Brimstone By Callie Hart - 24

HE WAS TALLER than her.

His hair was blond and was curly—not an uncommon trait in Zilvaren, it seemed.

As we stalked the boy’s movements through the streets of the Second Ward, I studied the slope of his shoulders, his gait, the way he left his hands in his pockets, like he had no idea they should be out and free, ready to hold a knife, and I couldn’t do it. I could not find a scrap of his sister in him.

If I’d passed Hayden Fane in the halls of the Winter Palace, I would never have known he was related to my mate. Not on a surface level.

But then, there was the matter of his blood.

I’d failed to sense it the last time I’d come here at Saeris’s behest. I’d forgotten how weak the familial scent smelled between humans, or maybe I’d never even known. I’d met so few humans when I was young, and the chances of any of them having been related to each other were slim. Among so many millions of people, it was no great surprise that I hadn’t been able to find him before. But now, twenty feet behind him, I could smell it, trailing like a ribbon behind him as he wove through the bustling crowds: something like sunlight, a little like home. But different. The boy up ahead, with the red scarf protecting his face, was Saeris’s brother, and we were this close to bringing him back to Yvelia.

“He might not be happy to see me,” Carrion muttered into his own scarf next to me.

I tried not to laugh. “Really? I’m shocked .”

“Y’know, sarcasm is a form of humor. The lowest, basest form, yes, but it still counts. If you’re not careful, I’ll start to think I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Don’t use the word rub and then refer to me in the same sentence, please,” I volleyed back at him. But there was no sharpness to the retort. Like the fine sand that constantly battered the city’s walls, Carrion Swift was slowly wearing me down.

“Oh, please ,” the smuggler drawled. “You are not my—” He craned his neck, scanning the crowd over the tops of their heads. “Ahhh, fuck. He’s gone. I think we lost him.”

I grabbed him by the arm and shoved him to the left, out of the flow of bodies all shuffling to go and get their morning allotment of water. “You might have,” I said. “ I don’t lose people. He ducked down here just now, right before you were about to lie and say I’m not your type.” I gestured to the side street next to us, my senses on high alert. Saeris’s brother was nowhere to be seen now, but he had come this way. Crumbling buildings stood to the left and the right. Faded clothing hung limp from the windowsills, the air too still and heavy to stir them.

“I wasn’t lying. I prefer my women and my men a whole lot prettier than you.” Carrion stepped into the alley, but I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragging him back. The blade came a split second later; it wouldn’t have hit the smuggler anywhere vital, but it would have hit him. It would have hurt.

The dagger embedded into the pale stone next to Carrion’s chest, its handle shuddering from the force it had slammed into the wall.

“Gods and fucking martyrs!” Carrion wheeled on the disheveled human who had stepped out from the gap between the buildings to our right.

His eyes were brown, not blue. Saeris’s chin was elfin and almost sharp, but Hayden’s was cleft. There was a similarity in the shape of their eyes, though. The overall structure of the rest of his face was much like hers. And the way he tipped his head to one side and scowled at me was suspiciously familiar.

“Sorry, Swift. I saw him first and reacted.” He looked young, but his voice had some gravel to it. Hayden’s eyes hadn’t left mine; his whole body was angled toward me.

“Sorry? You nearly cut my nipples off.” My hand was still resting on Carrion’s shoulder; he shrugged me off, grumbling under his breath as he stalked toward the human. “You go around hurling knives at strangers in the open now?” He pointed at the knife. “Where the hell did you even get that?”

“Saeris left them hidden all over the city. She said you never knew when you might need to arm yourself—and it looks like she was right. What are you doing with that traitor?” His attention flitted to Carrion, but it didn’t roam far before it returned to me. Plenty of people had looked at me the way Hayden Fane was looking at me now—disgusted, angry, furious—but they’d had reason to. I hadn’t been able to save their fathers or their husbands. They’d heard the stories of cruelty Belikon had spread about me. But Hayden Fane had lived his whole life here in Zilvaren, and he had no right to look so offended by my presence.

“It’s customary to get to know a male before you judge him, boy,” I rumbled.

“Oh, I know you,” Hayden spat. “You’re him , aren’t you? Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, whatever that is. Look, there! I can see it on your face. I’m right, aren’t I?” Hayden barked. There was hysteria in his eyes. His cheeks had flushed the same color as the scarf that hung around his neck.

Carrion jerked. “How do you know his name?”

