Chapter 36

I'd never felt as alone as I did that night in our bed, my back itching like mad as my seared skin healed, automatically tensing every time I replayed Zephryn's fire spilling over me like lava.

Even after two baths, I still smelled the ashy scent of his blazing breath coating the inside of my nose so permanently I'd never get the reek out.

My hair was cropped shorter than I'd ever had it, shorn to the scalp, the healers assuring me the bald patches in the back would eventually fill back in. I wasn't overly vain, but gods, I looked like shite.

Still, we were lucky to be alive, Cosimo and me.

Every few minutes I glanced to where the pendant winked in the firelight like a wyvern's eye on the bedside table, taunting me.

I had one piece of the weapon, but I was stuck. Every hour or so I rose, tried to ghost myself—only to the other side of the room—but my magic just…fizzled. Two days, maybe, before I could go to Anaria.

Before I'd know if she was safe. Or…

I dragged my hands down my face.

I was experienced enough to know if I dwelled on the what-ifs, they'd eat me alive, but I couldn't help myself. The not knowing was killing me. All I could hope for was the others had rallied and protected her.

She was, like Coz pointed out, smart enough not to face the Oracle alone.

The healers told us we were fortunate to have survived, but I didn't feel fortunate. I felt trapped, fear cannibalizing my mind every moment I was stuck here.

I needed to get out of this room.

Picking up the pendant, I ran my finger over the engraving, the glinting red stone.

But I couldn't see how the thing attached to anything. There were no posts or threads where the amulet fit into the end of the pommel. But the illustration showed they were a pair, so I had to be missing something. I punched the pillow, the healing skin on my back pulling tight.

Finally, I gave up altogether, put the pendant in my pocket, and headed downstairs.

It wasn't yet dawn, but if I couldn't sleep, then I might as well make myself useful.

Torin looked up sharply when I entered the war room, her white eyes sharp as they skated over me, lips clamped tight. "You look like you've been through the wringer."

"I feel like it," I admitted. "But the trip wasn't without worth." I pulled the pendant out before pocketing it again.

"You two idiots…" She straightened, hands clenched at her sides. "Do you have any idea how foolish that was? How many things could have gone wrong?"

I shrugged. "I think enough went wrong without me thinking up more ways the trip could have been even worse."

She narrowed her eyes and I braced myself. "The fire could have melted the device, and you could have gotten stuck there, caught in an endless loop neither of you would have escaped from. You could have died…" She lowered her head, her voice shaking. "You could have died back then, and no one would have ever known what happened to either of you. Not until someone went digging through the rubble and found your broken, charred bodies."

"None of that happened, Torin," I said gently.

"Did you even stop to think…" She stopped as if she had to gather herself. "Did you ever stop and think how Zephryn would have felt if you two fools had died in that fire? He would have lived the rest of his life knowing he killed you idiots, and there is not a single thing we could have done to fix it."

I flinched at her scathing tone, only our quickened breathing filling the tense silence. "No. I didn't think about that, Torin. But I should have." I lifted my eyes to hers. "I'm sorry."

"I spent three hundred years waiting for Cosimo. Wondering if she'd crush that godsdamned thing"—she glanced to my pocket—"to punish me. You've been apart from Anaria for what? Four days? Imagine you were separated for a hundred years. Three hundred. Imagine not seeing her, or touching her, for centuries, Zor. Then look me in the eye and tell me nothing happened."

She drew a trembling breath. "I just got him back and I could have lost him that fast."

"I'm sorry, Torin, I am. But this was the only way."

"Coz said the same thing, and I don't fucking care."

Her hands balled into fists. "I don't fucking care because I've lost all of them. I've been alone most of my life after tasting happiness. You haven't." Her eyes shone. "And you'd better pray you never do."

"I'm sorry, Torin. You're right." I was so fucking tired. So worn down from scrambling to survive, I'd forgotten she'd been doing this longer than the rest of us.

I finally glanced down at the table and saw what she'd been looking at when I'd walked in. "Is this accurate?" But I already knew it was the second I saw the solid mass of black to the north of the Keep. "How long?"

"A day, maybe two if we're lucky." Her eyes were bleak. "We've had wagons coming from the Havens every day taking people south, but the Havens are filling up and food's running short. Simon and I looked for another option, but there are none."

"Zephryn's fire seems to burn everything it touches."

"We tried that the day you left. He's up there right now, holding the blight at bay, which is the only reason we still have time to evacuate. Otherwise, the city would already be lost."

"We need to end this, Torin, before we can't."

A deep silence rippled through the Keep, the kind that precedes an attack or an earthquake.

As if the stones themselves knew something terrible was coming.

