Chapter 28

The northern peaks of the Taranth Mountains were stunning, the crisp air untouched by the blight that crept through the foothills below us, a river of black snaking across the flat, unremarkable desolation of the Pale to the west.

"I've never been this far up in the mountains before. Never even knew anything like this existed."

Cosimo and I scaled the final steps leading to the small stone fortress hanging from the side of Mount Lancer, my thighs trembling with fatigue by the time we reached the top.

I'd flown us to the base of the steps, which were too steep to land us both on safely, and without knowing the layout of the fortress—more of a rustic stone house carved into the side of the cliff—I might have killed us both trying to land directly inside.

From here, the spread of the blight was sobering. Everywhere I looked was corrupted, even the bottom of the deep crevasse separating us from the next mountain.

"Gods. I haven't been here in three hundred years." Cosimo doubled over when we reached the top, hands braced on his knees as he caught his breath. "Forgot how many fucking steps there were."

The wooden front doors were so weather swollen they wouldn't budge, the iron hinges corroded so badly the astrologer used magic to blast a hole through the center while I searched the skies for any sign of Reapers. None came, and I wondered if Corvus was too busy devouring this world to make any new ones.

From the thick layer of dust coating everything, I would have pegged Cosimo's absence to be more like five hundred years. Picking at the moth-eaten drapes on our way past, the thick fabric fell to pieces the moment I touched them.

There was something at my workshop in the mountains, he'd told me earlier in a hush hush voice with a sideways look at Torin. Something that might allow us to retrieve the pendant, undamaged.

I'd flown him here, no questions asked.

"I used to spend most of my time up here. Except when I went into the city, when I spent every last minute with Tor, Zeph, and Simon," Coz explained as we descended a particularly perilous set of circular steps to the bottom floor.

"I'm not sure I'd ever leave," I murmured, letting the quiet sink into me. Between the thick stone walls and the mountains soaring over our heads, this place was the very definition of solitude.

"When Carex summoned me, I had no choice but to answer." Cosimo gave me a twisted smile. "Being his royal astrologer had its perks, but I'd be a fucking liar if I said I enjoyed working for the bastard."

He halted at the base of the steps, surveying the chaotic room.

Stone walls, thick enough to shut out the sound of the wind outside and broken windows that let that very same wind howl unhindered through the room. The place smelled abandoned, a mix of mold and dust and rot that had nothing to do with the blight and everything to do with its master spending centuries trapped inside an amulet.

"Perks like what?" I asked, trying to take in the absolute chaos.

And there was a lot to take in.

A huge table took up the center of the high-ceilinged room, heavy iron restraints on every corner. Lining every wall were long tables filled with various glass containers, some of them broken from the weather, some with brown, crystallized remnants dried inside the bulbous beakers.

Books lay in moldering piles amongst celestial globes, darkened oil lamps, telescopes, crystals, and hand-drawn diagrams on curled, brown parchment. An ornate astrolabe took up the center of one table, brass finish tarnished beneath the layers of dust.

"Perks like access to every trader who came through Tempeste. First dibs on precious metals and stones and any rare herbs or new information that came to light. All ancient artifacts that were dug up came to me before anyone else." He grinned, but there was a brittleness in his voice when he added, "Those sorts of perks."

I crossed to the window, swallowing when I peered straight down into a pit of black. But Cosimo didn't care that we were surrounded by an ocean of blight.

"Fuck. I never would have left this mess had I known I wouldn't be back. But the last day I was here…" He chewed his lip. "You never think it's going to be your last day, not when the morning begins like any other."

I waited for him to elaborate, but he began digging through a heap of corroded metal objects, a cloud of dust rising around him.

"What are we looking for?" I asked, studying the piles of devices and dried-up potions while stepping over the ruined, swollen books littering the floor.

"Something the king commissioned, long before he decided to sell me out to the Oracle." Cosimo paused long enough to run his hand over what had once been a robe but was now little more than a snarl of faded fabric.

The table was bare by the time the astrologer slammed his fists down. "The godsdamned thing has to be here somewhere. I just don't remember where I left it."

"And what does this device do, exactly?" I asked, unwilling to give into hope just yet. "Restore the melted amulet back to its original form?"

He paused, cocking his head, thinking. "No, but that would be an easier solution. However, I lack the time to develop such a device." Cosimo moved to the side table and started clearing away broken beakers.

"No, the Fae King had me developing something to use against his brother. A device that allowed him to travel back in time."

