Queen of Stars and Shadows (Dark Fae Guardian #3)

Sarielle

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sarielle

X inius gestures toward the doors of the palace. “We have much to discuss and very little time. Follow me.”

I leave Astherius to guard the courtyard, and we enter the palace. My gaze sweeps over the breathtaking white marble hall and the massive spiral staircase at the back of it. Last time I’d been here was on my wedding day. The day Jonavus told me and Zyren that he’d turn me into his own personal broodmare and make Zyren stand watch outside the door since we’d betrayed him by falling in love. The day Avonia’s warriors killed him on the steps we’d just walked up. A shiver runs over me.

My eyes flit over to Zyren, but he doesn’t seem affected the way I am. Of course, he doesn’t remember any of it. In a small part, it’s a blessing. To know that his brother had said such hateful, terrible things to us moments before we were to be wed… it’s better that he doesn’t know.

Xinius leads us up the stairs, five floors until we reach the throne room. We walk across the massive length of it. A cold wind blows through the open archways cut into the stone on the far wall, a semi-circle that overlooks all of Selaye. I can see the vast stretch of the Forever Mountains beyond, and taste snow on my tongue. The throne sits in front of the archways, an imposing thing rising from the marble floor.

“Go ahead,” Xinius says. “Sit in it. It’s yours.”

I look between him and Zyren, to the throne and back. “Perhaps I’ll wait until a happier day. When it can be done properly.”

Xinius frowns. “That day may never come, my queen. Sit, claim what’s yours. Then we can discuss how to keep it that way.”

A prickle of discomfort moves up the back of my neck. It seems so surreal. I’ve only been queen a short time, and I’ve been on the run since pretty much the first moment. I’d never been crowned, never sat on my throne. Or any throne for that matter. But I take the advice of the sorcerer, and I walk to the huge stone chair, turn, and then sit down in it. Zyren and Xinius both go down on a knee. I place my palms flat on the cool stone beneath them, trying to draw strength.

“So, Xinius,” I say, “tell us what you know. What’s happened since you helped us flee?”

The sorcerer flicks his long hair over his shoulder. “After I helped you escape, I fled myself, into the mountains south of here,” he begins. “But I stayed close because I knew you would return, and that there would be much to do when you did.”

“The realm seems to be coming apart at the seams,” Zyren says.

“And it looks like it got worse since we left Valaron,” I add. “The earthquakes caused huge chasms in the mountains. We saw them when we flew here.”

“It’s not just that,” Xinius says. “Or day turning to night and night turning to day, as you no doubt noticed also. There have been strange temporal shifts. Moments where time seems to freeze or speed up. Valaron is being unmade, and if it continues, it will cease to exist.”

I wince. It’s still shocking to hear, even knowing everything that’s been happening. “What do you mean, exactly, by ‘cease to exist?’ Surely even with all the damage… I mean, Valaron would still be here…”

Xinius locks gazes with mine. “The spell that was cast two thousand years ago to keep the nightmares locked away in their territory has been renewed, as you know, every twenty-two years since that time. Blood magic, wrought by your two families, Lyonian and Otreyas. That blood and that magic have become a part of the fabric of Valaron. So, when Avonia managed to break that spell, and continued to break it each time she summoned nightmares across their border, she fractured this realm and reality as we know it.”

“How did she even manage to do it?” I ask. “She implied to me that it’s because she mated with a nightmare and now has nightmare blood within her, via the child growing in her womb. But is that really enough for her to break a spell so ancient?”

“The nightmare blood only allowed her to tap into a certain kind of magic,” Xinius explains. “As you no doubt know, there are many types of magic, all with different properties and sacrifices required to wield them. Avonia must have chosen the darkest, most ancient, and most evil of magic to find a way to break the spell wrought by your houses.”

“So what do we do?” Zyren asks. “How can we undo the damage that’s been done?”

Xinius swings his gaze between Zyren and me. “You cannot.”

“But…surely, there’s something…” My voice comes out pleading, desperate.

“There is only one thing that can be done now,” Xinius says. “It won’t fix what’s broken, but it could stop Valaron from ending.”

“Then we’ll do it,” I say. “Whatever it is.”

Xinius shakes his head. “You must first understand the sacrifice that is required, and also the knowledge that even with that sacrifice, there’s only the slimmest chance of success.”

I try to wait patiently for him to continue, resisting the urge to reach forward and shake the answers out of him.

“We are standing here today because of choices made by your ancestors more than a millennium ago,” Xinius continues. His gaze flits to mine. “Your ancestor, Anarya, fell in love with a nightmare, causing a great war.”

I nod. “I know. I read about it in my family’s book.”

