by Walsh, Sara
Before I thought to stop myself, I looked at him. His expression had reached an even deeper level of intensity: his brow straight, his eyes narrowed, the muscles in his jaw tightly clenched. It felt like a billion years since the first time I’d seen him from the Ridge.
“You see now how important it is that you leave,” he said.
“And how important it is that you stay.”
He frowned.
“He told me everything, Sol,” I said. “So what do I do? Bow like Gus?” I hesitated. “Gus. He knew about this, didn’t he?”
Sol’s manner switched the second it became clear that I knew who he really was. His shoulders sagged. He covered his face with his hands, drawing a deep breath through his fingers. When he reappeared, he looked resigned.
“Gus is from this world,” he said, clearly deciding to ignore the most pertinent part of the massive secret I’d unearthed. I wasn’t about to let him off so easy.
“And how many others knew the heir to the throne of Brakaland was hanging out in Crownsville?”
He stiffened at the sting in my tone. I was glad.
“It isn’t like that, Mia,” he said, his voice low, with a faint hint of warning.
“I think it’s exactly like that,” I snapped. “The dream bird—symbol of the king. That’s a pretty big set of wings you carry around with you.”
“I tried to tell you,” said Sol. “I wanted to. Outside the Velanhall, I was trying to find a way. Will you let me explain?”
“You don’t have to explain,” I replied. “You said it yourself a thousand times: Nothing’s changed. I want my brother back and I want out of this place. I want school. I want Willie. I want to forget that any of this ever happened.”
He flinched. Or did he cringe? How simple my life must have seemed to him. He was the king’s son, a fighter in a great and endless battle. He was as rooted in this world as the trees and rocks I’d seen in Welkin’s Valley. And he was surrounded by women, like Vermillion Blue with her supermodel curves and major-wow skin, who knew exactly who he was, and what it would mean for them if they could land him.
And me? Well, I was just Mia Stone from Crownsville, Nebraska. Silly old Mia who’d thought she’d met a guy who overshadowed the great Andy Monaghan. When, all this time, I’d just been a pawn in his war.
I couldn’t explain that I was heartbroken, mortified, because that meant confessing how I felt about him, and that just couldn’t happen. Not now. But what I felt more than anything was crushing disappointment. I had been growing to trust Sol so deeply, and all that time he’d concealed the essence of who he was.
I brushed my hair from my face and pulled myself together. What else could I do? I’d felt sorry for myself for long enough. “So what time do we hit Malone’s tomorrow?”
Sol held my gaze, drawing back any trace of emotion until it was almost as if we’d never talked at all. “I think it’s best if you don’t come.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I remarked. “Doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to happen.”
“Mia, after all your father—”
“Please don’t call him that.”
“After all Bromasta told you. Our greatest weapon is that the Suzerain doesn’t know you exist.”
“I’m not a weapon. And I’m coming.”
“I’ll not have you risk yourself like that.”
Risk myself? This was a joke. As if he cared. As if any of them cared.
I got to my feet, anything to get away from him. “Sol, all any of you care about is that stupid necklace.”
“Mia . . .”
I groaned. “Here we go again! Mia, what? You think I can’t fight? You think I can’t battle day in and day out and still have the strength to turn and smile sweetly to the world? Well, I can. I’ve spent my entire life doing it, thanks to that man in there.”
“He’s your father, Mia,” said Sol. “And he’s a great man.”
“Then lucky for you he’s on your side. We’ll get your necklace and then you can do what you want with it. All I care about is Jay.”
I barged past him for the gate before he could say another word, fleeing from the weight of shock and disappointment that grew heavier and heavier on my shoulders. Too many thoughts raced through my brain. I could not escape them.
Determined to avoid any more confrontations, I charged through the house and locked myself in my room. And then I did the only thing I could think to do, the only thing that could take me away from this nightmare.
I slept.
TWENTY-THREE
I woke to raised voices. Daylight streamed through the window. I bolted upright, convinced I was back in my bed in Crownsville. But then I realized that the voices weren’t Pete or Jay’s and that the faint perfume I smelled wasn’t mine or Willie’s. Fully dressed, I threw back the comforter and headed for the door. My stomach growled as if I hadn’t eaten for weeks. But none of that mattered. I crept downstairs.
“Bromasta, she can do it.”
It was Sol, his voice a hurried whisper. Bromasta’s quickly followed.
“I did not send my daughter away only to have her return to this! She can’t control the Solenetta’s power. It would be her hands that opened the Barrier. Her hands that started the war.”
Hating that I’d gotten pretty good at all this sneaky stuff, I perched on the bottom step and strained to hear what was happening in the kitchen.
“She won’t leave without Jaylan.”
“She will do as she is told. She’s my daughter, Solandun.”
“You don’t even know her! She’s strong. She’s held that family together. I’ve seen it.”
Silence. I gripped the banister, preparing for a quick escape should the kitchen door open. Whatever they were talking about, Sol was clearly on my side, which surprised me after our conversation last night.
“Is there something going on between you and my daughter?”
A second pause. I held my breath for Sol’s reply, knowing the answer, yet wanting to hear it from him nonetheless.
