply, but couldn't right away; a lump had lodged in my throat. My heart felt as though it was being pulled apart, the two different sides of it both vying for control. Because here was yet another reminder: Dravyn and I might have ascended into something different, something more equal to one another, but the places and beings we'd risen from…they were still enemies.

After swallowing hard, I said, "Do you think they're also trying to provoke the Marr through these threats and such?"

The Marr, who were tasked with watching over human-kind. The elves considered both of these groups their enemies. Us against them all , Andrel and all the other rebel leaders used to say, vacillating between which one they hated more on any given day.

"Likely so." Dravyn's tone was solemn. "Or, at the very least, trying to distract us, potentially leaving us vulnerable and stretched thin if they're planning another assault on our divine realm. And perhaps they consider victory close at hand, too, a return to the power they once had—power they intend to wield from human thrones after they've won whatever battles necessary to assert their dominance… I can think of several reasons for their sudden activity, really."

He turned away from the map and busied himself with studying the contents of a nearby shelf. I got the impression he was biting his tongue, not wanting to dwell on the bloody relations between our origin races any more than I did.

As though we could ignore it.

Even though he'd stopped speaking of it, the history of us hung over the space like a foul cloud, making it hard to breathe. I cast my eyes about for a window to open before remembering there wasn't one.

Clearing my throat as best I could in the thickness, I pressed on. "You said the movement seems to be concentrating in a village near the edge. Where, exactly? Does this village have a name?" My fingertips went back to trailing the weathered parchment, seeking but finding no dot or label to indicate any villages right along the Hollowlands' edge.

Dravyn glanced back but didn't reply. There was a distant, troubled look in his gaze—a sort of glazed-over sheen that gleamed brighter as the firelight caught it.

An uneasy shiver crept down my spine.

A sharp rap at the door interrupted us. Rieta stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, carrying a tray of food. Dravyn started to protest, but I was glad for the sight of her, even if I wasn't hungry; she'd broken through the dark cloud that had been settling over the room.

With the arrival of food came a predictable scavenger as well, and another welcome interruption: Moth. Another of Dravyn's creations—this one much smaller and considerably more dramatic.

As Rieta placed the tray on a small table in the corner, the fiery little griffin attempted to help himself to one of the flaky bread treats upon it.

He was thwarted in his efforts by Dravyn, who was familiar enough with Moth's antics that he managed to catch the griffin by the thick ruff around his neck before so much as a claw scraped the fine metal tray.

Dravyn plopped him onto the ground, giving him a stern look. He then poured himself a cup of whatever steaming concoction was in the small kettle in the tray's center—it smelled like oranges and cloves—and carried it toward the fireplace, ignoring Moth as he slid dejectedly under the table, a pitiful warbling sound rising in his throat.

I thanked Rieta as she left, then settled into the chair beside the corner table and absently nibbled on a bit of toast, thinking.

While Dravyn stared into the fire, I took a piece of fruit from the tray and slipped it to Moth, nearly losing the tip of my finger when the griffin's sharp beak quickly closed over it.

I jerked my hand away, smacking it hard against the bottom of the table as I did. At the sound, Dravyn looked back, eyes dancing from me to the flaming tip of Moth's tail, which was sticking out from under the tablecloth and thumping happily as he ate.

Dravyn's disapproving frown twitched only slightly when I gave him a rueful smile.

"The Hollowlands," I prompted, rubbing my stinging hand. "We were talking about the Hollowlands, and the trouble spilling over the edges of them."

"Right." He placed his cup on the shelf beside him, folded his arms across his broad chest and tilted his head toward the ceiling in thought. "According to the information Halar brought with him this morning, the unrest is centering around a certain figure that might be meaningful to you—one they're calling the Godwalker ."

I stared at him, both desperate and terrified for him to elaborate.

"One who earned this nickname because she allegedly walked among the heavens and then returned to the mortal realm in one piece…" He lowered his gaze back to me as he added, "I'm sure you can draw the same conclusion I did about this figure."

My breaths grew short, ragged. A dozen different, warring emotions flooded me, and my lower lip trembled from the effort of trying to keep steady within the waves of them.

Moth abandoned his scraps under the table and climbed into my lap instead, nuzzling my hand until I started to absently pet him.

After several moments, I managed to find my voice, even though it came out thin and shaking. "Belethyn…we have to go there, don't we? We need to collect evidence for ourselves. Not just about my…about this Godwalker …but also…what if this is the place Cillian and Andrel have relocated to as well?"

Dravyn's face became an unreadable wall.

Frustration bubbled up inside me, expanding until it lorded over all the other emotions I was fighting with. My skin flushed, my muscles drew taut, and the flames in the hearth danced dangerously bolder and bigger. Moth lifted his head from my lap and gave a wary purr.

Without a word, Dravyn looked to the fireplace and exhaled, settling the building flames with all the effort of extinguishing a single candle. But despite the ease of the motion, he looked visibly more weary when he turned back to me.

The space between us seemed to expand as it darkened, as he fixed me with an expression that was still guarded, but clearly concerned.

"You can't expect me to just stay here and wait for more reports to trickle in from the likes of Halar, or from others who don't have the same connection to the elves that I do," I argued. "If there's a chance my sister is out there, or if—"

"I don't think it's safe for you to step outside of this realm until you've managed better control over your new powers. No one acclimates to these things in a matter of weeks. You're doing better than most, but it would be unwise to push it at this point."

