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All this talk of Sirus and love was rattling her brain. Gwen stood and stalked through the field of flowers. She snatched a bloom in her anger and held it in her hand.
Chaos. Fate. Love. Magick. It was all a giant cocktail of nonsense.
She took in a deep breath and held it. “I keep having this dream,” she confessed, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. “There’s this thing coming for me that I know I have to face, but Sirus is always there to face it with me.”
I’m sorry. The words she spoke in her dream over and over sparked a flame within her. Sirus’s soft touch in that same dream. His words. Her sadness. That kiss. Without him to anchor her, she felt adrift.
A soft shimmer of blue light radiated from beneath her fingers, and Gwen let the bloom in her hand fall to the ground. She let out a stuttered breath as she felt her magick slip over her skin. She looked up at the dryad. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, her voice quaking. “I don’t even know what I am.” Gwen shook her head. “Selda asor Listë.” It’s what the voices had called her in her dream.
Iathana descended to her and took her hand softly in her own. “Daughter of Fate and Darkness, your path is yours to choose, just as your heart is yours to give.”
The magick dissipated into nothing, the pull of the Veil fading as Gwen realized it would never be. “What will happen?” she breathed.
“Dryads do not meddle in the toils of the other Folk,” Iathana told her. “We do not involve ourselves in their plights for power. The balance of magick is delicate, and the burden upon you is a heavy one, Gwendolyn. If you choose this path, I cannot help you.”
A knot twisted inside Gwen’s stomach. She had to choose.
Deep down, she felt fear urging her to take the dryad’s offer. To follow her down the path of joy and light and answers. The path she was meant to take. A cold touch of dread swept over her, and she closed her eyes. There was a flash of fire and smoke and snow. Of magick. Of blood. Of Sirus on his knees. “Selda asor Listë, len. Olnwë asor Huinë,” the whispered voices from her dreams echoed.
Come, Daughter of Darkness. Child of Shadows.
Gwen gasped, her eyes flying open. “I-I have to go back,” she stuttered desperately. “Sirus—he’s in trouble.” She couldn’t explain it, but she could feel it like a rattle in her bones. Something bad was happening back at Volkov, and something worse would follow.
Iathana held her gaze for a moment, searching her eyes. “You are of flesh and power. Bone and magick,” she told her. “May Moldorn guide your way home, child.”
Gwen tensed, panic flooding her. “You—you have to take me back. I have to go?—”
There was a rush of wind and a shudder of magick. In a blink, Iathana was gone, and Gwen stood alone.
Sirus was reeling from Gwendolyn’s loss, but it was clear the mage was also struggling with the aftermath of her reunion with Merlin. “How my mother fell for that—” Levian’s eyes flashed violet before she shook it off. She squeezed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “He’s been locked up too long if he thought his tricks weren’t obvious.”
Merlin was a self-obsessed tyrant, but he was also patient and calculating. Nothing about him was ever obvious.
“He found my friendship with vampires amusing,” she explained. “And my distaste of Dökk magick conventional.” Levian let out a deep, weighted breath. “It’s good she’s gone, Sirus.” She looked over at him with reluctant relief. “I know we’re all sad that she is, but Gwen will be safer in the Veil.”
“What did he tell you?” Sirus pressed.
“We spoke alone for a long while. Much of it was of no importance. He told me he knew all about my scuffle with the daemons. He also knew about my conference with the Council. His little spies remain present everywhere, it seems,” she grumbled. Levian scowled and met his eye. “He mentioned the Celestial Stars all on his own. I told him nothing.”
An unease fell over him.
The mage stood and began to pace in the snow with nervous energy. “The Star of Terra remains hidden in the earth,” she confirmed. “The Star of Aether is thought to be hidden amongst the fae. The Star of Umbra was said to be cast into the Abyss during the fall of the Dökk.” She fiddled with one of her long necklaces. “Merlin mentioned the Stars unprompted. He blathered about the Star of Aether like a gossiping witch for so long, I began to wonder if maybe his time in The Prison hadn’t actually driven him mad.”
Perhaps it was the Star of Aether’s magick that Gwendolyn possessed. At least in part. A subtle pain stretched inside Sirus. They had talked of Stars and her magick, but deep down he had not truly believed it possible.
Levian stopped her fidgeting and grew tense. Her eyes drifted between Niah and Sirus, her expression worried. “I was wrong,” she told them.
“How so?” Niah inquired, glancing at Sirus.
The mage let out a breath through her nose, as if rallying her nerve. “He spoke so long of the Star of Aether, I was sure he was going to tell me he knew where it was. He never did. In my growing impatience, I eventually asked him.”
A shudder fell over her, and Levian wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “He laughed,” she told them with a sickened expression. “Then he told me with great amusement that the Star of Aether remains in Vasan, hidden and protected by the Autumn Fae.”
“So Gwendolyn doesn’t hold the Star’s magick?” Niah asked, clearly unsure where this was going.
Levian glanced between them again, and it struck Sirus suddenly why she was so tentative. It was because she was speaking with vampires.
“Umbra,” he guessed with a shudder of his own.
