“How can I let her go like this? This is our fault, it’s my fault?—”
“She cannot be around you right now. We will take care of her. But right now she needs space, and you’re needed here. This war is far from over. In fact, after today, I think it’s only just begun.”
“Kylian will find her, and I won’t be there.”
“He won’t find her. Not where we’re going.”
I give her a desolate look.
“What she’s about to do…” I shake my head, my eyes caught on the dark banner of her hair waving in the wind as she takes her place on the dragon’s back. “Don’t let her lose herself.”
“Never.”
As I watchthem disappear into the bleak sky, I try to think of anything but Serena’s haunting cries. I try to un-feel her hands around my neck, her nails digging into my throat, determined to end my life right then and there.
The way her fingers trembled afterward, wet with crimson blood as she sank onto Zadyn’s chest, wailing—it broke me.
If I had been a second earlier in getting to her, I could have stopped it. But I was too late.
I pray to the gods he lives.
But either way, she may never forgive me.
And I may never forgive myself for ruining us.
PART III: FALLEN STARS
85
SERENA
7 DAYS
Lightning slashes across the midnight skies, followed by another crack of thunder. We slice through weeping storm clouds, rain pelting us as we soar over the agitated onyx waves of the Sunken Sea.
“This is it!” Mar shouts over the deafening winds. “Steer her straight down when I say.”
“It’s all ocean beneath us!” I call back.
“I know. Trust me.”
Mar begins to chant behind me in Ancient Fae. I glance at her over my shoulder. A line of blue blood trickles from her nose as she continues louder.
“Now!”
Furi obeys without hesitation, diving toward the water with unrelenting speed. I suck in a breath, bracing to go under as we spear through the surface and are swallowed up by the sea.
My ears start to ache as we plunge deeper and deeper into the depths of the abyss. My lungs burn, desperate to expand as the pressure builds in my head. Panic sets in. The moment my vision begins to blink out, we break through the barrier.
We’re still plunging downward, only now we are plunging towarda twilight sky. Gasping, I glance below us toward the water we just emerged from. The world has turned upside down.
“Head toward the shore,” Mar calls.
The night grows eerily quiet as we land inside a dense forest—the only sound the patter of rain falling against the dusty ground.
“We have to go on foot from here,” Mar says, nodding toward the camp in the distance. I glance back at Zadyn’s body, secured to Furi’s saddle, and another wave of nausea rocks me.
I can’t believe this is real.
