Chapter 48

Iyanked my cloak tighter around me, still smelling vaguely of Harehollow and horse, a musky bitterness that left a sour taste in my mouth.

Or perhaps that was the fear I couldn't shake.

We trudged through Bloodwood Forest in the dark, the woods going quiet in our wake—the larger predators fleeing as if the animals and bugs knew destruction was inevitable and were burrowing into whatever hiding spot they could find.

My keystone was in my pocket, my iron bands back at Ravenswood.

But power slumbered in my veins, conserving itself for the task ahead. And the keystone was still quiet as if the magic had gone completely dormant.

The other five we'd left at the castle, deciding too much magic was as bad as not enough and all of us carrying stones…might end in disaster.

No guarantees it wouldn't anyway.

None of us had slept, because every time I'd closed my eyes all I could think about was the blackened, twisted ruined form of Solok. So instead of pretending, we'd rousted at midnight, dressed, and headed out.

Five hours later, we were finally here.

One glance at the sky told me today would be an absolutely stellar sunrise, even in this dismal place.

The ward stretched from the Frostfall Peaks to the north all the way to Tidemore Port in the south, a solid line of demarcation fortified by the sacrifice of thousands of innocents.

But all I could think about was how many people would be caught up in the wave of magic.

I hadn't come up with a means to mitigate that resurgent force, nor an alternative to satisfy the Oracle's demand for the Fae magic. While we'd managed to evacuate most of the Descendant estates, there was still the pastoral farming center of this realm, the mithirium mines to the north, and the city of Arcadia at its very center.

I was ashamed to admit I knew so little about how many people lived in Arcadia, about King Vandran and the fortifications of this realm I'd called home for most of my life.

Would he send an army after us once he heard of our attack against the Descendants?

Did Varitus even have an army?

Even more reason, Tavion had explained on the way here, to drop the ward quickly before Vandran could organize. Better we fight one battle at a time than be caught between the Oracle and a pissed-off king, because even without magic, there were plenty of other ways to kill.

Bloody, painful ways.

"There it is. Up ahead," Tavion murmured, his steps slowing. The last time I'd crossed this ward, my life had ended in so many ways. I'd become Fae. A killer. Had grasped the Mistress's slender throat in my hands and finally possessed the power to snap her in two.

Become a different kind of slave to an even crueler master.

I released a shaky breath, letting the hum of the ward sink its teeth into me.

The magic was strong, bolstered by the Scything.

So different than the one bordering Solarys. That magic had a crueler bite, saturated by the hate of two brothers who'd become mortal enemies.

This magic was cold and devouring, a ward meant to absorb power, to kill the banished Fae who dared cross over. To punish anyone unworthy.

I reached out and unfurled my fingers, preparing to press my palm against that blue glow.

Raz stepped up beside me. "Remember this. Those Descendants are part Fae. When this ward falls, whatever magic runs in their veins will erupt."

I curled my hand back, feeling the vibrations of the ward like phantom fingers scraping my skin.

"Anyone with so much as a drop of magic could come into the full range of their powers like they did in Blackcastle. This entire realm will descend into chaos."

"You're not helping, Raz."

He stroked his hand down my spine. "No. I suppose I'm not." He paused.

"Just…we never came up with a definitive escape plan. When the ward drops, we can't stay here. We should head north of the mountains where the blight hasn't taken hold. Find some place to hole up."

I slid him a sideways look. "Corvus is north of the mountains."

"I know."

"That really doesn't make me feel any better," I muttered, raising my hands again, fingertips grazing the blue glow, the scent of freshly struck lightning stinging my nose. "We should go back to the Wynter Palace. At least we know it's safe."

Power rushed through my hands and into my arms, pulsing. Ancient. Awful.

My magic reached out in response, shadow and light tangling lightly, like testing out some tentative agreement.

Everywhere the two touched, a bright blue flame danced.

I closed my eyes. The ward was calling my name, ready to sweep me away in a rush of endless, infinite magic, and when this ward fell…that cold rush of power would devour everything like before.