Hayden snorted derisively. “Where the hell have you been , Carrion?

Last I saw of you, you promised you’d come back the next day with some supplies and word about Saeris, then you disappear for weeks on end. I can’t move through the city like you can. Things have been crazy here. The guardians have everything locked down so tight, you can’t breathe without one of them clubbing you over the back of the head for taking more than your fair share of air. Everyone heard about the explosion in the Third yesterday. Half the fucking bell tower’s missing. The guardians have been passing these out all morning.” I tensed when he reached into his pocket, ready for whatever ill-advised nonsense he was about to embark upon, but he pulled paper from his pocket, not metal. He passed the crumpled sheets to Carrion, who unfolded them and began to read. His eyes skipped over the printed text, sifting through the papers with the shadow of disbelief growing on his face.

“That fucking asshole ,” he muttered.

“Which one?” We’d been dealing with a lot of assholes lately.

Carrion gathered the papers back into a pile and turned them around for me to see the image that was printed on the top one: my face, crudely sketched, my eyes a little too small, my nose a little too sharp, my lips drawn back, teeth dripping blood. It was clever, really—the caricature was clearly me, but the artist had exaggerated my features. I looked sinister, bestial, but familiar enough that I would be recognized in the street if someone saw me.

Below the drawing were the words THE BUTCHER OF ZILVAREN.

They had to get a little more creative when coining villainous names for me. There were only so many places I could butcher.

“Madra’s telling people that you used magic to break into the palace. She’s saying that you murdered a bunch of people who were about to be pardoned and released from the cells. She says you’re a political zealot from the south.”

“Let me see that.” I took the papers from Carrion. It was just as he’d said. There were more fantastical lies on Madra’s flyers, each more unbelievable than the last. But the thing about a city full of starving, oppressed people was that there were plenty of people looking for someone to blame for their suffering. And who better for Madra to paint the villain than a male who had promised to step out of the shadows and murder her in her sleep? It made perfect sense.

“This bastard killed Saeris,” Hayden snarled. “She was being pardoned, and he slit her throat, Carrion.”

“I haven’t harmed your sister.”

“They dragged her body through the Third. They showed everyone what you did!”

Swift shook his head at the lunatic. “Sinners. He’s telling the truth, all right. He hasn’t harmed a hair on her head, Hayden. Saeris is fine, I promise.”

“Then whose body was it? Hm? There were chi—” Hayden choked on the word. “ Children. They were cut to ribbons. Their—their faces were—” I couldn’t tell if he was horrified or furious. Hayden couldn’t decide either, apparently. His eyes darted to the knife he’d thrown at Carrion. Clearly, he was wishing the weapon were back in his hand so he could take another run at cutting my throat.

He lunged, trying to skirt around us, heading for the blade or the alley’s exit, I didn’t know. I stepped in front of him, slowly shaking my head. I didn’t lay a finger on him, just stared down at him, and the boy wilted like a cut flower.

“Saeris is fine ,” Carrion repeated. “At least she was okay when we left her,” he amended. “Whoever you saw being dragged through the city was not your sister.”

“Well, I didn’t actually see her myself,” Hayden sniffed. “But there were drawings. Drawings like that one.” His gaze drifted down to the papers I was still holding.

I stepped back, searching his face, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “Wait. So your queen, the same queen who’s been depriving you of water and starving you and murdering the people of your ward for generations, draws some pictures and tells you your sister’s dead, and you believed her? Great fucking gods, this is fucking perfect.” I turned away from the boy; he was too fucking stupid to deal with directly. “Fix this, Carrion. I’m out of patience.”

Prowling back and forth in the mouth of the alleyway, I waited for the smuggler to wrangle the human. He started out strong . . .

“Saeris isn’t in Yvelia anymore, Hayden. She accidentally opened a Fae portal, and Fisher here came through, in Zilvaren.”

But then immediately took a wrong turn . . .

“He took her back to his realm and tricked her into a bargain. Then he came and kidnapped me because he thought I was you —”

“Fuck me, Carrion.” I shoved him out of the way and grabbed the boy by the shirt. The sour tang of his fear flooded my nose. “Do you want to see your sister?” I growled.

“Y-yes!” he stammered.

“All right, then. Let’s fucking go.”

“Wait! Wait—We can’t go!” He dug his boot heels into the sand, almost losing his balance when I pulled him forward.

I was this close to knocking the fucker out and throwing him over my shoulder. “Why not?”

