Chapter 34

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Z rak didn’t put up a fight as the Compass Points led him back to Norden house. Arie had been angry, yes, but Rose suspected it was his final disappointment that moved Zrak. The straight-backed, stoic god was gone. In his place was the Lost God, who appeared to finally reflect the name.

Carter went to get Juliette since he was the fastest. Rose hoped Carter would catch her up on the walk to Norden house. Juliette had more reasons than most to be upset with Zrak. Learning he had kept another power of the Osten a secret might push her over the edge. And that didn’t begin to contemplate if she would inherit the power with Zrak’s return to the continent.

“I don’t know what else you want from me,” Zrak said as he looked out the front window over Compass Lake. His back was to Rose. She was the only one in the room with him. Arie and Aurora made noises as they moved around the house, but so far, they had refused to enter the library. Aurora must be trying to calm Arie down. Rose hoped Aurora won him over soon. They both needed to join them when the Compass Points returned. No matter Arie’s anger or disappointment, he should still hear what Zrak had to say.

“We just need the information you have,” Rose said. “What are we supposed to do with Aterra? We can’t hold him indefinitely.” Rose ran her hand through her hair and tied it back as she spoke. She had more questions than she realized. They still had a lot of ground to cover.

“You mean your bound partner can’t hold him indefinitely,” Zrak said as he gestured across the lake to Suden house.

“I wonder how our relationship is relevant in your grand plan,” she replied sarcastically.

“That, Rose, was one of the most fascinating secrets I’ve heard in my existence. It gave me hope that the idea of the Compass Points might work.” Zrak lit up just a little as he spoke. It was the most genuine he had sounded yet. Rose decided to try to leverage it.

“One set of bound fae put you on this path?” She waved her hands around them. “This plan to mess with all of our lives?”

“Not just one set. The set,” he said enthusiastically. He was like an explorer recounting his discovery. “The Norden Point and Suden Point. Not only from different courts but the rightful leaders of each.” He finally turned from the window, and his gaze narrowed as he focused on her. “It seems so normal to you, given how your relationship with the Suden Point evolved—but I assure you, it is anything but.”

“My and Luc’s relationship is our business—not yours. I’ll not have some god claiming credit for us.” Rose didn’t want to think of how many secrets Zrak knew. How many must have come his way from the present and future in order to build his plan. She was unwilling to be considered a feather in his cap.

“You miss my point. I freely admit your relationship was and is outside of my control.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just imagine you had all these options to right the imbalance of the continent. Some involve untold devastation, others bickering leaders, and still others violence and loss.” He sighed. “Bickering leaders was the best choice I had—but knowing that one day the leaders of the Norden and Suden courts would defy convention and fight for what they knew they had, enough to save the continent? It made my choice simple.”

“And you know what Luc is?” Rose asked. They hadn’t dwelt on it, but her mind kept circling the fact that Luc was a demigod. She felt his presence in her mind as Zrak responded.

“It would have been risky, loosing a demigod onto the continent, any way you look at it. But knowing the demigod was the bound partner of the Norden Point made things clearer.”

“How so?” Rose pressed. She knew this would be the answer to what they sought with Aterra. She just wasn’t sure she was going to like it.

“I’ll do whatever is needed, Rose. You know that.”

“That is exactly what we won’t be doing,” Rose shot back. “We’ll see what this god knows. What he thinks you can do. And we’ll discuss our options.”

Rose could feel Luc’s smirk through the bond. “Of course, love,” he teased her, but she didn’t care. The sound of the word love on his lips, even through their bond, was enough to send shivers through her body. She took a deep breath. He would not be the self-sacrificing idiot again.

“That—”

“If you tell me that is for me to find out, I will drown you in Compass Lake,” Rose said. Her water magic was stirring before she could decide if the threat was a real one.

Zrak held his hands up in surrender, though she noted the twitch of his lip as he did. This was not funny. Zrak was less than helpful to them in everything they tried. What good was hearing secrets of the future if he did nothing with them? She supposed that wasn’t right. He thought he was doing something. He just wouldn’t share the information with those who needed it.

“If Luc is a demigod…he has to at least be able to counteract Aterra’s greed and provide balance within the Suden.” She paused, considering. They didn’t want to repeat Zrak’s mistakes. Whatever they did with Aterra, they didn’t want to leave the Suden’s magic diluted. “That would position him as a god, though, not the Suden Point.”

“It’s a good thing I prefer Mr. Norden Point now.”

Rose couldn’t hold back her smirk even though they contemplated more change for the continent. The Suden Point test was still a mystery to her—she was sure she would learn more soon. She set the thought aside.

None of this mattered unless they knew what to do with Aterra. “It still doesn’t answer where to put him.” She bit the inside of her lip as she thought. The concept of a demigod still spinning through her thoughts gave her an idea. Luc was half-god and half-fae—he was something in between. If his existence could help the balance, Rose wondered if she could use a similar solution to solve where to put Aterra.

Cassandra didn’t want her realm to be a dumping ground for the continent. And to preserve the balance, Aterra couldn’t be on the continent. Could they store him in between the two? She thought of the darkness she and Carter fell through when they crossed beyond the veil, the memory Luc shared with her and the inability to find the way through the darkness without Carter’s shifter-provided talent.

They had crossed beyond the veil from multiple places, but each crossing felt the same to her. They bore the same darkness and unmarked paths, and yet they led to different locations in Cassandra’s realm. She knew they were distinct to Carter. He never faltered as he guided them through. With Zrak’s return, Rose could assume the Osten Point wouldn’t need to return to the caves. That pathway might no longer be necessary.

“It would require both myself and Cassandra to lend strength to hold him there,” Luc warned.