I panted. Quick little breaths. Not just because of the magic.

But because of what came next.

"I'm not ready to face Corvus. We don't have the pendant; we don't know what the stones can do. We aren't ready, not yet." I pulled my hands away, dropping them at my sides.

"Once the wall falls, she'll come," he warned in a low voice. "If she takes all your magic, none of this will matter. Not the stones or the weapon or anything we've done. Nothing will matter because she'll have all the power, and you will be left with nothing."

In a way, those words were a balm to my tired soul. To relinquish this terrible power, this responsibility, the fate all our lives balanced on…would be a fucking blessing. I was tired of carrying this weight, tired of plodding along this path with no end.

"I'm not ready," I repeated. But did that even matter?

Was anyone ever ready? Had Torin been ready to become High Seer? Had my ancestor been ready to give her life to forge the weapon? No.

"Brace yourselves," I warned. "And remember, stay behind the shield, no matter what happens, Raz won't let it fail."

I pressed my palms against the ward, my magic crashing through the ancient wall. Cold, crippling power assaulted me in return.

I yielded my magic to the wall, but the wall yielded to me, cold starlight flowing and melding together into a supernova of pale-blue power spreading through the forest. I lifted my hands, stars glittering at the ends of my fingers, hoarfrost crackling up my arms in patterns too delicate to trace.

My shadows spilled over with the galaxy of a million stars, light glittering all around us, turning Raz's dark eyes into constellations, settling into Tavion's silver hair, dusting over Tristan's golden skin. Bexley lifted his hands, dredging his fingers through the magic, thick enough he left trails in the air around us, the dark stone in his ring glowing softly.

"Glorious," he muttered. "I doubt I'll ever see anything like this again."

"Get everyone down and under cover," I told Raz to the sound of Tristan's grumble of protest. He'd begged to be in the air when I dropped the ward since he'd missed this part last time, but he'd been outvoted. They'd all insisted on coming with me this morning and this was my only stipulation.

They'd remain beneath a shield of Raz's and my magic, as protected as we could keep them, because I wasn't taking any chances.

"Give her some room." Tristan tugged a dazed Bexley back toward a clear space between the trees. "You'll be able to gawk well enough from over here."

"I thought I knew what to expect after Caladrius, but this is…" Bexley blinked. "Will the wave go both ways given there's nothing to stop it in either direction?" I could see the wheels turning from here. "Anaria, if all this magic collides with the blight, that corrupted area could explode and take over everything at a pace too fast for us—for anyone—to escape."

I dropped my hands. Again.

Was that the Oracle's end game?

To use us to cause the end of the world?

But I had to finish this.

I blew out a breath, told myself I was right, and slammed both palms into the ward, hard as a wall of ice. Shimmering blue power thundered both ways down the wall, the sound roaring through the forest, crushed leaves and broken branches raining down.

One glance showed everyone hunched together, Bex in the center, beneath a dome of Raziel's magic. Larger limbs crashed down, hitting the shield with an earsplitting crack.

I grit my teeth, sending a burst of stars in Raziel's direction.

Pale light wove through Raz's shadows, that tightness beneath my heart throbbing as if some invisible tether had snapped into place. The odd tugging sensation didn't worry me anymore. Instead, I felt like I had my feet more firmly planted on the ground.

Like nothing could knock me down.

I turned my full attention back to the shredding ward, magic arcing out in waves of molten flame, the forest floor heaving and bucking beneath my feet, my ears popping. Varitus was a power vacuum and the magic couldn't wait to rush in and fill that void.

Beneath Raziel's fortified dome, the others crouched, shielding their faces, though Bexley peeked up over everyone like he couldn't help himself.

"Get down," I snarled before Tavion jerked him to the ground with a wry grin.

The ward was collapsing, the solid wall of magic shredding into tendrils of darkness and light, bolts of blue lightning crawling up and down the length of the wall too fast for me to track, the cold blistering my face. My hands were numb, fingers as blue as the ward itself, but I kept my palms pressed tight, kept feeding magic in, drawing magic out, like a looping conduit.