“There’s nothing between us.”
“I deserve to know.”
“There’s nothing.”
My stomach fell.
“Because I’ll not have her mixed up in the politics played out there in the West. Her mother and I left court for a reason. I don’t want that kind of life for her.”
“Bromasta, this is about Mia and the Solenetta. She has every right to fight with us. Who but she can say that the fate of the Solenetta is also literally a fight for her life?”
Another pause. This one was weightier, strained. My skin prickled from the adrenaline that flooded my veins. A fight for my life? Whatever that meant, it didn’t sound good.
“You didn’t tell her,” said Sol.
I scootched to the edge of the step, closing the gap between myself and the kitchen, if only by inches, so as not to miss a single word.
“She is my child, Solandun.”
“Whose blood is in the Solenetta.”
“As it was once my wife’s blood. Yes, I know we are bound to that . . . thing.”
“Then she doesn’t know what will happen if the Solenetta’s destroyed?”
“You think I’d let my child live under a death sentence?” he spat.
Death sentence? Bromasta hadn’t mentioned anything about blood or death sentences yesterday. He’d said the Solenetta had been passed to me, like it was no big deal, like it was the most natural thing in the world. What kind of game were they playing?
“There are many who still talk about doing it,” said Sol. “If they know of this trouble, it’ll give them all the ammunition they need to argue that it should be destroyed.”
“Why do you think I got Mia and the Solenetta out of this world? Why do you think I sit here now, my own child a stranger to me?”
“Linnett has my father’s ear—”
“Linnett is a spineless wretch. He has more faces than a visage demon.”
“Yet his supporters gro
w in number. They’ll come for it, Bromasta. And this time not even I will be able to persuade my father not to destroy it. Is that what you want?”
“How dare you! I gave up my children to prevent that.”
“But that’s exactly what will happen if we don’t get the Solenetta back and it and Mia out of Brakaland. She has a right to help us do this, Bromasta. She has a right to fight for her own life.”
The kitchen door opened before I could bolt, not that I could have run if I’d wanted to. My heart had emptied and the blood that it once contained had pooled in my feet.
It was Sol. As soon as he saw me, he froze. I shook my head, unable to do anything else. The walls closed in; the reflections in Vermillion’s mirrors repeating the scene over and again. Behind Sol, I caught Bromasta’s figure pacing the kitchen. Whatever this new revelation meant, I knew I couldn’t face the man who’d cursed me with this inheritance.
I spun around to the front door and was out on the street in seconds. With no clue where to go, I sprinted toward the alley at the back of the house. All I wanted was to be alone because being alone was the only way I would ever be safe again.
A distant drumbeat, like I’d heard in the valley, drifted through the streets as ominous as any demon’s scream or sentinel’s call. I stopped. It was the parade, or some preparation for it. The Suzerain was back and the Solenetta might soon be in his hands.
“This can’t be,” I cried. “It isn’t real!”
“Mia.”
Sol stood at the head of the alley. It was Sol as I wanted him to be, his face overflowing with concern. Still, I put out a hand to keep him away, needing my space if only just to breathe.
“The veins in the stone,” I choked out.
He didn’t flinch. “Your blood.”
“How?”
“A blood rite. They made the change when you were a baby. When they knew the Suzerain would come for Ilalia.”
The tale got worse and worse. With each new revelation, I felt my grip on reality slip a little further away. A week ago none of this had been in my life. Now my very existence was threatened by a complex war I barely understood.
“Why would they do something like that?” I asked, my voice on the edge of hysteria. “Sol, Bromasta said it was just a spell. He didn’t mention any blood rite.”
Sol took a step closer. He stopped when I waved him back. “They had no choice, Mia,” he replied. He raised his hands, a promise that he’d keep his distance. “The Solenetta had to pass on from Ilalia.”
“But Bromasta said she could control it, that she could resist its power.”
“Only with solens. Not with the Solenetta. It was too great a risk to keep the Solenetta bound to her. They passed it to you and thought you’d be safe on the Other Side.”
“So if it’s destroyed, I die too?” My voice rose yet another notch. “Did I get that right? Who wants to destroy it, Sol?”
“There’s a faction that has my father’s ear,” he replied, and this time he stepped forward. I didn’t stop him. “They’ve argued for it to be destroyed ever since the Purge. It’s those who believe that magic is too dangerous and unpredictable to be kept in this world.”
“Why do they get to decide? They didn’t make the Solenetta. It isn’t theirs.”
“That won’t stop them,” he said. “Your father, me, many others—we’ve kept the Solenetta’s location a secret. But there are many who would see it found and destroyed. You’re nothing to them, Mia. Dispensable. A worthy sacrifice.”
I knew it must have been hard for Sol to tell me about the blood rite. He hadn’t wanted to tell me about Bromasta and the house I’d been born in and that information wasn’t even in the same league. But I could tell that he was determined to see this story through.
“They’d see me dead?” I said, unable to believe it could be true. “Even though they know Bromasta?”
“Especially,” said Sol. “He has enemies at court.’
“Enemies that would see his children killed?”