I started to hurl several arguments at him only to catch them at the tip of my tongue and drag them back.

He had a point, loathe as I was to admit it.

I tried to keep my composure. Tried to make my expression as placid as his, even though all I was suddenly thinking about were my nightmares and the infernos that had followed them…

The gardens had grown back easily enough, thanks to the magic in the soil there. I'd set a few fires within the palace itself, too, but Dravyn or his servants always managed to put them out, and within no time at all these places were always restored. No lasting harm done.

But a mortal garden—or house…or worse, an entire town—wouldn't fare as well, and we both knew it.

And with that thought came another frustration, another question: What else did we both know?

Quietly, I asked, "Could you sense what happened earlier? Were you able to see what I…what I did in the garden?"

It took him a long moment to reply. "I'm not doing it on purpose, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate my power from yours. And when you call on the fire I shared with you, sometimes I see flashes of whatever that fire is surrounding. And sometimes I hear your voice…" He hesitated. "You don't see me in the same way, I take it?"

"No. Not as of yet, anyway." I went back to stroking Moth. The downy fluff of his fur and the silk of his feathers were soothing to focus on. "Although as I was approaching the palace earlier, I could feel your frustration and anger toward Halar, I thought."

Dravyn opened his mouth to reply, only to close it and fall into a thoughtful silence instead.

I averted my eyes, still unsure of how I felt about this latest development between us. There were few secrets I wanted to keep from him at this point, but I was still not used to feeling so… known. By anyone, really—much less a god I used to hate so intensely.

Somehow, our deeper-than-ever connection made the loss of my former life and identity feel all the more jarring, and thus, the need to see my sister—and to reconcile all the lost and mixed-up pieces of me—felt all the more desperate.

"It's not uncommon for divine beings who share the same threads of magic to be able to hear one another's thoughts and communicate mentally, even over long distances," Dravyn reminded me, taking command over a flame in the fireplace as he spoke, twisting it this way and that. "But it's usually more subtle and more controllable." He tilted his gaze toward me. "Perhaps once you have a better handle on—"

I shook my head, cutting him off. "Never mind it," I said. "It's just as well. You saw the truth, and you have a point—there's a chance that I would do the same thing in the mortal realm, where the consequences could be much more dire."

I got to my feet, placing Moth in the chair instead of my lap. I could no longer keep still. My frustration felt like a living thing crawling over me. I needed to shake it off.

Dravyn watched me for a moment before he came closer, taking hold of my arm to stop my restless wandering and fidgeting. "If I hadn't believed you could wield the fire I offered," he said, "then I would not have given it to you. You just need time."

" Time ." The word slipped from my lips in a whisper, dripping with bitterness. "What time do we have, with everything that's happening?"

He didn't reply. I felt foolish and weak in the shadow of everything we faced, like a child staring down a wolf with nothing but a stick for a weapon.

I considered storming from the room as Halar had done, but Dravyn grabbed my other arm and fixed me in front of him. He brushed a hand across my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn't even realize had fallen. I felt even more foolish. Crying was not going to bring me any closer to my sister. It would not give me the strength to keep my feet in the shifting, relentless waves of our battles, nor would it help me wield the fire burning wild inside my body.

I broke free of Dravyn's hold, scrubbed away the beginnings of more tears with the heel of my hand, then went back to the desk and the map upon it. I needed to trace a clear path of some kind along the parchment. A visible route to… something . Anything.

"What is the name of the village where they're concentrating their efforts?" I asked again.

As before, there was a hollow, haunting sort of pause before he replied. But this time, no one interrupted us, so he eventually managed to answer me: "Ederis."

"Ederis…why does that sound familiar?"

His entire body went rigid—a reaction that passed so quickly I might not have noticed had it not been accompanied by an equally abrupt shift in his power. I felt the fluctuation in his magic like the snap of a sail in a sudden wind, jolting me more sharply into awareness.

And after only another moment of thought, I remembered where I'd heard the word before.

"Ederis…that's the elven city you destroyed when you first ascended, isn't it?" The assassins who killed his younger siblings were said to have hailed from there, which was the reason he'd targeted it—yet more painful knots in the tangled web that was our histories.

All of the air seemed to be fleeing the room as he thinly, quietly, said, "Yes."

I braced both hands against the table, pressing against it for balance.

"Apparently, despite the destruction I caused, the roots of that city run deep and they held fast." He spoke without emotion, as if reading directly from a script so he wouldn't lose his nerve. "And now, the revitalized version of it is proving an even more dangerous hotbed of rebellion and power than what was previously there."

I stared, unseeing, at the map beneath my fingers. My mind was full of horrific images of gods and elves clashing while countless humans were caught in the crossfire—and one elf kept coming to the forefront of it all. The same one my nightmare in the garden had been about.

Godwalker …

Was my sister really at the center of this newest, burgeoning uprising? What was she planning to do next? If she was in Ederis, did that mean…

"This city and the rebellion gathering and festering there…" The words cracked as they crawled from my dry throat. "It's close to your old kingdom."

Dravyn nodded, staring blankly at the map under my hands as he said, "The past, it seems, is not finished with either of us."