Hayden’s eyes darted to Carrion—wide, afraid, sad. His shoulders sagged, the fight suddenly leaving him. “We need to go back to the Third first,” he whispered. “You need . . . to say goodbye, Carrion. I’m sorry. I . . .”

I watched Carrion’s jaw set. He backed away, hands balled into fists, knuckles white.

“What is it?” I asked.

Hayden didn’t have the heart to answer, it seemed. But somehow Carrion already knew.

“Gracia,” he said softly. “Gracia is dead.”

A lonely parade of mourners trudged single file up the dunes. Their scarves whipped in the wind, streaming westward like prayer flags. Sand stung my cheeks and brought tears to my eyes as I fought my way up the steep incline behind Hayden. Carrion led the way, his gait the resigned lumber of a male headed toward the gallows. He didn’t say anything. No one did.

The occupants of the Third were quarantined. They were forbidden from leaving their ward under any circumstances—apart from one. The poorest residents of the Silver City were permitted to leave their ward to bury their dead.

It was not a kindness.

There were no graveyards in the Third. No mausoleums or crypts. The corpses of the downtrodden and oppressed had to go somewhere, and Madra made sure that the friends and the family of the newly deceased disposed of their remains in a timely fashion. There would be consequences otherwise.

We had left by the south gate. No guardian had stood watch. None was required. Madra knew all too well that those who made the pilgrimage across the blistering dunes would make their way back soon enough.

The gateway into the desert might as well have been the gateway into hell. There was nowhere to go. No reprieve to be found out here among the endless, haunted dunes. Only death. The people who left to say goodbye to their dead always came back. What other choice did they have?

I was soaked with sweat and beginning to feel the first signs of dehydration by the time we reached the pyre site—impressive, considering it normally took a week or two for a member of the Fae to need water.

Thirty or more men and women stood in a silent circle around the burning stack of wood. The shrouded figure laid out atop the pyre was already engulfed in flames. A pillar of flames leaped up at the pale sky, making the air shiver with heat.

In a city of stone and sand, there wasn’t much to burn. Everyone had brought something to feed Gracia Swift’s farewell fire. A shawl. A blanket. Armloads of straw. The woman from the bar yesterday, the one who had screamed at Carrion for causing a scene, tossed pieces of a broken chair onto the fire, crying softly. When she saw Carrion, she shook her head, tears cutting tracks over her dust marked cheeks. “I’m sorry, Carrion. I would have told you. I didn’t know.”

Carrion didn’t see her. He only saw the fire. The woman placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it, and left, heading down the dunes, back toward the city.

We stood there, watched the pyre turn white-hot. Eventually, he stepped forward and tossed a book onto the fire. I had seen him pack it into his bag when we’d left his apartment, had noted its title then. Fae Creatures of the Gilarian Mountains. The book had been his only link to his people. His heritage. His entire realm. Gracia’s family had safeguarded the book—and Carrion—his entire life.

The ancient tome went up like kindling.

“I should have been here,” he whispered. “I should have sat with her.” He frowned, confusion tugging at his features. “I don’t . . . even know why we do it. Seventy-two hours. That’s how long we sit with them when they die. The people that we love.”

I tucked my chin, exhaling. “Zilvarens do it for the same reason we do it. You sit with your loved ones to make sure they don’t rise. After three days, the chance of them transitioning ends. The dead stay dead. For us, it’s a practical safeguard. It must have become tradition here.”

Hayden hadn’t said much until now. He stared at us both, eyes wide. “What are you talking about, transitioning?”

Carrion didn’t reply. He was lost in the fire again.

“Later,” I told him. “There’ll be plenty of time for explanations once we get back to Yvelia.” The answer didn’t assuage his concern, by the looks of things. But Hayden nodded, his throat working as he swallowed.

Somewhere, deep in the desert, a haunting, mournful cry went up. Crying? No, it was . . . singing . Beautiful. Sad. Eerie. The woman’s sorrow echoed across the dunes, the melody so haunting and lonely that I knew I would never forget it.

We watched the pyre for an hour, until the heat became unmanageable and Carrion’s knees buckled. I caught him by the back of his shirt and held him up. The poor bastard’s face and neck were still marked from Joshin’s stingers. He looked exhausted. Ready to give up. He nodded, breathing deep, indicating that he could stand on his own, but rather than letting him go, I pulled him into a hug.

