She was on her back, lying in the street of Mysai.
Stone pressed against her shoulder blades. The sky stretched above her—a sheet of deepening blue, streaked with the last bruised colors of sunset. One by one, stars were kindling in the twilight, winking into being as if nothing at all had changed.
Except everything had.
Had it truly all been a lie? Was there truly no Lady Below at all? Only a…a man?
She tried to make sense of it all as she stared up at the four silhouettes looming over her: Malik, Hazim, Skatia’s Witchsworn. Their names escaped her. Her Sister went through them so quickly.
The men stood like statues, dull eyes fixed ahead, waiting to be commanded. Whatever had just happened in the Underworld had touched only the Sisters, not their Witchsworn.
Her heart seized.Skatia.
Talia rolled to her hands and knees. Her stomach churned, nausea sweeping through her. Bile burned the back of her throat. Nearby, a puddle of crimson silk shimmered in the dying light.
“Skatia!” she cried, scrambling across the stones.
Her Sister lay on her back, staring up at the sky with eyes that saw nothing.
Talia’s hands shook as she grabbed the other woman’s shoulders, hauling Skatia’s upper body into her lap.
“Skatia, wake up,” she whispered, giving her a gentle shake. “Do you hear me? Skatia, you will wake up. You will—” She choked on the words as her vision blurred. It was pointless. She knew that.
Skatia was already gone.
The Bonesinger had killed her. As easily as snuffing out a candle.
A sound tore from Talia’s throat—half sob, half scream. She bent over Skatia’s still form, clutching her tighter. Her former mistress. Her tormentor. Her…her almost friend.
“At least tell me what I am looking for!” she screamed into the twilight, her voice cracking. “Tell me and I will find it!”
For a heartbeat, there was only the echo of her own voice.
Then something moved in the back of her mind.
A scrape. A breath. A chuckle that was not so much a sound as a sensation—like claws dragging along the inside of her skull.
A heart, my tantruming child,the Bonesinger rasped.
Her vision darkened at the edges. Her thoughts plunged downward, deep beneath the earth. Then she saw it—the thing the Bonesinger was hunting—not with her eyes, but with something deeper.
A picture unfurled inside her, vivid and strange. Resting on a stone slab was a heart like none she had ever seen. It was dark purple, as if carved from pure amethyst, larger than any living heart had a right to be. Its surface looked like crystal, faceted and gleaming.
But unlike mere stone, this heart was alive.
Light pulsed inside it, throbbing weakly at its center, as if something trapped within still fought to beat. To live. She smelled the tang of dragonfire.
Old, stale, like smoke trapped too long in stone.
A dragon’s heart,the Bonesinger whispered, stopping her own in its tracks.The very last.
Chapter forty-seven
Aldric
The bite of the morning wind stung Aldric’s cheeks, waking him far more effectively than a splash of water after a restless night’s sleep on hard earth ever could. His legs ached—now unaccustomed to riding a full day in the saddle.
But he didn’t mind it.
