All Chapters of The One: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

*Maerilee*The horse moves swiftly beneath us, its hooves thudding against the scorched ground, but I hardly feel it. My body is solid, grounded, but the rest of me feels like smoke. The battlefield stretches endlessly in every direction, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the woman seated in front of me. Her silver braid glimmers even in the dim, ashen light, and every part of her radiates calm and command.I have never met her before. I am certain of that. And yet, something deep inside me stirs. Her presence tugs at something old, something buried in the marrow of my bones. It is not comfort exactly, but a strange sense of being known. As if she has walked beside me through every hardship, even though I know that cannot be true.My voice is quiet when I speak. “What’s your name?”She glances over her shoulder, and when her silver eyes meet mine, it is like the world stills.“I am Seraphira,” she says simply. “Queen of the Faeblood. First daughter of the kingdom you now call Altinna

*Brook*I’ve never been particularly close to River, to no one’s surprise. He was born to be the King of Oceana, the favored child of the realm. I was born to be his spare. And that’s how we existed for our entire lives before we met Maerilee.He was always so loud and arrogant before, quick to dismiss people who don’t meet his impossibly high expectations. He walked like the world was supposed to part for him, and for a long time, it did.He’s changed in these last few weeks since the war started. Hell, he changed a lot the moment he chose Maerilee over our kingdom. At first, it was hard to reconcile the fact that we would spend the rest of our lives locked into a competition for Maerilee’s love. Now, though, it’s clear that Maerilee’s happiness is more important than any petty squabble we’ve had over the years. It’s our duty to protect her.And we aren’t alone on this quest. We have Permiton to help us as well. While he’s an enigma at best and very odd at worst, I’ve never disliked

*Maerilee*The whispers never stop. Even when the room is quiet, even when the halls are empty, they slither through the cracks of my mind like vines. Cold. Coiling. Rooting deeper with every breath I take.“You are too weak.”“You let him die.”“You will never be enough.”“You should kill yourself.”The last one hits hardest. I flinch, curling tighter into myself, my knees drawn to my chest atop the cold stone of my chamber floor. My fingernails dig into my scalp as I clutch at my temples, shaking from the force of it, the weight of it. I know the thoughts aren’t mine now. I know they don’t belong to me.But they still feel true. Each word lands like a blade, sharpened by grief. My body trembles. I can feel the pressure of the darkness pressing in from all sides, on my lungs, my skin, my spine. It creeps like oil across every surface. It wants me silent, broken, hollowed out.But somewhere deep inside of me, there’s a spark, igniting me to push back. It’s flickering and weak, but it

*Akin*There is no time here. Not really. It stretches and twists and folds in on itself like smoke curling in the wind, and I’ve long stopped trying to measure it. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, only that my muscles have forgotten movement and my mind has frayed at the edges more times than I can count.Sometimes I hear my own heartbeat. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I remember the feeling of a sword in my hand, the warmth of Maerilee’s breath against my neck, the solid weight of River’s shoulder brushing mine in battle. Sometimes I think they are figments of my imagination, people who never truly lived.Here in this place, the in-between where shadow bleeds into shadow and the air pulses with silent, screaming magic, I barely exist. The darkness doesn’t just cover me. It holds me. It lives in me. It wraps around my limbs like cold iron, slipping between my ribs, threading through the places I thought were mine and making them something else. My thoughts no longer come in order

*River*The gates to the castle burst open for the four of us. I push through first, my sword still drawn, the metallic echo of steel on stone ringing through the courtyard like thunder. The guards barely have time to part before I’m through, their startled shouts falling behind me as I stride across the threshold, boots pounding against the cold, polished floor.Brook and Permiton are right behind me, one arm slung over each of their shoulders, with Akin between them, barely standing, swaying with every step, but alive. He’s more than a little beaten up, his strength completely zapped. But that’s why we’re here.We don’t know how, but he’s here. One moment, we were standing in an apparently empty ruin, feeling like all hope was gone. The next, Akin appeared before us, like magic. In fact, probably because of magic. But Permiton kept muttering that it wasn’t possible, that no ordinary fae could have broken through shadow magic like that.I’ve known for quite a while that Akin was no o