I never thought I would write these words, she wrote, but I will be needing your help.
Even though Nura is expecting his betrayal, she is furious to come home and find Zeryth with a crown on his head and his own war already in progress. He betrayed her before she could turn on him — smart of him, perhaps, but for the stupidest, most selfish reasons.
Nura’s loyalty pact means she cannot slit his throat in the night like she wants to. But at least his war is giving the Orders more power, albeit slowly. And she does not need to lift a finger against Zeryth in order to cull him. The thing he wants most and the thing that will destroy him are the same.
He has already started experimenting with deep, dark magic in order to craft the curse that holds Tisaanah’s life — how he managed to do that all on his own, Nura will never know — and it is easy to coax him with more of it. He wants to win his war. He wants to win Ara’s crown. And most of all, he so, so desperately wants their respect.
All Nura gives him is exactly what he wants. Magic. Powerful, inhuman magic, pulled from her experimentations with Vardir. Even she does not understand why Tisaanah and Max, due to their exposure to Reshaye, are able to handle it so much better than most. But Zeryth is only human, not even modified as the Syrizen are to raise his tolerance. The more he tries to be something more powerful, the weaker he gets.
Nura hands him the power he craves, and watches him use it to slowly destroy himself.
The war goes on, and Zeryth withers, and Nura studies in the shadows, looking to the horizon, watching, waiting. Working.
And still, the visions grow more vivid, every night.
Until months pass, and the threat has arrived.
Strange, the paths that life takes.
Nura thinks this to herself as she stands in her office, a silver bowl in her hands, Max and Tisaanah staring at her expectantly.
She is out of time. The things she saw destroying Max’s home, ripping Syrizen apart, cement that. Her nightmares have arrived.
She is so, so afraid. She does not trust herself to weave words that convey all that she needs them to understand. They hate her. Of course they do. She has done unspeakable things. There are no sentences she can string together that would make any of that better.
And so all she can do is open herself up for them like a dissected animal, her insides pulled apart. Everything within her rails against it. But she has spent her entire life learning how to sew closed every single gap inside of her. Words will not be enough to tear it open. And she needs them to understand — she needs them to understand what is coming, and how much she needs their help. She needs them to understand why.
It is Max who approaches her first, looking at her with a wrinkle between his brows. She wonders if he knows he has worn that expression since he was a child.
Perhaps here, in her memories, he will find a shard of something familiar in her, too.
She offers them the spell, and with it, her thoughts, her dreams, her regrets. Her soul.
And prays it will be enough.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Max
I staggered back.
It took a few long seconds to come back to myself. I felt unmoored, drifting somewhere between the past and the present, between Nura’s memories and my own. The visions settled deep in my gut, like I had eaten something rancid.
Nura was looking at me the way I never thought she would look at me again — with such vulnerability.
My eyes fell past her. To the single, thick door.
“What is in there.”
Barely louder than a whisper. A demand, not a question. I didn’t know if I wanted to know.
Without another word, Nura opened it.
The interior of the room was so starkly white and bright that it hurt my eyes. It was a narrow room, closer to a short hallway. There was a desk here, scattered with piles of parchment, and a few chairs.
But then I turned, and my mouth went dry.
The room had one glass wall. Beyond the glass were iron bars. And beyond those bars were people.
No… not people. Not humans, anyway. Fey.
There were six of them. Two were in the same enclosure. Some lay on small cots, covered by thin white blankets. Others sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. One lay on the ground, on her stomach, not moving. None of them reacted when we entered. Was that because the glass was so thick they couldn’t hear us? Or was it because they were no longer able to?
Some didn’t even look like they were alive.
Tisaanah whispered a curse beneath her breath.
“They invaded us,” Nura said. “The first one came into our territory in Threll, only days after the Mikovs fell. But others came here. They came to our shores. Some of them have killed here. That one skewered a couple that found him hiding in their barn. Just innocent farmers.”
Tisaanah had stepped forward, her fingers pressed to the glass. She was silent. I followed her gaze to one of the Fey, who lifted his head just enough to look at us over his shoulder. Matted fair hair. Tan skin. And a glimpse of a bright gold eye.
Ishqa’s words echoed: My son is among the Fey who were taken.
Tisaanah’s gaze slid to me, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.
“Why are they here, Nura?” I asked, quietly.
I hoped I was wrong. Prayed I was wrong. But the pieces fit too well — for these creatures to be here, beneath the Towers, with Vardir. Here, in this room of white and white.
“There are things we can do with Fey blood,” Nura said. “Fey magic. Things we can create,