All the color drained from Torin's face, and she crossed the room in two strides, lifting a painting off the wall and unlocking an iron safe I didn't even know was there. "Give me the pendant. Quickly." She disappeared it into the dark hole, locked the door, and rehung the painting. An old one of the Shadow King looking especially brutish, the sun setting behind him.

"Shield your mind, and whatever you do, don't fucking think about that thing."

We both braced our hands on the table when the Oracle strolled in, the air in the small room turning stifling as if it had fled out the windows. She was truly horrifying, even in this form. Maybe because her beauty was a shade too gleamingly perfect, her smile too bright, clever eyes seeing too much.

"The commander and seer perusing their impending destruction. I don't think I could have imagined a more perfect start to my day."

"I would think you're a day too early to celebrate. Your brother isn't quite finished."

For the briefest second, her expression changed, some of that glee sliding off her face.

"Never too early to gloat. Besides, if I came tomorrow, you'd already be gone, and where is the fun in that?" She sidled up to the table beside me and I quelled my urge to move aside as her arm brushed mine when she dragged her fingers over the map, smearing five long vicious lines of black straight over the rendering of Blackcastle.

My every muscle clenched tight as I met Torin's gaze over the map.

"Shame about the city. Tempeste lost, Blackcastle soon to follow. You lot are a piss-poor bunch of saviors if you ask me." She sighed and wiped her blackened fingers down the edge of the table. "But I only have myself to blame. I must choose better next time."

"Like there will be a next time," Torin hissed as if she couldn't help herself. "When your brother is finished, there will be nothing left."

"There is always something left. A flicker of magic, of life, left in the core of the world for us to draw upon. Do you really think this is the first time we've sucked this world down to the marrow?" she asked, her smile wide and gleaming.

But something about the words struck false.

Like her, they were too bright, too forced.

No, she was as rattled about this development as we were. Perhaps, like us, she was scrambling for a solution. A terrible thought struck me. If that was true, then she could no longer control her own brother.

"I saw the princess." Everything inside me stilled at those words. "She and the rest of your merry crew. At the Wynter Palace." I sucked in a gulp of air and the Oracle noticed, her smile turning serpentine.

I swallowed. And tasted…dragonfire?

"Oh, she's a clever little thing, but not clever enough. We made a bargain. The magic in Varitus in exchange for the means to stop my brother." She sounded so smug I wanted to strike her down. "I expect she is already there, plotting a way to drop the wall and keep all that lovely magic for herself."

Now that I'd noticed it, the stench of dragonfire hung around her so strongly I could barely catch my breath. Too strong. I glanced at her feet through the shifting shadows, and they were stained black, like she'd been walking through ash.

Or the charred remains of a certain mage's burned-out shop.

"Anaria is in Varitus?" Torin asked, derailing my train of thought. "You heartless bitch, sending her back there when you know what that will do to her."

"So soft," the Oracle sneered. "That was always your biggest problem." Her hands tightened on the edge of the table as she leaned in. "All of you, too weak to make the necessary choices to save this world. It's a wonder you've gotten as far as you have."

I was hardly listening because Torin was right.

Varitus would bring Anaria nothing but misery. She'd been brutalized in that place. Enslaved.

Setting foot in that shitehole realm would bring back memories of horrors she never should have endured in the first place. Horrors that were my fucking fault.

I should never have left.

I should have remained, and maybe…maybe I would have only made things worse.

Anaria was alive. In Varitus. She'd probably driven a hard bargain with this creature if I knew my princess at all. Horror turned to pride, fear to wicked glee.

"What did you trade in return? More lies, I suppose?" I taunted when her eyes locked with mine. "Or, let me guess, some bullshite half-truths that will be of little help when she has to face your brother."

"So clever, Commander Vayle. I'm glad at least one of you has a modicum of sense. Now where is the astrologer? I want to see him."

"Out," Torin said shortly. "Cleaning up your brother's mess." Her gaze narrowed as if she was working something out. "Why would you need to see him?"

"Perhaps I am missing my old companion. He did, after all, spend more time with me than he ever did with you." Her gaze seemed to devour Torin. "It occurred to me that I haven't seen Cosimo since he was…liberated." A careless shrug. "I'd like to see how he's enjoying freedom."

She's searching for the pendant.

As soon as the thought occurred to me, the Oracle's face swiveled my direction. Her gaze crystallized as if she was finally recognized my change in appearance. "You cut your hair."

I ran my hand over my shorn scalp. "It was too long and Anaria prefers it this way."

Chances were, such a creature wouldn't care—or know—one way or another what a mortal preferred, and I was right.

She sniffed delicately. "I liked it long. Now where is Cosimo? I will go find him if necessary."

Fuck. The astrologer could barely walk the last time I'd seen him, and if she put two and two together…