Somewhere in that burning wreckage were the bodies of Elara’s friends, her classmates, her townspeople. Dead, all of them dead. Because of her.
“A necessary sacrifice,” said Gael, and he no longer sounded like himself. He no longer sounded like the boy she had thought she was getting to know. Or had the sinister edge to his voice always been there? Was he consumed by Lightbringer, or had he lied to her? Faron no longer trusted herself to tell.“We have more important things to do.”
Faron screamed until her voice failed her. Then she began to cry.
By the time they landed outside of Pearl Bay Palace in Port Sol, Faron was numb.
Every time she blinked, she saw Wayne Pryor’s smile and Aisha Harlow’s burgundy hair. She heard Jordan Simmons’s snide comments, his feet pounding across the Deadegg streets. Three lives snuffed out in an instant because she had freed Lightbringer from the Empty when the gods had told her not to go near it. Faron’s throat hurt from screaming, and her eyes itched from crying, but she couldn’t feel the magnitude of those three deaths. Her ability to grieve had hit a certain threshold during the war, and the three Valor pilots had simply slotted themselves into the emotional graveyard with the rest of the corpses of those she’d failed to save.
Lightbringer lay down on Pearl Bay Airfield, allowing Faron and Gael to slide off his back before he stood again. Part of her expected the dragon to begin setting fire to the buildings that had just been newly rebuilt after the war. But all Lightbringer did was eye the rest of the landing strip, where Liberty was still parked against the backdrop of the afternoon sky. Faron’s breath caught, but the drake didn’t move to intercept the beast. Its pilots must have been in town, unaware of how close they were to death.
Gael was striding toward the castle. Faron hurried after him, trying again and again to call upon the gods.
“That won’t work anymore,” he said once she caught up to him, startling her out of her own head. He was smiling the indulgent way one might smile at a child who had prepared a mud pie for dinner. “Didn’t you feel it? Haven’t you noticed us speaking through it? You’re bonded to me and Lightbringer now. You’re our co-Rider.”
Faron almost tripped over nothing. “I’m—what? That’s impossible.”
As impossible as him hearing her thoughts when she hadn’t sent them to him.
“It’s the way it was always meant to be. I told you I had knowledge that the gods never wanted you to know, didn’t I? Now that we’re bonded, you can do so much more than they ever allowed you to do. You can become so much more than they would ever let you be.” He stopped within view of the palace doors, gazing down at her with those perilous hazel eyes. “You’re not their Childe Empyrean anymore, Faron. Our souls are the same. Before I was the Gray Saint, before I went mad, I had adopted a different name. Iya. A name worthy of a god bonded to the most powerful dragonin existence. Nowweare gods.Weare Iya. And, together, we will rule this world.”
“Gael, I—”
“Faron!”
For the second time that day, her heart stopped.
Reeve.
Reeve was coming toward them, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion as he saw Gael—Iya—for the first time. He took them in, read her body language, lifted his hand toward his chest where she knew his dragon relic was hidden beneath his shirt. She imagined loyal, intelligent, and stupidly noble Reeve going up in flames as Valor had, and her blood went cold in her veins.
“Reeve, go back inside!” she shouted. “Please, just go!”
“Cute,” said Iya. “But I couldn’t harm him even if I wanted to. He has something that belongs to me.”
Reeve stood in front of them now. Faron saw him shift so that he was standing slightly between her and Iya, as if he were ready to jump in front of a blow for her if he needed to, and she reached out to cling to the fabric of his shirt. He wouldn’t—shouldn’t—protect her like this if he knew what she had done.
“What’s going on, Faron?” he asked, casting Iya a suspicious glare. “Is this the Gray Saint?”
“You don’t recognize me?” There was a malicious glee in Iya’s eyes, in Iya’s voice, that made goose bumps rise on Faron’s arms. “I’m almost offended. But there’s really no point in being insulted by you when you only live because of me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Reeve asked, his voice coming out much stronger than his wavering expression would imply. “Start making sense.”
“Reeve Warwick,” Iya said like he was savoring the words, “you were dying of some human disease or other when you were a child. Your desperate parents used that very dragon relic around your neck to make contact with me, weak and trapped though I was. They promised me freedom in exchange for your life restored and their power returned. For the chance to rule this world beneath us.
“You were supposed to be my vessel, a human form I could use to move through the world, allowing me to find the Empty and release myself. But you forced me to make other arrangements. I didn’t realize how much free will would be left in you. I didn’t realize I would be too weak to do more than linger in your form like a droplet of rain in an ocean. But that’s all right. Everything worked out as it was always meant to.” His eyes flicked over to Faron with a satisfied smile. “Though he didn’t know it, the boy standing in front of me right now is still an incarnation of will, meant to protect my only connection to this realm and to push the Childe Empyrean toward her destiny. Toward this moment. Towardmyfreedom. And now that I have my power back, you have served your purpose.”
“What—?”
Iya disappeared in a flash before Reeve could finish the sentence. Faron began to say something—though she wasn’t sure what could explainanyof this—but Reeve grunted as if he had been shot. He stumbled back as his limbs splayed out like a pinned butterfly’s, his eyes glowing gold. His skin had always been pale, but now it was translucent, shimmering,gleaming. It looked as if Reeve were holding the sun inside of him and now it was fighting to get out by any means necessary.
And then it was over.
Reeve dropped onto his knees. Heart pounding, Faron searched the surrounding area, but she could see no sign of Iya at all. She quickly kneeled by Reeve’s side, sliding an arm around his back. “Are you okay? Please be okay. Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m better than I’ve been in centuries.” The same cruel slash of a smile that had seemed so at home on Iya’s face now stretched across Reeve’s. He shook off her grip and stood, flexing his fingers and cracking his neck. Then he laughed. “My form, my true form, long decomposed in that prison. How I appeared to you all this time was little more than a memory made flesh by the proximity of my relic.” He gripped that relic now and laughed again. “Thanks to you freeing me, I now have the power to make Reeve Warwick a true vessel. I have all I need.”
Somewhere behind them, Lightbringer roared.
