We were safe for now, but we wouldn’t be as soon as we crossed the barrier.
“You have all fought bravely up until now. You have trained, and you have sacrificed so much. You have all lost so much.”
The murmurs in the crowd sent shivers up my spine, but my friends stood near me—Easton on one side, Rhodes on the other.
The two people I had been pulled to the most during this journey, and they were here. Ready to fight with me.
We would all fight today, and we might die.
But we would not do so in vain.
“We will bring this realm together. We are doing so now. Most of you are standing side by side with those who used to be your enemy. Those whose Wielding is not yours. And yet, you are all fighting for a common goal. We have made friends between us, created allies of those we thought we should fight against. But it’s not the common goal of death and destruction that brings us together today. It is protecting a realm that has been lost to hate and power for centuries.”
They shouted, throwing their fists up in agreement. Nobody used their Wielding. Nobody screamed too loudly. We did not want the Lumière to hear us.
We did not want The Gray to overhear.
“We are ready. We will fight The Gray and his people. We will seal the realm and protect our futures. Your children will be raised in a realm of love, solidified by the sacrifice of those who came before them. They will not know the fear we have. They will not know the heartache you have felt. But we will be there to tell them what we fought for. And let them know why they can live in a world of peace. Because we will bring that peace.”
Others murmured in agreement, and I could see my friends nodding.
“The Gray would have us divided. Would have this realm turned into his prison. He wants us to break and blend into the other realms, shattering all of them.
“But we are not The Gray. We are Maisons. We are Water and Fire, Earth and Air. We are Spirit, and we are Dane. We are those with Wielding, and those who fight by our sides without. We are those who stand on the side of right. Of good. There is no light or dark. We are beyond that now.
“We are Maisons. And we will fight. We will win.”
I lifted up my hand and let out all four of my Wielding elements.
The others shouted. We were ready.
“So, did you practice that speech in the mirror?” Teagan asked.
I scowled.
“No, and I’m pretty sure winging it might not have been the best idea,” I said.
But then there was no more time to worry about what I had said. We were past that.
We had spent so long preparing for this moment, time that felt like my entire life, even though it’d been only two short years.
Now, this was the end.
We made our way over the crest towards the court of the Lumière. I froze.
“They knew,” Easton growled, the utter betrayal in his voice sending shockwaves through me.
The Gray’s army stood in front of us, ready, willing, and dressed in battle leathers equal to ours.
We had not come upon them in secret. We had not surprised them. We did not have the upper hand.
The Gray had known.
Someone had told him.
This was most definitely our end.
“Who told?” Wyn asked, her voice shaking.
“There are so many of them. We’re not enough,” she added.
“We have to be,” I said, shock slamming into me as I looked at The Gray. His robes still covered his body, his hood over his head so no one could truly see his face, but I knew the evil that lay behind that cowl.
But it wasn’t him that shocked me the most.
No, it was the person at his side.
The one we had been warned about.
The one Rosamond had not been able to see.
I couldn’t see,” Rosamond said, her battle leathers marked with the emblem of a Seer. It was so others didn’t harm her, much like the symbols the healers wore.
That had been the rule of war here for centuries, but I wasn’t sure it was going to help now.
All of those thoughts ran through my head in an instant as I stared at the woman in front of me, with the long, honey-brown hair that seemed to flow in a breeze that wasn’t there.
Alura stood by The Gray, her chin held high, but her eyes filled with fear. Was she afraid of the man at her side? Did she once love him? Did she still?
Or maybe what I saw was just fear of us and what we would do.
She would know.
“She’s the traitor,” Easton whispered.
“I didn’t see this. Why didn’t I see this?” Rosamond said, her hands shaking.
“Sometimes, we don’t see the traitor in our midst until it’s too late,” Emory whispered, and I swallowed hard, then looked at my friends, wondering what we were going to do.
“She’s his mother,” I whispered, looking at Luken. Easton reached out and grabbed my hand.
We needed to tell the warrior, but there was no time.
We were too late for so many things. We’d been so focused on devising a battle plan and ending this once and for all that I had missed the most important pieces—the people we were fighting for.
I would never forgive myself for that.
We were close enough now we could see each other clearly, as well as hear each other if the wind permitted.
“Why?” I asked, not even realizing I was saying the word aloud until it was too late.
“You know why,” Alura said, her voice still soft, airy, and lyrical, a tone that had always confused me.
But I didn’t know her.
Nobody did.
And that would be our downfall.
We trusted her, and we shouldn’t have.
“What is she talking about?” Emory asked, the only one of my friends able to speak at that moment. Perhaps because she had been here the shortest time, or maybe because she was the only one with enough power to speak at that moment.
“She’s talking about who she’s fighting for,” The Gray began, holding his arms out as if he were preaching a sermon rather than waging war.
“Our realm was shattered long before the idea of a Spirit Priestess. We’ve all known that. We had the Fall for a reason, after all.”
“And yet you’re perpetuating it,” Easton snapped.
“Am I? Or was I the unwilling participant in a war that was not my own. I stand on the precipice of what started it all.”
“The old king might have begun the war, but you embraced it,” Rosamond said, her eyes that of a Seer, not the granddaughter of the old king.
“Am I? Or am I the only one who saw the truth. I worked for the old king, but he was the one who decided the Spirit Wielders needed to be used.”
“Lie. He wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t whispered in his ear,” I shouted.
“Perhaps. But he did use their magic. That and the magic of the bones. It wasn’t me. I was just a bystander.”
“Notice he didn’t say ‘innocent,’” Rhodes grumbled.
“Oh, my hands are not clean. But neither are yours. You gained from the deaths of others, young Rhodes. You were the prince of the kingdom that began the Fall. Without you, perhaps there would’ve been peace.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s lying,” I said.
“Maybe, but others are listening,” Rhodes said quietly, and I nodded.
Our army could hear this. Hopefully, they would understand and see what the true enemy was. But we couldn’t explain what was happening because we were still figuring that out. And if we weren’t careful, our army could turn against us because The Gray lied. He was so good at that.