Page 135 of Crown of Wrath

“You’d be proud. I’m embracing the pain,” I whisper to Cole, even though I know he’s not here. I never see him outside of the training grounds, but I can’t live there. The Queen of Earth has other responsibilities. I have to finish what Cole fought for. Today, that includes sending the people who have been living in Valinar back to Nyth.

Cole doesn’t answer back, but Echo moves beside me, her eyes catching my lips move. “Have you sought him out in the void yet?” she asks softly.

I shake my head. “He’s not there. I know we all say that we return to the void, but we don’t. The void is something, but it’s not where the dead go.”

Echo looks at me, and it’s like she’s looking into my soul. Maybe she can see how shredded I am, how utterly destroyed I am. Maybe that’s the gift that hides in the storm in her eyes. Maybe that’s the gift that Brenna Morvyn gave her protégé when she was born into this strange other world.

“I didn’t mean that,” she says so softly that only I can hear her. “Have you sought The Darkness out to ask where Cole is?”

I blink and slowly turn to face her fully. “The Darkness would know, wouldn’t it? Where the dead go?”

She doesn’t answer since it’s so obvious. Of course, The Darkness would know. Instead, she says, “You’ll reveal us if you go to talk to The Darkness. You know that, don’t you? You’llreveal Valinar, and your mother won’t be able to hold back The Darkness. She can’t leave. And when it comes…”

“It will devour Valinar and my mother,” I finish.

This time, Echo nods, and I have to look away. Would I trade my mother for Cole? Yes. That answer is simpler than what I’d like for dinner. If she were still a High Fae, she’d be in the same position as Casimir. She’d be preparing to return to the void so that Echo could take the Throne and become the Conduit. She’s lived thousands of years, and I do not feel bad for her death. But my Da…

I know what it feels like to lose someone your soul is bound to. He’s human, so maybe it will be different, but I can’t be sure. Would I be willing to trade my pain for his? That’s not a question I can answer so easily, if at all.

“Talk to your mother, Maeve,” Echo says. “But I have readA History of Magic and Dragons, and many people have felt the same way you do, and they never find a way to bring their love back. No one has ever found a way. Even Sidon the Strong, the originator of the House of Steel, couldn’t bring his mate back. Death is final for all of us.”

I had thought that. I had believed, like so many others, that even people who could travel into the void, people who could reshape their bodies and burn the world around them, had to accept death as a finality.

But what if it’s not? When I thought I was a human, everyone told me that no one could fly. When I thought I was a human, they thought that the Shade could only be a god. They were wrong. Until this very moment, I’d considered that the High Fae I’ve spent the last year with knew everything. Except that they don’t. No one would believe that there are things living in the void. Except a handful of us who know that it’s true. The High Fae don’t know everything.

Even the dragons weren’t all powerful or all knowing. Even the dragons ran from something.

Just because someone tells me something is impossible doesn’t mean that it is. It’s just not possible to do when I’m thinking like them. My world has to expand in order to expand my possibilities.

I smile at Echo as another wave of pain ravages my body. My left thumb nail runs over a ridge in the chunk of wood that I carry everywhere other than the training ground. “I’ll talk to my mother,” I say. “Thank you.”

She gives me a confused look, but then she nods. It’s the same way that everyone seems to look at me now. Like they’re afraid of me. Not afraid like they were of Gethin. It’s more like they don’t know what I’m capable of. Maybe they should be afraid.

Echo goes back to talking to the other shadow walkers, and I begin to plan. I will need to talk to my mother, but it’s not to ask her about The Darkness. Another wave of pain rolls through me, and I just keep smiling.

For the first time since Cole died, I feel like there is something for me to do beyond trying to survive until the next time I can stand on the training sands. The first step is to finish reading Vesta’s book. If I want to do something impossible, I can’t do it without the knowledge that my mother spent so much of her life searching for.

Chapter 68

Even the bedroom is not as intimate as the training grounds. Nowhere else do you learn the ins and outs of a person’s mind as well as the sand. You see their strengths, their anger, their persistence. They are raw, with none of the ballroom niceties. If I were to teach my son to court women, I would hope he’d do it on the sands rather than the court. At least he’d know he wasn’t being lied to there. Plus, what’s to dislike about fighting for control with the woman you’re interested in?

~Cole Cyrus, personal journals

Maeve

I grit my teeth as I explode from the sand and spin. Pride, joy, and anger flow through me. Pride at my ability to do what noone else could do. Joy that I can feel Cole beside me, pushing me harder. Anger that I can’t feel him.

And desire for his touch.

Shadows splay from my fingertips as my wings shoot from my back, passing through the shadow armor that I wear. The shadows flow into massive pillars andcrystalize. It takes a fraction of the energy that creating pillars of stone had when I was trying to find my Da in the Nothing. Blending the powers of multiple houses makes everything easier.

My steel-coated body moves faster than anything in the world as Earth strength blends with increased muscle strength from Steel. Wings made of shadows, weightless and impossibly strong, carry me higher, and then they disappear, letting me fall to the sand below.

Flames jet from my back, pushing me faster toward the ground. So fast that nothing could keep up with me. Stone crystalizes below me into a ramp, and I fly across the training grounds. My crystal spear moves just as fast as I do as I repeatedly stab, shattering training dummies faster than the eye can see.

The flames stop, and shadow wings appear behind me, becoming wind breaks and slowing me down until I settle to the sand.

An entire row of twelve training dummies have exploded. Nothing but wood chips are left on the sand, and I smile at them. I’m faster than anyone oranythingin Nyth. I’m sure of it. Four Houses’ powers combined into something out of either a nightmare or a fantasy depending on which side of my spear you’re on.

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