Chapter Forty-nine

Wrapped in shadow, Talemir and Dratos took Thea and Wilder to the edge of the world. A red dawn bled into the horizon, illuminating the cold, hard lines of Thezmarr's black cliffs, hemmed in by jagged mountains and savage seas. Below, giant waves barrelled through the clouds. Thea could taste the storm on her tongue as her boots hit the rocky terrain.

Darkness rippled from the ledges above, and Thea didn't hesitate to start towards it. She was ready to unleash her wrath upon the monsters who'd taken her sister from her, who'd all but ripped the world in two. She was ready to end this madness once and for all.

Thea recognised where she was instantly. The caves where Cal and Kipp had almost died, where a storm had raged and brought her to her knees, the weight of her power nearly overcoming her. It was where Wilder had first witnessed her magic, too, and asked, Who are you?

Now, she knew. She was Althea Embervale, Warsword, storm wielder, heir of Delmira, enemy to Jasira Fairmoore and the reapers… And she would be the end of them.

At the mouth of the cave, shadows lashed out, but Thea was ready. She seared them with her lightning and called upon the storm. Rain came down in a torrent, lashing back at the darkness, beating it into submission, revealing Princess Jasira beyond.

The stench was overwhelming, as was the hissing of reapers and wraiths behind her. ‘It's the reaper lair,' Thea told Wilder and the others. ‘The one Anya was searching for. Destroy the monsters within. Her Highness is mine to finish.'

Jasira didn't even try to stop the warriors as they pushed past her into the cave at Thea's orders. Instead, she licked her lips and studied Thea, as though she were a hunter and Thea her prey.

‘You truly think you can best the Daughter of Darkness? I was prophesied to end this world.'

‘Perhaps you were…' Thea said, taking a step towards the princess, her hand brushing against the hilt of her sword. ‘And perhaps I was prophesied to start it anew.'

We are all daughters of darkness. Audra's words came back to her as an echo, and there, atop the jagged cliffs, Thea summoned her magic, that kernel within blooming into something savage, something fierce. She had brought lightning and thunder down on the fortress and its monsters, but here… here was the truest monster of all.

Ignoring the lash of Jasira's shadows, and the screams of the reapers within the cave, Thea tipped her head to the sky, and conjured her storm. It roiled within her, and answered her call from beyond the cliffs, dark clouds rolling in, rain pelting down.

She met Jasira's gaze and her storm eclipsed the darkness, fracturing the sky into a thousand pieces with brilliant bolts of lightning. Their heat cracked stone, shearing through rock and earth and shadow. Waves gathered in the violent seas below, breaking against the cliffs in giant deluges of white foam.

Thea mastered it all.

The prophecy hummed in her mind, a reminder, a promise.

In the shadow of a fallen kingdom, in the eye of the storm…

Her storm raged, a war song of vengeance for the midrealms. This tempest was like no other; it was her masterpiece – a rich tapestry of wind, rain, lightning and thunder, all of it surging not only with her power, but with Anya's too. And when she could hold it in her body no longer, when it was on the brink of bursting from her chest, her hand gripped her sword.

A daughter of darkness will wield a blade in one hand…

Thea channelled her power through her entire being and unsheathed her Furies-given Naarvian steel, sending the lightning right down the blade.

And rule death with the other…

Thea had ruled death time and time again, so many times she had become its shadow. Bolts of blinding white danced along the steel as she closed the gap between herself and Jasira in three quick steps.

When the skies are blackened, in the end of days…

The princess' eyes widened, her shadows faltering.

‘It ends here, Jasira,' Thea said quietly.

‘It never ends, Thea. You think it matters that you might take the fortress? My darkness is everywhere. In the air around us, in the land, in the hearts of monsters and men. In you.'

Thea struck out with her lightning —

Jasira's shadows swallowed it whole.

Gripping her sword, Thea lunged, but an invisible force hit her hard in the chest and her knees buckled beneath her, her blade clattering to the ground. She suddenly couldn't take in enough air, and she gasped raggedly, her lungs burning as empath magic assaulted her.

Jasira faded from her vision, and in her place was Wren, a vine blight wrapping itself around her as she screamed in agony. It drew her into its tangled, poisonous nest as her limbs flailed and she sobbed.

Thea shouted, but no sound came out.

Sam and Ida's heads on spikes came next, their expressions frozen in horror, their faces lined with evidence of their horrific torment.

Bile hit the back of Thea's throat.

A flash of shadow momentarily blinded her before revealing Anya's broken corpse on the cobblestones of the fortress. And Kipp's. And Cal's. All dead.

‘No!' The word came out as a whisper.

Thea was on the blood-slick cobbles with them, and Wilder was dying in her arms, the light leaving his silver eyes.

‘It never ends,' Jasira said again, her voice distant and eerie.

A vicious onslaught of images attacked Thea – memories, fears, futures that threatened to come to pass, all encompassing her in a whirlwind of pain and sorrow that had her choking on her sobs.

Thiswas what the most powerful empath in history could do backed by shadow magic, backed by an army of monsters.

On her knees, tears streaming down her face, breath shuddering out of her, Thea reached for the one thing she had left. Her fingertips brushed the jewelled dagger at her belt.

‘You were not born to wield steel and steel alone.'

Lightning crackled in her veins once more and she felt an otherworldly presence surround her – not one of darkness and malice, but one of fury.

Iseldra. Morwynn. Valdara.

They were here.

The Furies were with her.

‘There are few who can face themselves as well as their nightmares and emerge whole on the other side,' they whispered.

Shadows dispersed, revealing the former Princess of Harenth, her eyes wide.

Unsheathing the fine blade, Thea staggered to her feet, charging the steel with her storm magic, her Warsword vows coming back to her in a rush of power.

‘I swore to cast the evil from these lands. I swore to hunt, punish and kill any and all who threaten these kingdoms. It does end, Jasira. And it ends with you.'

‘No, I —'

Thea thrust her dagger between the princess' ribs, through flesh and bone, just like she'd done to all the monsters who'd come before.

Jasira let out a gasp as the blade penetrated her heart. Her hands shot out, gripping Thea as her legs gave way beneath her.

Thea let her slide to the ground, her dagger still protruding from Jasira's chest. Behind them, Wilder, Talemir and Dratos emerged, covered in black blood, gaping at the storm raging around the cliffs.

The Veil will fall.

A rumbling noise sounded in the distance.

Beyond the churning seas, beyond the forks of lightning and roiling clouds, the impenetrable wall of mist, which had guarded and then haunted the midrealms for as long as anyone could remember, shuddered.

The impact reverberated in the earth beneath their boots, in the mountains past the cliffs, and in whatever realms existed outside their own.

In one cascading wave, the Veil fell.

And beyond it was golden light.

Thea slid her dagger from Jasira's heart, wiping the blood on the dead princess' cloak and turning to face the receding tempest.

The tide will turn when her blade is drawn.

Her storm took the remaining tendrils of darkness with it, revealing the sun's watery morning rays, the blood-stained cliffs, and the plumes of smoke drifting from the rubble that was once the fortress of Thezmarr.

Thea slid her hand into Wilder's as they surveyed the scorched world before them.

‘A dawn of fire and blood,' Wilder murmured.