This wasn't how the other ward had come down, but that had been a different sort of ward.

Fueled by a different kind of magic.

This power even tasted different, of snow and ice and cold mountain passes. Of wickedness and ancient wisdom.

Everything inside of me stilled.

This magic tasted like the wind blowing through Stormfall.

Like witch magic.

But…was that even possible? That witch magic—not Fae magic—had forged this ward? Then the question no longer mattered because the ward crashed down around us.

Light splintered through the trees, piercing trunks and branches with an ear-shattering boom that pierced through my ears like a mallet. I couldn't hear, couldn't see as the ancient magic tore apart, cleaving through the forest like a scythe.

"Stay down," I screamed, sending another wave of starry power over Raz's fraying shield seconds before a second explosion rent the air apart.

I saw nothing but blinding light. I vaguely felt my numb body hit the dirt, tasting rich forest soil before I spat it out. I tried to crawl, to get away from this crushing pressure, but it kept pressing me deeper and deeper into the ground.

Oh gods, I was going to die here.

"Stay down, godsdamn it," Tristan hissed as golden skin turned to iridescent scales, ink-black talons sinking into the soft ground around my head like an impenetrable cage, a long, spiked tail wrapped gently around me, shielding me from the brunt of the collapse.

Somewhere, I heard Raz yelling, but I couldn't answer, too firmly cocooned within Tristan's body, his head flattened on top of me so all I could see was one red eye, gleaming like a ruby. He made a sound between a hiss and a purr then put more of his weight on me, clearly not interested in letting me up.

Overhead, the forest came apart as blood trickled down my face, my neck. Everything was muffled, a blessing, perhaps, given the cataclysmic storm around us. This was worse than before. So much worse, chunks of ground floating up into the sky as if the magic would take the earth right along with it.

I worked one arm free, running my fingers down Tristan's throat, and sobbed. "You'd better not die, you stupid wyrm, or I will hunt you down in the afterlife. I swear I will."

But he was steady as a rock, not so much as a shudder, even though everything around us was being torn to pieces. Whole trees whirled through the air, spinning upward until the entire world was a maelstrom of shredded debris, the light blocked out.

I kept sending out bursts of magic to shield Tristan, sending my shadows slithering in the direction where I thought I heard Raziel. "Protect them. Please. Whatever you can do, please help them."

We were fools. Complete and utter fools to do this.

I was the biggest fool to let them come.

But would they have fared any better back at Ravenswood? Somehow, I doubted there'd be anything left of the castle by the time we returned. If we ever did.

And then, finally, the storm around us stopped, trees and rocks as big as houses crashing back to earth, the ground trembling with every impact as I waited to be crushed into dust.

Then the blinding light flickered and waned as if the magic was finally winking out.

"Anaria?" Raziel's desperate plea came from somewhere to my left. "Help us. Please."

"Get off me." I patted Tristan's neck. "Please, I have to see who's hurt, Tristan." With a long-suffering growl, he unwrapped his body from mine, pinning me down with one of those huge feet as he surveyed the decimated forest one last time before letting me up.

"Gods, Anaria, get these fucking things off us." Tavion sounded strangled. "Hurry."

I lurched to my feet expecting to see carnage, only for Raz's entire shield to be engulfed in a writhing nest of living, liquid shadows. "Anaria. Please."

Despite my weak knees and racing heart, my lips twitched. "They're completely harmless. Just relax." Magic floated around us with wonderous light, the bite of freshly struck lightning in the air.

"Gods, Anaria, please." That was Raziel, and my twitching lips lifted into a smile.

"Such big babies. Come back to me." I held out my hand, my fingers black with dirt, and they reabsorbed into my fingers. "You did well, protecting my friends," I crooned to my darklings like they were sweet little pets. "So very well."

"Do not ever do that to me again." Raz shuddered. "You have no idea what that was like. I would have rather been shredded apart. Do you know they're cold like fish?"

"Try being pinned down by a wyvern. It wasn't much better." Tristan let out a deep, rumbling growl.

I blew out a breath, staring at utter destruction.

