Elara swallowed. “But Reeve stole the battle plans. He helped us stop his father from burning San Irie to the ground.”
“The door to the Gray Saint’s cage would be easier to find among the ash than among the trees. And the Empyrean would be easier to capture if broken by the loss of all she held dear. A perfect plan, so neat, so tidy. But it didn’t work. And here I am.”
Tears were sliding down Signey’s face. Her hand lifted, as though she wanted to reach for her father, but then hovered there, uncertain. “Why are you here? What does any of that have to do with you?”
“I am the one who crafted the relic,” said Barret. He turned, tracing a circle around his heart as though something hung there. “Too useful to kill, but too informed to be set free.”
Elara stared at his hands, another piece of the puzzle locking into place. “The dragon’s-eye necklace that Reeve wears around his neck. That’s the relic you crafted. That’s the Gray Saint’s tie to this world. Every time Reeve uses it—”
“The closer it is, the more it’s used, the stronger the Saint grows.”
Elara’s heart felt like a steel drum, rapid and loud. “He doesn’t use it that often. The Gray Saint can’t be—can’t be very strong right now. Not strong enough to break free. The commander wouldn’t still be scheming if he were.”
“Father,” Signey begged, drawing Barret’s attention back to her. “You have to tell us how to summon the Gray Saint again. The Warwicks need to speak with him. If you don’t tell me, they’ll have us killed.”
“You were dead the moment you stepped inside this place,” said Barret indifferently. “And we’ll all die, anyway, if the First Dragon is freed.”
“Please,” Signey repeated, her voice cracking. “Please. I need you. Jesper needs you.Please—”
“Oh, Signey.” Barret came to stand in front of his daughter, his hands gripping her damp cheeks. There was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there this entire time, as if her pleas had returned some of his clarity. “You look so much like your mother. And bonded to an Iryan! She and Celyn would be so proud of you.”
A sob caught in Signey’s throat.
Elara touched her wrist, almost unsurprised when Signeycaught her hand and squeezed it so tightly that it hurt. “I have a name, sir. And it’s not ‘an Iryan.’”
“Of course, of course. My apologies, Elara Vincent.” Barret was still gazing at his daughter, unblinking. “The commander believes that the First Dragon is his key to power. He thinks he is the fool who is outsmarting the wise, the lowly human who toys with gods. But he’s wrong, do you hear me? He’s wrong. And because of him, this world will burn.”
“Then tell us how to summon the Gray Saint,” Signey tried once more. “Not for them, but for us. If we can get to him before the commander does, maybe—”
Barret’s expression crumpled. He turned his back on his daughter.
Behind them, the door slid open. “Useless,” the director’s voice snapped. “I should have known you’d beuseless. Vincent, consider yourself lucky that I can’t kill you yet. Let’s go. Now.”
Signey was crying openly, still gripping Elara’s aching hand, and Elara’s head was thick with a fog of horror at how big this all was, how far back it all went, and how little they’d been able to change things, even though they’d won the war. If anything, they had only delayed a tragedy that now seemed inescapable.
“Because of hubris, this world will burn,” Barret Soto said as the director pulled them out of the cell. “And I’m beginning to think that we should let it.”
The flight back to Hearthstone was silent, with Elara, Signey, and Zephyra each lost in her own maudlin thoughts. Irontooth was a dark shadow above them as the commander and the director personally escorted them, a soundless threat. Elara didn’t have theenergy to sift through the feelings she could sense from either side of the bond, especially when the director’s “yet” still echoed in her ears. Why did they need her alive? And until when? She felt as numb as she had the day she’d woken up and been told that Langley was her future, that her dreams would come second to this bond she had never asked for. She felt as if her world were in tatters, and there was no hope of weaving it back into something that made sense.
Once, Reeve had been dying. His parents had been desperate enough to commit atrocities to keep him alive. Before they could pay their debts, he’d betrayed them—and in doing so had only postponed their plans. The war wasn’t over. The war would never be over. The Gray Saint was so close to victory that Elara could see no way to stop him, and she couldn’t tell Faron, Reeve, or Aveline anything she knew without risking their lives, too.
And that was if they even made it back to Hearthstone. Irontooth was still above, perfectly poised to kill them the second the commander gave the word.
It was too much. For the first time in a long time, Elara felt eighteen years old. A child with too much weight on her shoulders, playing at adulthood. This was so much bigger than she was, and, no matter which path she chose, someone would lose.
“I think… you were right,” Signey said, the wind muffling her already soft voice. “We should have told my brother everything. Before.”
Elara’s arms tightened around her. “So he could die with us?”
“Maybe it would have been better for the entire Soto line to be wiped out. Look at where we are.” She couldn’t see Signey’s face, but she could tell from the bond that the girl was on the verge oftears again. “You didn’t know him before. My father was such a shy, studious man. We were everything to him. The Mausoleum has stripped him of all that. He’s as much a prisoner in his mind as he is in that place, stuck on the past, callous toward the future. I didn’t want to lose him, Elara. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. But, thanks to my own ancestor, I already have.”
“We aren’t dead yet,” said Zephyra.“We could—”
For a moment, it felt as if the open channel of the bond were a candle that had been snuffed out. Elara began to ask what was going on when the candle was relit… with dragonfire. Beneath her, Zephyra’s body began to shudder.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Signey shouted. “It’s happening again.”
“What?” Elara asked before her eyes went wide. “What?No! It’s been two months, and we haven’t—”
