“There is more than this,” he murmured. “And I want you to live to see it, Aefe. Don’t throw it away here. This is just a battle. Not the war.”
Just a battle? I was so tired of battles. Maybe I would be willing to die to end this one.
“Then where does it stop?” Tears were hot on my cheeks, and a wrinkle deepened between Caduan’s eyebrows as he leaned closer still—
And then blood spattered over me.
All at once, the warmth where Caduan’s body had been was now replaced with a spray of violet. He staggered back against the railing of the balcony. The magic linking us was violently severed.
Caduan stumbled towards me, his hand outstretched, doubled over. A bolt protruded from his chest, black smoke collecting around it.
I reached for him, our fingertips brushing—
Another shot.
One moment he was there. And the next, he was gone, tumbling from the balcony.
A cry tore from my throat, stifled by a vicious impact that flung me against the railing. Pain bloomed through my insides. I barely felt it. All I could think about was the emptiness where Caduan had once been.
I realized slowly that the pain was a bolt stuck in my back, digging straight through my barely-healed wounds from Yithara. On my hands and knees, I turned around.
Standing there was Athalena, her face twisted in rage, tears streaming down her cheeks. Light and shadow surrounded her, like her magic spilled from her every pore, directionless.
“I trusted you,” she screamed. “You swore to me! You swore to me that this would not happen!”
She limped closer. She was badly wounded. Maybe I could have taken her, even with this magic bolt sticking out of me. But suddenly I found it hard to care.
She loomed over me, her crossbow readied, magic bleeding from it.
“My children are dead,” she spat, and her voice cracked like shattered glass and broken bone, and I knew she would kill me.
Could I blame her?
I closed my eyes.
But instead of the impact, I felt the floor suddenly drop beneath me, and the sensation of falling.
I opened my eyes to see the world smearing around me, and the flash of golden wings. A bolt whizzed past my left ear. I looked down to see Athalena, shrinking into the distance, sinking to her knees.
I was being carried. I was flying.
“I have you.” Ishqa’s voice was steady and smooth in my ear.
I choked out, “We have to go back for him.”
Ishqa said, quietly, “He did not survive.”
“We have to go back.”
“Aefe… there is nothing to find.” Ishqa’s voice was pained. “Trust me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to argue, wanted to force him to turn around, tear apart the world to search for Caduan. But I had felt that connection between us sever. I watched him fall.
And so, I was traitorously silent.
With three powerful pumps of Ishqa’s wings, we launched into the sky. I looked down and watched Niraja shrink beneath me, corpses growing smaller and smaller. Down below, on the highest balcony of the Nirajan palace, Ezra watched his city fall. Beside him, Orin turned. His stare fell directly to us. His crossbow lifted, and our gazes met — his gaze that, even from this distance, reminded me so much of my own.
He held his aim for several long seconds, then lowered his weapon and turned away, joining his brother.
And all while Ezra just stood there as if made of marble, helpless as he watched his garden wither.
Chapter Sixty
Max
I had forgotten what it was like to be this carelessly content.
Tisaanah and I fell into it like we were drowning in a vat of honey. How many days had it been? Impossible to tell, considering that we may have lost an entire twenty-four hours to the deepest, longest sleep I’d ever had. Perhaps for the first time in my life, it was easy to be content, when I could roll over and open one bleary eye to see Tisaanah’s face ungracefully smooshed against the pillow.
Years ago, I had foolishly taken that for granted — the ability to see the people I cared about in passing, unremarkable glances. Of course they were there. Of course they were safe. I knew that I’d never get that feeling of ease back. The pit at the bottom of my stomach, the tension in my chest, would probably linger there for the rest of my life. But in those sleepy days, I came closer to reclaiming it than I had in a long, long time.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been by the time I finally opened my eyes from the depths of hibernation, squinted out the window into the sun-drenched world beyond it, and dragged myself out of bed. I wrapped one of the blankets around my shoulders and shuffled out into the garden. Winter loomed. The sky was cloudless and the sun was warm, but the air so cold that my breath released clouds of mist with every exhale.
The garden was overgrown and messy. Before, I had woven an intricate series of spells to keep the plants happy in the wintertime. Those protections were weak, now — it had been months since they were last refreshed. I picked up a stick and walked the edges of the garden, drawing Stratagrams in the dirt and watching with satisfaction as drooping flower petals puffed back to life.
Then I settled before my rose bushes. Most of the flowers were dead, or close to it, the white and red petals shriveled at the edges. My knee nudged something hard, and I looked down to see that there was a pair of clippers, now pitifully rusted, lying in the dirt beneath a generous coating of dead leaves.
Right.
This was exactly that spot I had come to, months ago, when Tisaanah had made her Blood Pact. I had sat here spiraling into existential dread, desperately trying to tell myself that the clippers in my hand would be the closest thing I’d ever wield again to an
