“I think they need to stay here to fight those that stay back,” I countered. “And I think only a few of us need to get to the Shadow realm.”
Easton’s gaze narrowed. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of facing him by yourself.”
I threw my hands into the air. “No. Didn’t I just say that we needed to take a few of us? There needs to be people here to train and to lead the armies, but I’m the Spirit Priestess. I need to fight The Gray. It’s been foretold. So, here I am. I need to go to him. Besides, he still has people on his side, and however many he has within his realm now.”
“I thought he only had his second and fourth,” Luken said, and I did my best not to look at him directly. We still hadn’t told him about his father. And, honestly, I wasn’t sure how to. Everybody stood at the edge of a precipice, where one shove in any direction would make us all falter.
It was wrong of me to keep the secret, and we would tell him soon. I just didn’t know how to yet.
“I killed the Whisperer. But his second is still there. And there might be others he’s pulled into the realm by now. The fact that we don’t know for sure is a major roadblock. Meaning, we need to go to him.” I rolled my shoulders back. “That’s not the only thing we need to do.
“You want to go find Slavik,” Rhodes said.
I nodded. “And anyone else that hasn’t come to us yet.”
“If they haven’t come,” Rhodes continued, “is there a reason for that?”
“Many of the underground leaders have been in hiding, keeping their people safe. If they’re at least against The Gray, we need help. We’ve lost too much,” I said, doing my best not to look at Justise or anyone else who had lost someone or something dear. Though that touched every single person in this room if I was honest with myself.
“We need every faction we can find to protect our people and to bring the realm together. The crystals are gone,” I said, looking down at my skin. “I don’t know how to bring them back, but parts of them are within me. You in this room know this, though no one else does.”
Everyone nodded, and I continued. “We need to get the crystals back—somehow, some way. We need to defeat The Gray, and we have to protect our people. And to do that, we need all hands on deck. That includes the pirate king and anyone else who has been hiding since the last battle.”
Easton looked at me then, his expression grave, but he nodded. “You’re right. We need everybody. So, we’ll find them. And we’ll discover a way into the Shadow realm.”
“We let The Gray come to us last time. We can’t do that again,” I said. “We’ll go to him. We’ll take the war to his door. And we’ll win. Because while the realm might be fracturing, we won’t let it fall into ruin. Not completely. We won’t lose our people.”
As everyone started talking at once, making plans for who else they could contact, I turned away. I looked out across the unfamiliar landscape of the Fire territory, firedrakes dancing along the edges, fire erupting from a volcano miles away, and I wondered what a plan could be without an actual ending. I knew the prophecy. I knew what it entailed, even if some of it was still vague.
The crystals were now in me. I knew this. And for them to come out, something needed to give.
A sacrifice had to be made.
Suddenly, I had the feeling that once we reached the Shadow realm, I wouldn’t be coming back.
I had left the human realm long ago. And even if we defeated The Gray, a part of me knew I wouldn’t be returning to the Maison realm either.
Chapter Thirteen
Lyric
The road to the others was long and very different from the last time I had been on this path. When I had come this way before, I had been hurt. We were sometimes in wagons, other times being dragged, all the way from the Earth territory up through the borders and then towards the Fire territory.
Then, I had been with Luken and Braelynn and Rhodes.
I had met Easton in the borderlands. Had learned how to use my Air Wielding with his Fire Wielding, and had fallen just a little for that smirk, even though I hadn’t realized it at the time.
He had been a prince of no name then, even while Rhodes had been the same.
None of us were who we used to be.
Today, we were on our way to find Slavik and his people, and recruit any underground leaders we could get our hands on.
Having us stick together might not be the smartest plan, but The Gray wouldn’t come after the others without Easton or me or Rhodes present. He hadn’t yet, not after how many times we had been away. It had always been an attack on at least one of the three of us. So now, we were staying together, heading to gather more people.
Rhodes, Lanya, and the others had stayed behind. As had the former Queen of Lumière.
Easton’s uncles were training, although Justise was taking a longer road back to recovery than we had hoped. He had lost his arm in battle, and for now, it seemed he was ignoring anything past his initial healing. He wasn’t using the Fire Estate’s furnace to make weapons. He was only using his Wielding to train others to fight. Other blacksmiths could pick up the slack and were doing so with clear understanding. Only I didn’t know what was best for Justise. It was his decision, however, no matter what he decided—something we all recognized.
I wasn’t sure what would happen when we returned. I had to trust that Ridley would know how to help Justise. He knew his husband better than anyone and had had to overcome his abilities. After all, he’d had to hide his Water Wielding for centuries. And he’d had to learn to be a warrior and a healer.
Hopefully, he would be able to help Justise now.
So many had stayed behind, our armies gathering. We had met smaller camps of warriors along the way, ones who had stayed to protect their small towns and villages rather than meeting up with the king.
We all understood that but had done our best to persuade those who could leave to go and join the other armies to fight as one. Most had agreed, simply taking their families with them. We understood that, as well. If they didn’t, there would be no one left to protect them.
Because we all knew that not everybody was safe. Not everyone was on the side of good.
We had all learned that the hard way more than once already.
And now, without the wards, it was hard to know who was friend or foe. Not that it had ever been easy to determine that.
This was the seventh village we had visited, and we were exhausted, but I knew this was only the start. We used carrier hawks to get messages back and forth to and from the uncles, hoping each time that they weren’t intercepted. Easton used some of the magic he had learned from his mother to keep it all secret, but I was still worried that the enemy would intervene. We didn’t know exactly how powerful The Gray was, after all.
Braelynn and Luken traveled together, with Braelynn in her cat form. We didn’t know if she could willingly shift into her dragon form, but it had taken a lot out of her when she did, so we were all glad that she was saving her energy for another fight.
Because there would be another fight.
Teagan and Wyn were with us, too, Wyn wanting to see her former home, the Earth Estate. I imagined Teagan had come to get away from his father—at least partly.