But Theron walks past us, stopping at the wall on our right.
Leaving the path to the door open.
Mather notices it when I do, and every one of his muscles formerly poised to attack uncoils, dragging me to the door without hesitation. We get halfway there, so close to being out, to some advantage, when a noise makes me stop.
The heavy, solid click of a lock.
I yank free of Mather’s grip. He whirls, panic tightening his features, but I turn to Theron, who faces the wall. Theron, whose hands hang by his sides, one wrist manacledto the chains that drape from the bricks.
He chained himself to the wall?
He slides onto his knees, face to the grimy stone floor. Tremors rock his body, make him sway forward and back.
“Theron?” I try, sure the desperation roiling through me makes my voice pinched.
His eyes flicker with the briefest, most fragile spark over his shoulder. “I can’t hold on like this for long.”
I fly forward as Mather launches at me. “Stop! What are you doing? We have to go!”
“No!” I shout, the word echoing off the empty walls. “I’m not leaving him here—”
“Yes, you are,” Theron snarls, his fingers digging into the mortar between the stones. His knuckles turn white, sweat beading on his forehead. Sconces in the hall flicker off him, painting him in jagged streaks of light. “I shouldn’t let you go. I should keep you here, but I—you need to go,now.”
I recognize this for what it is. One last burst of clarity from the Decay. A final gasp for breath before it yanks him under.
I step toward Theron. Theron, whose goals for the world completely conflict with my own. Nothing may remain of us, but I know I cannot, will not, let Angra take him.
“No, you’ll come with us.” I step closer. “You have a Royal Conduit now—you can use its magic to get the Decay out of you. You just have to want it, Theron, youjust have to—”
“Idon’twant it.” He pulls the dagger out of his belt and tosses it away from him like it’s a live flame and he a stack of dry wood. “I—I agree with him. I want his magic, not the conduits.No more conduits. I want the world to be free,equal—but I don’t want . . . I won’t hurt you. Iwon’thurt you.” His strain releases in a sob that wracks his whole body. “I won’t hurt you like I hurt my . . .”
He crouches over, hands in his hair, sobs mingling with jagged moans.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes. What can I say? What can Ido?
I kneel before him, my hand on his where he cups his head.
He’s a conduit-bearer now. And whenever I touch a conduit-bearer skin to skin, we’re connected, the inexplicable magic linking us. Scenes fly into my mind, and I watch them, muscles frozen in anguish.
Theron in Winter before we left, giving the order to his men to take over Cordell in my absence. Whatever Noam did, or thought he did, he wasn’t in control. It was Theron—and even Theron didn’t know he was doing it. Entire moments and orders and wishes struck out and snuffed away, flames that lit, burned brightly, and extinguished.
Theron in Summer, talking to a man in the wine cellar. A Ventrallan slave with a snide, unnatural smile that spoke of a deeper possession.
“You remember what happened, don’t you?” the man asks, easing out of the shadows. “You remember what he showed you?”
The wine cellar flashes away, a spurt of memory taking its place.
“Father, stop!”
Angra, barely older than I am, screams at his father, a man who looks similar to how Angra himself does now, only taller and heavier. They stand in the entryway of the Abril Palace, shadows and flickering sconces of light making the scene hard to grab. An arm raises, falls, bone cracks on stone, Angra screams. His father storms away, stumbling across the darkness, leaving Angra crouched over a body on the floor.
Blonde hair cascades down the woman’s shoulders, one side of her head a mess of congealed blood. I recognize her from the paintings that hung in the Abril Palace, portraits of a little boy—Angra—and this woman.
She gazes up at Angra the same way Hannah gazed at me—this woman is his mother.
The scene fades and Theron teeters back, slamming into the shelves of the Summerian wine cellar, hands on his temples. “No . . .”
But his voice is uncertain, weak, like part of him does remember. Like part of him throbs with the memory, revels in it.
