The wind howls as we near the Wall. Druid guards usher us along, growling orders, forcing the Selected into compliance. The back of my head nearly touches my shoulders as I crane my neck, searching for the top. It’s unnaturally tall, built and broken into the mountainside, swaths of granite swirling throughout it, smoothed by magic, enforced by curses. My breaths draw short as a cold breeze wends around me.
I don’t know what awaits me on the other side, only that my family are lost in those lands somewhere. The uncertainty ofwhat happens next has haunted my every nightmare since I was six. That was the year the elves took my twin brother, at the first official Selection. When I’d curl up in our room each night after, I wouldn’t look for monsters hiding beneath my bed, but immortals.
This close, I can see that stairs have been built within the Wall. The granite whorls confuse the eye, obscuring them until we’re at its first steps. The switchbacks are tight and narrow, and there’s no time to swallow my fear as I reach the precipice. The druids will not slow for anyone, shouting and shoving us along.
After the first six flights, my thighs are burning. As the Wraith, I might be able to scurry up buildings, scrunch myself into the opening of a window as rain pelts my skin, or perch in a tree for hours in the dead of winter, but these steps are not standard or even, and it’s like hiking the face of a mountain. Magic fills the space between breaths, an intoxicating sweetness coating my senses, my tongue. A little pulse radiates from the stone as if the Wall holds a heartbeat.
We trudge on, our breaths becoming shallower as an hour passes, then two. The stairwell darkens. A vein of blue light traces a pattern across the rich stone in the walls, as if the night sky skipped scattered stars across its surface.
I wish I’d brought my blades to carve some gouges into it.
Prince Draven is probably at the top of this cursed stairwell laughing his privileged ass off. That annoyance spurs me onward, frustration mounting with each step. I’ll be damned if I show how tired I am when I reach the top.
Vexamire stretches out the higher we climb, beautiful but desolate. I thought I would see bereavement lanterns flickering across the kingdom, but the nearest towns are little specks oflight far below, barely closer than the stars above. It looks … small. Insignificant.
I’ve traveled its mountains and valleys, but I can’t say it was ever really home.
I’ve been to the cities of Valhan, the last mortal library in Manu, and even the southern savannas of Zuri. My parents moved us constantly, hoping to prevent us from being in a territory that would be Selected. When I was little, we spent a full year on the Isle of Riches off the coast where my father was born, and I can still hear the coqui frogs croaking when I fall asleep each night. It might’ve been the one place I felt at ease, where my looks didn’t make me stand out but blend in.
The southern part of the continent was like that, too, but the north was harder—the people with it. I glare at the dark lands below. I’d bet everything I own that this diminished vision is an enchantment, reducing our might.
What’s power and magic without someone weaker to trample on?
Crying comes from up ahead, persistent as the noon bell tolls in the clock tower of Westfall. The child sounds too young. I increase my pace and find him on the next landing. He’s beautiful, hair as golden as sunflower petals, tear-rimmed eyes round. Every bit of him is tiny: his limbs, height, and waist. He must be two, at most three. Those ahead of me walk by him, all looking but doing nothing.
Someone must’ve carried him to this point. Someone must’ve given up on him.
But I won’t.
I scoop him into my arms. His wet face burrows into my nape, pale skin pressed against the bronze tones of mine, cries bleeding my eardrums. I hear a scoff behind me and look overmy shoulder. Kasper. He pants, “You should’ve left him. Maybe they’d have returned him to his family.”
The nearest soldier stands resolutely against the sidewalls of the landing, watching the child disparagingly. Bastard. All of them heartless.
“They’re as likely to throw him over the Wall as they are to return him to his parents.”
My pace slows from the extra weight, yet I force myself onward. Through will, sheer spite, pure hatred. The boy’s sopping cries calm as I huff out a melody my mother once sang.
“Sing of the child, both restless and wild, sing of a land without fear.”
He must recognize the tune even through my tired wheezing. After another landing, he stops sobbing, slumping against my neck as he drifts to sleep.
“Shade, you are not. The immortals are lost. Even walls can fall with each year.”
The irony is not lost on me. These steps are sturdy, unnaturally perfect. So long as the seraphs, druids, and elves continue living, this Wall is going nowhere.
All at once, we turn a corner unlike the others, the top of the Wall. This could be my first look at the Immortal Realms. My heart thrums. But the stairs end, and we’re on an open terrace, a green lawn stretching to an unclimbable section of cliffs, and a tunnel leads into the heart of the mountain, lit by torches, the Wall stretching off into the darkness on either side. A large, sprawling willow tree, the mightiest I’ve seen, spirals above the tunnel on a little outcrop, fireflies floating between the branches, like fallen stars trapped in its limbs.
The druids all stand before the tunnel entrance, waiting for us to gather on the grass spread at their feet. Flags of each nation hang behind them. I remember them from the previousSelections, though I’ve never seen them hung side by side before. Wands of red fire for the druids, silver swords on royal purple for the airy seraphs, and coins in gold for the emerald flag of the earthen elves. The fourth flag is cobalt, the colors of the mortal kingdom of Vexamire, a white, intricately carved goblet at its center. It’s the most worn, and a line splinters down its center leaving it in tatters, as though it will tear completely apart with the next breeze.
Every rumor, legend, and tall tale runs through my mind about what comes next.
Soon, I’ll know what happened to my family when they reached the top of the Wall.
A wild, horrible thought flies through me. Perhaps we’re all about to be slaughtered. Or beaten. Or eaten.
It’s not as though anyone has ever returned to tell the story.
The guards hiss at us to move, and I trace my way through the others, trying not to wake the child as I kneel beside the lava-cursed guy on the neatly trimmed lawn, directly before the prince. A light of interest sparks in his gaze as he notices where I’ve placed myself. My chin lifts defiantly—I expect him to look away, but he holds my glower in an unspoken contest. Gods, he is aggravating. The king watches us all, silent, until we are all supplicated before him.