I blinked, wondering if I'd heard him right. "A device…to travel back in time?" Repeating the words didn't make them sound any more plausible.

"Time is simply another dimension intertwined with space, forming the fabric of spacetime. It serves as a metric, defining the sequence and duration of events, and underpins the arrow of causality. It can be manipulated, like light and mass, be warped and stretched, slowed and sped up. That's from a book." Cosimo winked. "It also helped that I found a mage with the ability to manipulate time, harnessing his magic into a device—for a steep price, of course—which allowed me to use his power for short periods of…time."

"You can go back in time?"

"We can go back if I can find the damned thing. I swear, sometimes my inventions crawl away."

"Surely, you're?—"

"No, depending on the magic, they really do grow legs and crawl away. But the Chronotron has to be here somewhere. Without someone to activate the magic, it's inert and perfectly safe."

"You've…done this? Gone back in time?" Gods, the implications…the possibilities were endless. Frightening but endless.

We could go back and stop the battle between Caladrius and Solarys, save all those soldiers' lives. We could go even further and rescue Anaria from the hell that was Varitus. I could keep her from killing Julian, keep so many terrible things from happening.

"Settle down over there, Commander." Cosimo moved a pile of moldering books that turned into sifting dust the moment he lifted them off the table. "I see the wheels turning, and no, you can't go back and right every single wrong."

"Why not?" I challenged, loosening my hands clenched so tight my knuckles ached. "Why not do some good?"

"Because changing the past changes the future and there's a fuckton that can go wrong when you muck about in the past." He studied my face. "Trust me, do not fuck around with time."

"Have you even tried to use this device?"

"I've used the Chronotron twice, though I've never taken anyone with me, but yes, it works. Carex decided time travel would be a handy way to go back and kill his brother instead of banishing him to Solarys where he'd amass an army and wage war for a millennium. When I told the king there was no magic that could take him back a thousand years, he had me come up with new ways to kill the Solarus army. Wanted to get his money's worth out of me, I guess." His grin was back.

"So the device won't go back a thousand years?"

Cosimo's smile was pure evil. "I said I told the king it was impossible. You might be able to make one trip. Only one. I'd have to consult with Bex and get his input before I'd attempt it. No sense in getting stuck back in the Stone Age."

Everything inside me went quiet with those words.

But stopping the two brother kings didn't stop the gods currently destroying this world and hunting us down. I tucked that information away, though, for later.

"How did you meet Bexley? And Trubahn?"

"Bex's master was a friend of mine, back in the day, and Bex is the cleverest mage I've ever known, present company excluded, of course. Ask him anything about history or magic or witches, and he'll know the answer off the top of his head." He shoved an armful of stuff across the table, bottles shattering, metal objects bouncing beneath the table.

"As for Trubahn, I knew of him before I went into the pendant. But afterward…it wasn't enough for the Oracle to take Zeph and me away from Tor. That monster sold Simon to Trubahn. Made the deal all official with the king's blessing, leaving Tor all by herself." Cosimo's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "Defenseless."

"She was the king's High Seer," I pointed out. "He relied on her; she must have had power within the court."

Cosimo stopped what he was doing long enough to give me a pointed look. "Spoken like a male with honor. But there was no honor at the Citadelle. After Simon was sold to Trubahn, the king gave Torin to Solok."

I didn't think I'd heard him right. "You mean she was a member of the king's court with Solok," I said slowly.

"Carex Centaria, may he rot in the deepest part of the Great Beyond, gave Torin to Solok as a gift, to keep the Axe happy and content." Cosimos reached for something on the table, but his hands shook so badly he dropped the small, golden ball.

It rolled across the table, stopped only when Cosimo caught the chain between his fingers.

"She survived two hundred years of agony before she was able to extricate herself from that…nightmare."

He braced his hands on the edge of the table, head lowered so I couldn't see his face.

"I knew what was happening, of course. Even locked away in the amulet, I knew."

"But you couldn't do anything about it," I finished for him.

Gods, if that had been Anaria. Unbidden, a memory came back, Solok gripping Anaria by the throat in that woodland clearing, taunting us about how he was going to take her to the king.

And he'd held her in the Citadelle dungeon. For four fucking days. A chill went through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

Had he touched Anaria? The possibility was…Fuck, he could have.

She'd never talked about those days before she'd escaped. And I'd never asked. Never asked her one godsdamned thing about what she'd gone through.

Cosimo lifted his head, but the shadows in his eyes were darker than the blight at the foot of this mountain. "I've got what we came for. Now let's go find that pendant and save the fucking world."