I knelt before the grave marker, placing both hands on the cold stone. Closing my eyes, I called on my shadows to reach once more into the past.
I had mastered this over these last months, if nothing else; even with my unsettled feelings, it was easy to concentrate on letting darkness seep into the stone and the ground around it, coaxing those whispers of the past up to the surface. I pictured Calista’s face as I did, making sure to think specifically about what I needed to see.
Please, I thought.I need to understand. I need to know if I’m right about what you did.
Resistance came—as if her spirit was testing me—but I quickly pushed through it.
The world shifted.
I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was watching from a different perspective, seeing through eyes that weren’t my own.
Calista’s eyes.
She was kneeling in this very spot, her hands pressed against the ground, blood seeping between her fingers from wounds I couldn’t see. The forest around her was on fire—not with normal flames, but with Light magic turned wild and destructive…
Lorien’s power, tearing through everything in his grief-fueled rage.
I don’t have much time, she thought, her consciousness bleeding into mine.I have to finish this. I have to make sure the pieces go where they need to go.
Her magic was pulsing outward, creating that dome of protection that surrounded the palace and the royal city. But at the same time, another tangle of magic was rising inside of her, another complicated spell blooming into existence.
Mind to the place where knowledge sleeps. Body to the place where gods forget. Heart...
She hesitated, her hands moving to her own chest.
I felt her magic gathering there. Shadows responding to her call. They reached out from her body like dark appendages, beckoning toward the sky. And then I saw it: The last piece of Lorien’s shattered soul. The piece the sentier hadn’t revealed to me. It fell as the others had—streaking down like a falling star—and landed directly in front of Calista.
She picked it up with trembling fingers and clasped it to her chest. It gave off one last powerful burst of light before she covered it completely with her hands, pressing it more tightly against her. When she pulled her hands away and looked down, the shard was gone.
Blood stained her tunic. I wasn’t sure if it had been there before, but now fresh pain radiated through her body, through our shared consciousness. Her heart pounded frantically fast and loud for a few seconds, and then…
Nothing.
The vision fractured as she took her last breath.
I gasped, pulling back from the stone so hard I nearly lost my balance. My own heart was pounding, my hands shaking as I realized…my theory had been correct.
I took a deep breath, willing steadiness back into my body with concentrated effort.
“I thought you might like this back,” came a voice from behind me, casually cold and devastatingly familiar.
I twisted around to find Aleks watching me. He was alone, as far as I could see—but he also held Grimnor; he must have taken it from the battlefield after I’d dropped it.
I leapt to my feet. “How…how did you…”
“Get past your allies?” His eyes gleamed with dark amusement. “You underestimate me, Chaos.” He glanced overhis shoulder, toward the rising sounds of a skirmish. Muffled by the magic of this place, but obvious just the same. “They’ll be busy for a moment, at least.”
I tried not to let my panic show. “My sword,” I said, evenly. “Hand it over.”
“Like he did, you mean?” He sauntered forward with easy, predatory grace. “When the two of you moved against me back in the palace vault?”
“Together…” I kept my voice steady, trying not to think about those frightening moments when I’d brought Lorien back to life. “Is that what they told you? That Lorien and I conspired against you?”
“No one needed to tell me anything. The Vaelora bond is well documented.”
“You know it’s more complicated than that,” I breathed. “Even if they’ve twisted your perception of it.”
He said nothing, just watched me for a moment, his golden eyes like a wolf’s in the dark.
