Page 90 of Of Stars and Lightning
The golden light of the forest dimmed, turning into a muted violet. The humming leaves hushed in a gasp, and the tea beneath her feet turned to mud.
Through the haze, Sol looked up. She met the figure fully. “I will not fail.”
“Why are you here, Daughter of Wards?” The figure ebbed and flowed an emerald tone, circling around Sol. “Your mother had a duty. She was on the throne since she could Wield. She then fled to save you. And now you return, after all that trouble. Why?”
Electricity sizzled as it leaned closer. “Why areyouuuuhere?” That’s when Sol lost it.
The sky muted, and the air stilled as the words echoed, digging into the corners ofher mind, and burrowing.
“Why are you here?” Why are you here?
Why?
The words pulsed like a heartbeat as Sol sank to her knees. “I?—I’m here to finish what my mother started.”
“Wrong answer,” the voice thundered, and the orb faded into nothing, dispersing into gray mist. As the figure faded, it whispered, “The gods don’t need someone like you on the Rimemere throne.”
Sol sank further into the mud and sobbed. Because the voice, whether real or Kerproot induced, was right.
What was she there for? Because a note from her mother told her to be?
Her mother’s wish and instructions had gotten her this far, but would they take her far enough?
She was no Queen.
She had no magic.
She played the facade well, but gods knew she grew tired of trying to fit into their molds, clear by her defiance toward Gina. Her kingdom hated her, and the people who didn’t were weeks away, abandoned when they needed her the most.
Like she had done with her mother on the day she was murdered. She had left her to die then, too. Left everyone she loved to die, while she played pretend in a role she was doomed to fail.
Fail.
Failure.
Her sobs broke through her chest as if her heart itself begged to be let out of a body that couldn’t bear it. Sol threaded her hands through her hair and pressed her forehead to the ground, heaving heavy breaths while begging herself to get up. Falling apart wasn’t an option. Even if that was all she had wanted to do since the day she left Lora and her town behind.
“Sol,” the wind whispered her name. “Sol, come on. You can’t let the Kerproot win.”
Branches—no, fingers—wrapped around her arms, forcing her to look up.
She knew this man. This man with midnight hair and eyes of moonlight. Still, she sank further into the mud, her face burning with tears.
“What am I doing here? Who—who am I,” she shook with each sob. “I don’t know who I am.”
The man knelt in front of her. He shimmered like fog at midnight and smelled of sage.
His name… his name.
“We need to keep going, Princess. We are almost at the end of the path.”
She pulled out of his grasp. “Who am I? If I don’t even know, then the floating orb is right, I’m useless.”
The man sighed. “You really shouldn’t have taken a double dose.”
Failure.
Failure.