“Enemies that care more about preventing Elias’s war on your world than saving one life.”
And I was that life. I was infuriated. Everything bad that had happened in my life had all been because of that necklace. I’d had never known my parents because of it. Despite all of that, I’d fought to get where I was at school and at home. Seventeen years of hard work. They weren’t taking that away from me.
“Then we really have to get that thing back to Crownsville! I mean that. We have to get to Malone’s. Sol, you can hear the drums. The parade’s starting.”
“We still have time,” he replied.
As if my bones had suddenly melted, I slumped against the wall, overwhelmed by everything I now knew. “On one hand, the Solenetta’s preserved and I start a war. On the other, the Solenetta’s destroyed and I’m toast.”
“Mia, no,” said Sol, his tone laced with regret. He came toward me, stopping right in front of me until all I could see was him. “Neither of those things will happen.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I won’t let them happen.”
“How can you stop it? Can’t we take it to Balia? They can do what my mother did. They can pass it on. They can keep it there.”
“The Balians won’t intervene,” Sol replied. He drew closer. “I told you that things didn’t go well for them during the Great War. Your mother thought they should help too. That they could use the power of the Solenetta against Elias, that they could use it for good. She was Balia’s brightest star. Of high blood, keeper of the Solenetta. Adored.
“But then she met your father. She fell in love. She never returned to Balia, and the Balians never forgave your father for taking her away. They turned their back on us and the Solenetta, knowing that its presence in Brakaland would keep the threat of war alive forever. It was their punishment for stealing their daughter.”
“Then I’m done for,” I said. “There really is no hope.”
“Don’t say that.” Sol took my hands, gripping them tight against his chest. “You said it yourself last night: Nothing’s changed. We get the Solenetta. We get Jay. And then we get you both back across the Barrier. You’re strong, Mia. You know how things are now. You know what to look out for. You know there are people in Crownsville who can protect you.”
“Is Crownsville even safe anymore?”
“Safer than here.”
But Crownsville would never be the same. Gone were the days of volleyball and debate. How could I even think about such things when I knew I was the key to starting a war between two worlds? It would never end. Some night Elias would send a visage demon and what could I do to stop it? I wasn’t my mother. I’d never even met her. How was I to learn all she’d known about solens and the magic of Balia?
“How can life change so quickly?” I whispered to Sol.
Our hands remained entwined, tight between our chests. Inches more and we’d be as close as you could get without doing things you really shouldn’t do in an alley behind somebody’s house. This was the place I’d prayed to be, right? But being close to Sol felt more complicated than ever. He was still the king’s son. And I was now the girl with my head on an executioner’s block.
But staring death in the face had done something to me. I didn’t care about consequences anymore. What could be worse than what I knew? I had to tell Sol how I felt about him before it was too late.
“Sol—”
Before I could start, Sol’s lips drew closer to mine. Hands holding the side of my face, he guided me into his kiss. Everything forgotten, I reached for him, too. His fingers grazed the back of my neck, the pressure of his touch increasing as he held me to his lips—not that I had any intention of pulling away. His other hand slid down my back and then gripped me tightly at the waist, drawing me in until our bodies touched at every point.
With my head tipped back, I swayed in his arms, but Sol wasn’t about to let me fall. Never once missing the beat of his kisses, his arms encased me a
nd he effortlessly drew me closer, almost lifting me off my feet. Heat rose between us.
Craving the touch of his skin, I reached for the hem of his shirt and felt the firm muscles in his back. He responded immediately to my touch, his gentle kisses taking on a harder edge until it was impossible to know who wanted this more.
And then he stopped.
Our faces remained together, almost cheek to cheek, the tip of Sol’s nose grazing my skin, his breath warm against my ear. “Mia, I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice soothing and deep.
Sorry?
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
He’d kissed me. Sol had kissed me. Was it possible he felt for me what I felt for him? I had to know.
“Just tell me why,” I gasped between breaths. “I didn’t think you . . . When did you . . . ?”
“Always,” he said. “It was Delane who stopped me.”
There was no space between us, no room to breathe. He had to feel how fast my heart was beating. I stepped back, but didn’t get far, as the wall behind me blocked my retreat.
“He told you?” I asked, shocked that Delane would break his promise to me and tell Sol how I felt.
Sol looked down at my face, his body towering over mine. “Told me what?” he asked.
Then Delane hadn’t told him. “Nothing,” I stammered. “It’s just . . . I don’t believe this is happening.”
He analyzed every inch of my face, his expression so earnest, so open and honest. How was I ever going to keep my hands off him?
“I wanted to tell you, Mia,” he said, “but there didn’t seem any point. None of this was about me. It was about you. As if you needed me harassing you on top of everything else.”
“Harassing me?”
“I think you’re beautiful, Mia,” he said. “Smart. Tough. The way you’ve handled everything that’s happened—it’s unbelievable to me. How I felt? That was my problem. I couldn’t let it get in the way. Your safety came first. Always. I thought about telling you, but then I saw how close you’d grown to Delane and I . . .”
“Delane?”
“The two of you were always laughing, finding fun, even during the worst of what had happened. I could see how close you’d grown.”