“There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil,” he says. “We are all shades of gray, some lighter or darker than others. The nightmares have never been entirely bad or evil. Some are nothing but beasts, animalistic and vengeful, preying on the innocent. But others are like you and I, possessing a darker magic than the average Valaronian, but no great threat to the world or its inhabitants.”

“When, all those centuries ago, your ancestor fell for one of these more civilized nightmares, it set off a chain of events that had molded out entire history. Nightmares were universally labeled as evil and there was the war, and Valaron was cut off from the rest of Aureon. Via the spell wrought by your families, all nightmares were trapped in essentially a magical prison: a territory within Valaron they could not escape. And then your two houses, Otreyas and Lyonian, ruled over this place, calling themselves kings and queens of the nightmares, all the while oppressing half of their citizens, many of whom were not guilty of any crime.”

The shame and horror of it washes over me, making my skin crawl and my throat tighten. Two thousand years of entrapment, two thousand years ruling with an iron fist and calling it justice.

Xinius tips his head to the side. “But magic has a way of finding balance… the result of that first union between Anarya and her lover introduced nightmare blood into the royal bloodline. And over time, as the Otreyas and Lyonian houses married and ruled over Valaron, that blood spread. The blood and the magic did not touch all, or even many. Perhaps it was biding its time, until the opportunity came for history to right itself.” The sorcerer’s gaze locked on mine once again. “You, Sarielle, are the first Queen of Nightmares to possess nightmare blood and magic. It is not by chance that you chose a consort who also possesses nightmare blood. It is your fate to right these wrongs of the past, or to sacrifice yourself trying.”

Zyren’s jaw rolls and his eyes storm over. “What do you mean ‘sacrifice herself?’ Sarielle will do no such thing.”

Xinius casts Zyren a sad smile. “It is not for you to decide, shadow guardian.”

Zyren looks as if he might strike the sorcerer, but I rise off the throne, stepping between them. “What sacrifice, Xinius? What must I do?”

“Each time Avonia released a nightmare through the magical barrier, it created a rift,” Xinius says. “And each time, it weakened the spell that kept them trapped in their territory.”

I nod. “There are three rifts at least that we know of. If that’s the case, there could be dozens more…”

Xinius shakes his head. “Not dozens. Hundreds .”

My eyes widen, and even Zyren looks shocked.

“You no doubt have noticed that your magic is weakened.” Xinius gestures toward me.

“Yes. I can barely summon any magic.”

“That’s because, as queen, your fate is tied to Valaron. Your blood, your heartbeat, your magic. And as Valaron crumbles, so do you.”

Zyren’s body is so rigid, the veins in his neck and arms so strained, he looks as if he might explode.

“The only way to save your realm, and yourself, is to right the wrongs of the past.” Xinius casts a sad look in my direction. “You must break the spell your families wrought two thousand years ago, and you must merge Valaron with the rest of Aureon once again, Sarielle.”

A gasp escapes my lips. “But that’s what Avonia wanted to do. That’s what I’ve been fighting against this whole time.”

“Avonia wants to merge the realms for her own gain, so she can conquer all of Aureon. You will do it so you can save Valaron and Aureon both. Because if you don’t stop her, not only will Valaron cease to exist, but she will spread her reign of darkness across this whole world.”

I shake my head, trying to stop the wild spin of my thoughts. “But if I break the spell and merge the realms, the rest of the nightmares will escape from their territory into Aureon.”

“Not if they have a queen who can command them,” Xinius says. “A true queen who shares their blood and their magic.”

“And the sacrifice? What sacrifice is that?”

Xinius reaches out and places a hand on my arm. “Merging the realms is magic of a magnitude that has only been wrought one other time in history, when the spell was first cast. That time, it claimed the life of the Otreyas who cast it, and it will most likely claim yours.”

“It’s out of the question, then!” Zyren growls, beginning to stalk back and forth in front of the throne. Shadows spin off him, and the air snaps with tension.

“If the realms are not merged, Valaron will fall anyway, and then everyone’s lives will be forfeit,” Xinius explains calmly. “Further, Avonia will continue her assault on Aureon, with no one to stop her.”

“Then the world can fall!” Zyren snaps, his eyes furious. “We’ll figure something else out…”

My gaze flickers between the two of them, my heart hammering in my chest, my blood spiking in my veins. It all seems impossible enough as it is, but the sorcerer doesn’t even know the worst of it. “There’s something else, Xinius… something awful…”

As the words leave my mouth, a sudden darkness sweeps across the throne room, and all the candles blow out in a rush of shadows.

“She’s referring to me,” comes a voice from the far side of the room.

A wall of blacker black moves toward us, a darkness beyond darkness, an emptiness, a void of despair and endlessness.

A figure steps from within it.

The demon.