Saeris wasn’t here. But if she was, this is what she would have done for him.

Carrion immediately tried to pull away, but I hugged him tighter—too tight, maybe—refusing to let him go. He sagged, burying a single, choked cry into my chest, and that was all I heard out of him. His body rocked with silent sobs for a minute, and I held him. And then he stopped, and it was over.

When he pulled away again, I let him go. His face was bright red, his eyes hollow. He nodded, his voice cracked with emotion. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

This way. Thisss way. This is the way.

The quicksilver was restless today. It whispered in the back of my mind, directing me as we traveled through the tunnels beneath the city, back toward the Third. So little of it remained in me now that its voice was singular. Almost childlike. Easily ignored. It felt different today, though. More insistent. It was happy when we were heading in the direction it wanted us to travel in, but the moment we changed course, it wreaked havoc on my insides.

The sensation would have been less infuriating had Hayden Fane shut up once since we’d entered the tunnels.

“It stinks down here,” he mumbled.

I bit my tongue.

“I can barely see.”

I stared ahead, jaw clenched.

“There are rats down here.”

I spun around and pinned the fucker to the wall.

“Are you done?” I seethed. He couldn’t exactly reply—not with my hand wrapped around his fucking throat. His eyes rolled in his head like a spooked horse. “I really think you should be. Because you’re starting to sound like a petulant, spoiled little shit who hasn’t had to deal with hardship a day in his fucking life.”

Hayden’s eyes rolled back into his head. He passed out.

“Perfect.” Carrion sounded unfazed by the turn of events. “You scared him unconscious. That’s just . . . perfect .”

“At least he’ll be quiet for a moment.”

The moment didn’t last long. Hayden was awake and looking like he’d shit his britches less than a minute later. I crouched down and shoved a finger in his face. “Do not say a fucking word . Come on. On your feet. Move.”

The rest of the journey back to the tunnels was relatively peaceful. We collected the bags of silver from the abandoned maintenance room where we had stowed them earlier. I was desperate for daylight by the time Carrion launched himself up and out of an access hatch he claimed was close to another apartment that he used—apparently, he had more than one.

The smuggler lifted himself up through the hole and then reached back down again for Hayden. I barely had to help the human up; Carrion had already pulled him through. I followed after, irritation hot at the back of my throat. “How is it that I had to deal with your ass in my face the last time you tried to climb out of a tunnel, and yet now you’re perfectly capable of climbing out by yourself?”

The look Carrion gave me spoke volumes. “It’s very simple, Fisher. If you treat me like I’m the court jester, I’ll be the court jester. If I’m the laughingstock, or the drunk, or the idiot, then you’re not thinking about who I really am, are you. I survived here for over a thousand years. Do you really think I’d have been able to do that if I couldn’t pull myself out of a fucking hole ? If at any point, you underestimate me . . .” He smirked, arching a dark copper eyebrow. “Then I’d say that was your mistake rather than mine. Wouldn’t you?”

There were posters on the walls, now, as we slipped through the Third.

Thick, blocky text screamed:

DANGER! ENEMIES OF THE CROWN!

Wanted for: Unauthorized Magic Use Murder Theft Intent to Incite Violence

Harboring these criminals is an offense punishable by death. Remember: Magic is a disease. Keep Zilvaren Safe!

My face wasn’t drawn in caricature this time. The rendering was faithful enough. Carrion’s face was plastered up there with mine now. Images of our faces stared out of scores of posters as we made our way through the ward.

With our hoods drawn up and our scarves concealing our features, we were safe from the prying eyes of those we passed. Men and women gathered around the posters, arguing among themselves on every street corner.

“Unauthorized magic use?”

“Magic isn’t real.”

“Of course it is.

“That’s the Swift boy. I always knew there was something wrong about him.”

“It’s a joke. She rants and raves about make-believe every Evenlight. The Fae this. Magic that. She’s finally convinced herself it’s all real, though. She’s lost touch with reality.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? Lie? Tackle one of our own in the street?”

“Look, there’s a reward . . .”

“A reward . . .”

“A reward . . .”

Reward.

A year’s supply of water for your household: That’s what Madra was promising to the person who came forward with information that led to our capture. It was worth more than money. In a lot of cases, it meant the difference between life and death. It was the kind of reward that turned friends into enemies in the blink of an eye.

We didn’t linger in the street. We were only minutes from safety when we saw the first guardians.

