“Helena, I’m fine. I’m right here. We are at war. Isn’t that the risk we all take every time we step onto a battlefield?”
Effie forced herself to meet Von and Ronan’s gaze. They were looking at her with respect. Even Reyna was nodding in agreement.
Helena’s eyes lifted to Effie’s, and she shook her head. “I took a damn vacation while you almost died.”
“Rowena was defeated. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”
“Are there any other Shadow-touched we know of?” Von asked.
“Yes and no,” Ronan answered. “Those we know of were lost with the citadel. As for the rest of the realm,”—he shrugged—“they are certainly out there, but we don’t know where they are coming from.”
“And there’s still the matter of the land,” Kael said. “Sylverlands and Caederan have both been affected. Not to mention Bael.”
“Perhaps this is a silly question,” the Councilman started, “but if it takes a bite to turn a person, how are the Shadows managing to turn the land?”
“We believe anywhere their blood has been spilled the land is altered.”
The room fell silent as the information sank in.
Helena lifted her chin and spoke directly to the Councilman for the first time. “It would seem we are in your debt, sir. Your people helped save one I consider family when I could not. And it would appear that knowledge may yet help us save many more.”
“I want to go to one of the sites,” Helena declared. “I need to feel it for myself.”
Lucian nodded. “Of course. Effie told us that you might have encountered something like it before; that your magic might be able to reverse the effects without aid.”
Helena shuddered, needing no additional prompting to know exactly what he was referring to. “The Forest of Whispers . . .”
“And Endoshan,” Von added.
She shook her head, looking haunted. “The signs have been there this whole time, but I didn’t realize . . .”
“None of us did,” Lucian said gently.
Helena twisted to face the Triumvirate once more. “Ronan’s letters mentioned there was also the matter of a prophecy.”
For a moment, Effie forgot the hooded figures were merely a trick of the light. Nord had the central figure dip its head.
“Many of these events have been tied to a prophecy known by most as the Shadow Years.”
Another gasp, this time followed by the red-headed woman lurching to her feet. “The Shadow Years?”
The way she said it, it didn’t sound as though she was afraid, more like surprised. As if it were the oddest of coincidences.
“You are familiar with it?” Lucian asked.
She shook her head. “No, well, I mean everyone hears the stories growing up. It’s just that you are not our first guest this month. We had another, a man who disappeared without a trace. He left behind his belongings. There was a note about—” she stopped abruptly, clearly searching for the right words. Snapping her fingers, she gave a little nod. “Markers. Something about the Shadow Years markers.”
Lucian went rigid beside her, and Effie forgot how to breathe as a familiar pressure settled hard and fast in her chest.
“What did this man look like?” Lucian demanded, his voice dark.
The woman blinked, visibly flustered. “Um, long hair, blond, green eyes.”
Lucian shot to his feet, his chair flying out behind him. “That thrice-damned son-of-a-bitch!”
Helena’s eyes were darting from Lucian to the panic-stricken Councilwoman. “Who?”
“Kieran.”
Effie barely registered Lucian’s snarled response. The room was closing in around her, stealing her sight as she plunged headlong into a vision.
Kieran’s fingers bled; his nails cracked and skin tore from digging in the earth in a desperate search for fragments of the crumbling stones that might send him home. Somehow he’d managed to find what was left of the gate. Perhaps it was dumb luck, or maybe the people of Eatos had once been traders with the Vale. Either was a possibility really, although neither did much to help him.
Kieran had found the ruin quite by accident. After learning what had become of Effie, his only instinct had been to run as far and as fast as he could. He was smart enough to know that there was no running from what he’d done, but at least this way there was no chance he’d risk coming face-to-face with the reality of it.
After days of nothing but endless desert and more of its false promises, something had changed. The air grew sweeter with a bit more chill and there was a new whispering sound in the air. Kieran had thought he’d finally lost his mind, but after half a day of walking—he was guessing based on the sun’s trek across the sky—he’d found the river.
He’d practically fallen face first into the cool water, lapping it up with no care for potential contamination. His thirst was all-consuming, and this was clearly a gift from the gods. Or the Mother. Kieran wasn’t sure what—if anything—he believed in anymore.
Water also meant food. After a small feast of desert berries and sweet grass, Kieran spent the night curled up on the river’s muddied banks afraid that he’d wake to discover this had all been a cruel dream.
It wasn’t.
Taking the time to bathe and fill up on more water and berries, Kieran had made the decision to follow the river west. He had no plan and little in the way of prospects, but at least he had a direction.
It was another day and a half before he’d found it. There was a small copse of trees just beside an offshoot of the river. Kieran had blinked and rubbed his eyes at first, certain he was looking at another one of the Vale’s mirages, but it hadn’t blurred. After a few stumbling steps, he’d started running, not stopping until he quite literally tripped over one of the fallen stones.
The Gatekeeper hadn’t been lying when she said Elysia’s gate had been destroyed. If not for the markings etched into what was still standing of the original curved structure, Kieran never would have recognized it. It was hardly an arch, let alone anything resembling the stone sentinel he remembered.
That hadn’t stopped him from kneeling before what was left of it, pressing his forehead to the sun-warmed stone and weeping like a child. It had to be a sign.
It had to.
Why else would he have found his way here?
So Kieran’s search begun. Stones were scattered across the ground, most hidden beneath layers of grime and dirt. If not for edges jutting up just enough that he could either spot them—or trip over them—he may not have thought to look.
The hope that had fueled his frantic digging ebbed when after a day’s search only a half dozen of the missing stones were located. That’s when he realized the stones were only part of the problem.
Assuming he even managed to find them all, how exactly was he supposed to repair the gate? Kieran wasn’t even sure how to begin going about putting it back together. Surely there was some rhyme or reason to the way they needed to sit atop one another? Or was it enough to simply stack them?
The longer he searched, the more inconsolable he became.
Discovering the gate hadn’t been a blessing.
It was a taunt.
A reminder of all of Kieran’s shortcomings. His numerous—and if he was being honest, quite spectacular—failures.