Bloodwood Forest was gone except for a few naked trees, stripped of bark and branches, standing at random spots between us and Ravenswood Castle. From what I could see, the castle still stood, though one of the turrets seemed to be leaning precariously.

"Did the wave already pass over us?" Tavion retied his tangled hair back from his face. "Did we miss that whilst tangled with your horrid…What did you call them? Darklings?"

"Must you speak to them like they're…pets?" Raz asked with a shudder.

I tensed. "No, we didn't miss the wave. I don't know why, but there was no wave, at least none that I saw." I shrugged. "Maybe we got lucky and avoided the worst this time."

I gazed up at the pink-hued dawn and frowned.

Flecks of black rained down around us like black snow.

Everywhere those speckles of dust landed, my skin burned, everywhere the black touched the ground, little tendrils of rot spread like cancer.

"You have to get the fuck out of here." Tavion pulled me toward Tristan, snapping at the falling blight, his deadly tail thrashing back and forth. "Get on his back and into the air. Right now."

Oh gods. This was…I had made everything worse. So much worse.

Then the unthinkable happened.

My body locked up and my muscles went stiff as something cold and awful crawled through me. My darklings spilled out of my fingers, trying to escape the onslaught of whatever was happening to me.

They writhed in a frenetic, terrified nest, a horrified Tavion sidestepping away.

I shook uncontrollably as cold, ancient magic slithered through me, as immense as the mountains, older than time, more than I could ever hope to contain.

I bore the onslaught, vaguely aware of Raziel's screaming and Tavion's shouting somewhere outside of this bubble of muted pain. Then my power jolted, a shock of pure energy, and my vision went white.

There had been broken places in my magic, I realized.

Spots where my magic didn't fit right, like two joints grinding against themselves, trying to turn but always wearing down. But this…this strange, foreign magic not only filled those fractured spots like the cold darkness fills the emptiness between the stars, the intrusion did something far worse.

The dark void at my center woke up.

Like a great slumbering beast, my smoldering well of witch magic opened an eye and peered around—the ground, the air, everything rumbling.

Or maybe that was me shivering uncontrollably.

No, that was definitely the magic, an endless well of power that felt vaster than the sea, more endless than the universe.

The power swallowed me in waves of inky darkness, but the effect wasn't smothering. Those cold shadows were comforting, like I was being rocked gently. The well receded, the feeling of vastness shrinking down until it was only me, my aching body, and cold wetness seeping up through the back of my jacket.

I opened my eyes to a sea of muted pink light, Tavion cradling me in his arms, that black falling snow raining down around us…but not touching us.

Tavion clasped my hand to his chest. "All the magic went to you like it did before?"

"I think…yes. But not Fae magic. This is…something else."

I stared down at my arm, watching the burns heal over like they'd never been. I rolled onto my stomach and plunged my hands deep into the ruined earth like I had in the forest of Caladrius. Shoved my newly forged magic deep into the ground, sending out a ripple of light through the torn-up forest floor.

The blight receded until we stood in a small pocket of untouched ground, the soil raw and torn like an open wound but free of the black rot, the ash still spilling from the sky overhead.

It worked.

Witch magic worked.

"I thought the Oracle would swoop in and claim it for herself the second the wall dropped," Raziel muttered. "Why isn't she here already?"

I blew out a shaky, unbelieving breath. "Because this wasn't her magic to claim?"

This magic was different. And how that factored into our bargain, I didn't yet know.

But we had to get out of here.

Raz and Tavion jerked away when my darklings slithered back, reabsorbing into my fingers, settling back into place, carefully avoiding my new magic.

"We're leaving." Raziel surveyed the little bubble we were inside. "Soon enough, this entire area will be overtaken, and then Corvus will devour Solarys."

"I failed, didn't I?" I met his eyes. "I doomed this entire realm, like I did the other two. How soon before this entire world falls to him?"

No one answered.

As Tavion lifted me onto Tristan's back, I couldn't help thinking…everyone would have been better off if I'd died on that altar at the end of the Fae King's knife.