They were waiting for us. Concealed deep inside the alleyway opposite Carrion’s apartment, I wouldn’t have seen them until it was too late. But the Twins always shone in Zilvaren, and the Madra insisted that her guardians look resplendent in their glorious golden armor, didn’t she? Patches of shimmering gold danced on the shop front below Carrion’s bedroom window, betraying the soldiers before they’d even come into view.

Swift noticed the mirrored gold on the stonework only a split second after I did. We both grabbed Hayden, pulling him back. The three of us backtracked the way we had come . . . but it was already too late.

“Here! They’re here! We’ve got them!”

The guardians spilled out of the alleyway like hornets swarming from a hive.

“Fuck!” I hissed. The men weren’t anywhere near as fast as Carrion and me, but we had a human in tow now—a human who couldn’t run very fast. We took off, sprinting, urging Hayden along as we barreled through the streets.

Thisss way , the quicksilver hissed.

“Shut. Up.”

This way, this way, this way! The tugging on my insides grew stronger, but the quicksilver was trying to pull me in the wrong direction, back toward the fucking guardians.

“What are we going to do?” Carrion panted.

People shouted, leaping out of the way as we hurtled by them.

We had no choice. Nowhere to go. The only option open to us was—

Ting!

“FUCK!”

An iron-tipped arrow ricocheted off the wall next to my head; they were fucking shooting at us.

“We have to fight!” I shouted. “It’s our only option. But we need somewhere open. Somewhere they can’t pen us in!”

If we kept running through this rabbit warren of streets, we were doomed. Fish in a barrel. It wouldn’t be long before one or all of us wound up shot.

Carrion nodded, quickly assessing our options up ahead. “All right. The square, then. This way. Follow me.”

Ting!

Ting!

Arrows struck the walls.

A woman to my left screamed, a spurt of bright red blood arcing in the air as an arrow intended for my back clipped her throat.

Carrion wheeled to the left. I took up position behind Hayden, using my body as a shield, covering him as best I could. “Faster, Fane. Hurry,” I growled.

“I’m going . . . as fast . . . as I . . . can!”

This way! Come! Find me! This way!

For such a tiny fragment of quicksilver, it certainly had some strength. I found myself veering to the right, my feet carrying me off in a direction I didn’t want to go.

Left.

Right.

Then right again.

My pulse thundered behind my breastbone, my heart beating like a fucking war drum. “If I die in Zilvaren, I am not going to be happy,” I snarled.

The square was large. At its center, a huge wooden platform had been erected. It was covered in sprays of flowers. Pinks, reds, and purples. I saw immediately that they weren’t real. At the center of the podium was a long table, on top of which a line of bodies had been laid out in the baking reckoning suns. Flies choked the air above them, their drone loud enough to hear above the shouting guardians.

“Stop! Stop those men!”

A large group of girls stood on the far side of the square. They were young. Only teenagers. Their eyes were full of fear. Two guardians already stood with them, and one of them had a girl pinned up against the wall. She screamed as a male in a black shirt and pants approached and plunged something into her neck.

The square might not have been a good idea. The buildings were taller here. If any of the guardians made it up there, they would rain holy hellfire down on us. On the other side of the courtyard, the human in black directed the guardian to lay the girl—who was now limp in his arms—on the back of a horse-drawn cart.

Three seconds. That’s all the time we had before the guardians were on top of us and this went to shit. I drew my hands together and pulled them apart, conjuring a sword identical to Nimerelle in every way but the one that fucking mattered. It was not a god sword.

“What are they doing here, Carrion?” I called, jerking my chin toward the group of girls.

“It must be cleansing day,” he answered. “Once a month, they come and round up the marked girls who’ve turned fourteen. Seven out of every ten. They’ll sedate them and take them up to the palace.”

My blood ran cold.

Cleansing day.

At least twelve girls stood with their backs to the wall. Most of them were crying. The one at the front of the line wasn’t crying, though. She glowered defiantly at the man dressed in black, as he lifted the cylindrical silver object to her neck. She spat in his face.

“Here they come,” Carrion called. “I hope you have a fucking plan.”

I’d had one: Put the bastards down as quickly and quietly as possible. Try not to cause a scene. But I wasn’t liking that plan very much anymore.

No. That plan was no longer viable.

Because boy oh fucking boy, was I going to cause a fucking scene.

I didn’t need a god sword for this. I only needed my rage.

The second the guardians ran into the square, I leashed my magic and called on it. Every last drop. It roiled below the surface of my skin, angry as a rabid dog.

