My hands fisted at my sides.
“But as you know,myrestraint only goes so far, too,” he said, his voice low. “I know you don’t want to put this shit on Poppy and make her feel guilty, but I don’t know how the fuck you think she’ll feel when you do finally get around to dealing with this if you keep it from her.”
I inhaled, tasting the bitter chalkiness of ash as I stared ahead. Yeah. I didn’t want to put that on her. But if she learned that I knew? If she realized what it had caused? It would break her heart.
“So, I suggest you get on with it,” Kieran said. “Because I’m not going to let you do this to her—to us.” The breath he took was shaky. When he spoke again, his voice had turned coarse. “I won’t let you do this to yourself.”
POPPY
The sky looked…different.
My hands rested on the balcony’s smooth stone railing as my gaze traveled the endless expanse. There weren’t many clouds.
But there were stars.
Thousands of them blanketed the sky like diamonds had been scattered across it.
It would’ve been beautiful if not for howwrongit was, considering it was only late afternoon and several hours from what should have been dusk.
It had to be another sign of the imbalance in the realms—one that would continue to worsen as long as both Casteel and Kolis were in the mortal realm.
Gods. That wasn’t an outcome we had even remotely considered when we brought Malec to the Bone Temple.
I should be more disturbed than I was, but it paled in comparison to what I’d experienced in the Continents and whatI’d seen carved into Reaver’s features when he realized I couldn’t wake Jadis.
Anguish.
Gods, I could still hear it in his voice.
My hands trembled against the railing. Why hadn’t my touch worked?
Like before, there was no answer.
I swallowed against the knot that had lodged itself in my throat since Ironspire. The desperation I’d felt when I willed Jadis to wake reminded me of the little girl in Saion’s Cove who had passed. Except I’d been able to bring her back. Could it be that Jadis was…no longer alive? That would explain why my touch had no impact.
No, I told myself. Nektas had sensed that his daughter was still alive. So, it wasn’t that. I’d just failed to reach her.
Hopefully, Seraphena would know what to do. Nektas would have to ask her instead of waiting for me, right?
There was only a hint of the sea in the air as I drew in a deep breath and looked over my shoulder.
Right now, I figured Kieran was setting a time to meet with the generals while Casteel went to feed—something he could’ve done inside our chambers, but I could tell he believed I wasn’t ready to see anyone.
That assumption wasn’t entirely unfounded. But it was more that I wasn’t ready to see one person in particular.
Tawny.
My stomach twisted, and I still had no idea why. It was so unlike me. Tawny meant the world to me, as did our friendship. What I was feeling just didn’t make sense.
Pulling my lip between my teeth, I lifted my gaze. From this part of Wayfair, I could see an even larger portion of the Garden District and Croft’s Cross. I looked to where the rangeof the Elysium Peaks rose against the vivid-blue, star-swept sky, casting a shadow over part of the city and the thick forest below.
What had Ian called it? The Dark Elms? I didn’t think that was their official name. I recalled them being called the Royal Elms, but Ian’s name for them made a lot more sense. As a child, I’d been afraid of the forest because I’d never seen the sun penetrate the canopy.
And likely because Ian had once told me that the souls of those who passed on but feared judgment haunted the forest.
A faint smile tugged at my lips as the memory of Ian holding my hand as we walked rose, but it faded as my stomach dipped. For some reason, I suddenly thought—no, Ibelieved—that what Ian had said about the forest was true.
Shaking my head at another thought that made no sense, I looked up. White-tipped water rushed down the jagged face of the bluff in the Cliffs of Sorrow.