“Yes, but it shouldn’t require so much from either of you,” she speculated. Aterra’s inability to navigate the expanse would be its own trap.

“We would need Carter to talk to Cassandra again…but it’s possible,”

“It’s the only plan we have.”

She wouldn’t let this solution take Luc from her. Although Zrak claimed this was the best path, the costs were still high. And they were far from out of the woods on the chaos Zrak wrought. Her thoughts returned to her young friend Tara, the only human in Bury who had relentlessly pursued a friendship with her—now taken by the mist plague. She still lay in the barn they used to train in. How many other paths that Zrak had imagined included the mist plague?

“Can you at least heal those impacted by your mist?” Rose asked, her voice turned bitter. If Zrak wasn’t going to help them with Aterra, he could at least clean up his mess here on the continent.

Zrak’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t respond.

That seemed like a bad sign. “It’s your plague. Can’t you just”—she waved her hands around—“undo it?”

“I know what you’re thinking, Rose.”

Could he read minds, too?

He shook his head. “No, that’s not a talent I have,” he replied as if answering her unspoken question. “Your thoughts are written plainly on your face.”

“Fine. What am I thinking then?” she challenged.

“The mist plague is bad—yes. But the other options were worse. I gather you’ve at least started understanding what Celeste and Cassandra’s generation went through on the continent. The mist plague was my way of preventing that from recurring.”

Rose opened her mouth, ready to press him again on fixing it, when Juliette and Carter arrived. Juliette surveyed the room, her eyes locking on the Osten god. Rose could see in the stiffness of Juliette’s movements that she was holding back her reaction. Wind swirled around her ankles as the Osten Point fought for composure; Rose wasn’t quite sure what feelings were being represented.

Was Juliette glad to finally have her god on the continent? To be free from the ritual she’d been shackled to for her entire tenure? Or had Carter filled her in, and this again was her rage at her god’s involvement, similar to when Rose and Luc first shared that they suspected the mist plague was Zrak’s doing? They must have been outside the library for a few moments because Juliette pressed Zrak on a point earlier in their conversation.

“Answer at least one of her questions, Zrak. Do you need Osten support to remove the mist plague? Rose and I will be happy to oblige. We should remove it from the continent immediately.”

Zrak finally turned. His gaze locked with Juliette’s—a fire dancing between them that Rose couldn’t comprehend. “It’s not that simple.”

“Nothing ever is with you,” she replied.

“Lady Osten,” he started.

“No.” She held her hand up to stop him. “Don’t. I’m sure my words will echo what I have been told Lord Arctos has already said to you, so I’ll be brief. You had every opportunity to share whatever it was you were doing. You made decision after decision that impacted our lives. My life. My people’s lives. And yet you didn’t see fit to discuss them with me or any of my predecessors.” She paused to catch her breath. “This ends now. The Compass Points will finish it. We need what information you have—that is all. We want nothing else from you.”

Rose hadn’t seen a lot of emotion on Zrak’s face since she and Carter had returned with him. But whatever had been there vacated with Juliette’s words. It was as if Zrak had prepared himself to disappoint Arie and Aurora—he had understood the cost—but for whatever reason, he seemed ill-prepared for this dressing down from the Osten Point.

“The Nebulus cannot undo what they have done,” he said. “As with everything else, the Compass Points must remove it.”

“Like we haven’t done enough…” Juliette sighed, exasperation and exhaustion coating her voice.

Rose felt the weight of it in her bones. Juliette was tired. Justifiably. A pit opened in Rose’s stomach as she considered what this meant. They had the power to wake those impacted the entire time? Her hand went to cover her mouth as it hung open. She had tried her own magic, of course, but once they’d learned how to join their powers, she hadn’t thought about using it for anything other than holding Aterra.

“You have,” Zrak replied to Juliette. “But the continent is asking you to give a little more.”

“The continent? Or you?” Juliette challenged.

“My Nebulus caused their sleep. I won’t further explain my reasons. You know it was the only way I had to bring all of you together. To correct it—to awaken those impacted—is similar to holding a god in check.” He looked knowingly at Rose. “I understand you learned how to harness that ability amongst yourselves.”

“We could have removed it the entire time?” Rose couldn’t believe it was something so simple. Her mind raced as she thought about correcting the problem now. Her heart plummeted in her chest again. They couldn’t fix this until they had Luc back. The problem of Aterra still eluded them.

“Not quite,” Zrak said, halting her thoughts in their tracks. “It’s not only the power to hold a god you need, but a sacrifice—like the sacrifice made to right the original imbalance.”

The Compass Points looked at each other slowly, sure they misunderstood him somehow. A sacrifice—like Zrak was supposed to have done? How would they merge their powers to wake those sleeping if one of them had to sacrifice their existence? Their haunted looks must have alerted Zrak to their confusion.

Zrak coughed. “No, sorry,” he said, wiping his hands in the air as if to erase his words. “Not the exact same. Just a sacrifice from each Compass Point—something important to each court.”

Rose tilted her head. What had Juliette said? Nothing was ever easy with him.

“What’s the sacrifice exactly?” Carter asked.

“That is for you to decide.” It seemed his favorite refrain. “As you said, you four—the Suden Point included—will be the ones to clean this up. You’ll have to give something of worth or power as an offering to restore the balance.”

“Gods dammit, Zrak!” Juliette lost her internal struggle. “Why have you left us in this position?” Pages flipped in the open books on the table. The curtains in the window where Zrak stood blew in a gust. Juliette was losing her grip on her magic.

“Would you believe me if I told you this was the best possible outcome?” He sighed and rubbed his brow. He had to know that wasn’t enough. “Every other option I had left the continent destroyed.”