There were fifteen of them. That’s how many trained soldiers they’d thought they’d need to bring us down. They were going to regret that choice. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. They could have brought ten times as many men with them and it still wouldn’t be enough.

The men hesitated a second, taking in the scene, realizing that we were just standing there waiting for them—

“I don’t like this,” Hayden whispered.

“Get him out of harm’s way, Carrion. Now. ”

—and then they charged.

Swift took my mate’s brother. They ran. I didn’t see where. Didn’t care.

These fuckers had rounded up Saeris and brought her here, too, once. I knew her. She would have stared them down and spat in their faces, just like that girl had a moment ago. She would have cursed them as they stole her choices from her. She would have raged.

When I drew on my power and set it free, I didn’t make shadows.

I made knives .

The blades weren’t made of metal. They were magic itself. Corporeal, shimmering magic. Like my shadows, they were black. Their edges were sharp, and when they hurtled through the air and found their targets, they pierced armor, flesh, and bone alike.

The guardians dropped like flies.

My vision sharpened, the square coming into focus. More guardians were arriving from the square’s south entrance. The two who were dealing with the girls had noticed what was happening now and were running straight for me. They were dead before their bodies hit the ground.

Blood soaked the sand.

The world was all crimson and death. More guardians thundered into the square, their armor clanking over angry shouts and the frightened screams of the young girls. I was deaf to it all.

Madra’s men appeared in droves, and as quickly as they came, they died. My senses weren’t my own. Arrows rained down from the rooftops—my instincts had been right. They’d sought higher ground in the hopes of making a kill box out of the square. But I was the one who’d made the kill box, and it was piling up with their fucking dead.

I brought them down with ropes of shadow. I lashed them around their arms, ankles, torsos, and dragged them to their ends.

They had brought Saeris here.

My mate.

They’d hurt her. They’d taken something sacred from her here, in this awful place. Not her right to have children. But her right to make such an important decision for herself.

I made them pay, and I did not stop. Not when the new guardians who arrived turned and tried to flee. Not when they scrambled on their hands and knees and begged for mercy.

The men of this ward treated their women like chattel. Like possessions, without minds, dreams, or hopes of their own. They used them for sex, or else violated their bodies and stole their rights. They had murdered Saeris’s mother. They didn’t deserve to breathe . . .

“Kingfisher! Stop!” The voice was near. Distant. It echoed around the square. The haze fogging my mind cleared, and I found Carrion twenty feet away, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “We’re good! It’s okay. They’re gone. They’re all gone. We have to leave , Fisher.”

There were bodies piled high all over the square. Too many bodies to count and still not enough. This was just a small percentage of Madra’s troops. The fire burning in my soul demanded I claim all of them for their cruelty, but Carrion was right. We needed to get the fuck out of here. The ground shook, the sand vibrating as the sound of an approaching army filled the air.

“We have to go,” Carrion urged.

I was numb down into the basement of my soul. “Okay. Yes.” I nodded. “You’re right.”

“Carrion? Carrion! ” The hiss came from the other side of the square. It was Hayden, stooped down and hiding behind the horse-drawn cart. The boy’s hair was wild, sticking up in every direction like he’d been struck by lightning. His face was spattered with blood. There was a knife in his hand. “Carrion, this way. I know where we should go.”

The smuggler didn’t even ask. He grabbed my arm and pulled me along after him, following Saeris’s brother. Houses whipped past in a blur. I ran hard, keeping up, and with every step I came back to myself a little more. I had just killed forty guardians. Fifty of them. And I didn’t feel remotely bad about doing it.

Yessss, this is the way , the quicksilver purred in my head. This is the way!

The ground was quaking beneath our feet now. As we sped through the Third, toward our unknown end, Madra’s men drew closer, and a stillness settled inside me.

The guardians wouldn’t pose a problem to us if they couldn’t find us.

My magic should have been gone. The source of my power felt so far away, and yet there it was, ready to answer my call. I had just used a prodigious amount of magic back in the square, and yet, when I ran my fingertips along the surface of it, I found a mind-bending well of energy waiting for me.

I stopped running and brought it forth.

It slammed out of me in a tide of glittering black sand and shadow so overwhelming that it swallowed the street we were standing in. And then the ward. And then the entire city.

My magic encompassed all Zilvaren.

For the first time in history, the shining banner in the north fell into darkness.