Chapter 76

Zorander's shout had barely died away when the ceiling groaned hideously again.

"We have to leave." Raziel dragged me across the floor, his sweat-slicked palms sliding over my skin.

"We can't just?—"

"We have to," Raz said sternly, reading my mind. "We can't take her with us. It'll be all we can do to get ourselves off this mountain. We're still surrounded by miles and miles of blight, still too far from Darkspire for any of us to reach without rest and food and healing."

"Get your arse moving, Raz," Zor commanded as more rock fell.

Leaving Sylvi here felt wrong. Like the skulls in the tunnels.

Like the throne in Torin's room. "But…"

Raz shook me gently. "Anaria, it's time to go. Tavion's hurt, remember?" He nudged me toward the opening. "We have to check on him."

At the mention of my mate's name, I limped for that crevice and the faint glow of light beyond. I didn't know how long we'd been in here.

Whether it had been hours or a day.

Only that my body ached with exhaustion, like I'd been sucked dry, down to the marrow.

Tristan was perched on the edge of the small outcropping, spiked tail tucked in tight, wings blocking the blighted wind as Zor led us out of the crevice. I had just enough magic left to throw a barrier around us.

"Let me see him." Raz crouched beside Tavion and set his palm over his heart, his head bowed for so long I stopped breathing. "He'll live," Raz finally muttered, and I sucked in a breath that was too long in coming.

"We have to get off this mountain and across that plain," Zor told us steadily, even as the ledge trembled beneath us, the only thing between us and a two-thousand-foot fall.

"I can't fly that far," Raz admitted. "Not by myself, certainly not carrying anyone."

We were silent for a moment, peering out over the blight-infested wasteland.

"I'm tapped out. What about you?" Zorander nudged the wyvern, who only folded down his wings.

"Then we climb back down and pick our way across that." I nodded to the Pale, spilling out before us like a barren flatland. "Our magic will replenish. Tristan and I can clear the blight as we go."

"Anaria." Raz ran his knuckles down the side of my face. "We've no water. No food. We'd never make it."

I ground my teeth together. "We would. I would make sure of it."

"You can't will five people—one of them badly injured—across a hundred miles of blight-infested desolation, no matter how badly you want to."

"Don't be condescending," I snapped.

"I'm not…" Raz scrubbed his face, Zorander stepping closer.

"He's right, and he's not being condescending. You just don't want to hear the truth," Zor said softly. "Because it's hard to win the battle but lose the war. But sometimes…you fucking lose, princess. And there's nothing you can do but accept that."

I was shaking my head. "No. No."

Not after all this fucking bullshite would I accept for one godsdamned minute we'd ended Corvus and Gelvira, lost Sylvi, only to die on this outcropping above the awfulness of the Pale.

"We are climbing down there." I pointed my shaking finger at the treacherous path we'd taken to get up here, which, admittedly, looked impossible. "And when we reach the bottom, I am getting us across that."

As if on cue, the mountain rumbled behind us, followed by dust spewing from the opening.

I felt old. Ancient.

Not in a good way, but in a worn-out, I-don't-know-how-much-more-I-have-in-me way. I noted the raised eyebrows, the arguments poised on everyone's lips, and I shook my head.

"I know this is impossible. But we can't just…die here." I tried to stop the tears, but they came anyway. "I thought…" I swallowed and tasted nothing but blight. "We deserved a future. After everything, we deserved something."

Raz's arms went around me, Zorander's, too, then a sinuous neck covered in golden scales wound around my waist. Even Tavion managed to crack his eye open.

The mountain groaned.

The sort of groan that preceded a total collapse.

"It was the honor of my life"—Raz nuzzled into my hair, which was probably disgusting—"to serve you, princess. I would have liked to sit on a beach with you."

Zor gave me a tired grin. "Maybe we'll get lucky and do this again, without the evil overlords next time."

"We're not doing this." Desperation raced through me, and I jumped from one solution to another, anything to get us off the side of this mountain…but nothing came except more tears, my insides crumpling.

"We're not doing goodbyes and thank you's and I love you's, because we are getting that fucking future we fucking deserve." The words ripped out of me on a snarl so vicious even Zorander reeled back a step.

"Anaria." Raz's eyes flared wide.

"No. No. No. Not happening." I shoved at his chest, trying to put some distance between that look on his face and the panic taking over me. "We're not?—"

"Anaria." Raz pointed over my shoulder. "Look."

So I did.

To the enormous black dragon circling over the valley below, the white-haired seer on his back, and the golden speck flapping beside them.