“How many?” Vexxion asked, standing near the fireplace.
I hurried over and sat beside her, putting my arm around her back. “Are you alright?”
Her attention remained on him. “Dregs. So many flying dregs. We can’t count them all. He’s discovered how to make more, and they’re a churning mass of rage and dismay.”
“Dismay?” Zayde asked, joining his brother in front of the flickering flames.
“There’s no balance,” she cried. “No balance. He’s with them, driving them, feeding them power without end. We have to stop him!” Her head snapped around and her gaze drilled into mine. “Youmust stop him.”
“How?”
“Where a blood-red sun does sink,” she chanted. “In dawn’s embrace—it's there you must seek.”
“Can you tell us where this place is?” Zayde asked.
“Whispers will reveal what shadows keep,” she snarled, swaying on the sofa, knocking into me and Layla sitting on her other side.
“Did the Liege mention this?” Vexxion asked. Like me, he must recognize Iasar and Amronth’s riddle.
“Lieges. Lieges. Lieges.” My aunt tipped her head back and gaped at the ceiling. “I’ll do my part because we must restore the balance.”
Drask flew into the room and landed on the back of the sofa, looking from me to my aunt. He cawed and soared up around the outside of the room, hitting the walls as if trapped.
Vexxion lifted a window, and the crow flew outside only to dart back in and land on the sofa again. Watching Vera. Me. If only he could speak.
I rubbed my aunt’s back, wincing at her bones jutting against her frail skin. “How can we restore the balance?”
Her head turned my way, and the profound sorrow there roared over me like an enormous wave, toppling me under its suffocating weight. “Onlyyoucan do this, my sweet niece.”
“How? I assume you’re talking about the Blade of Alessa.”
“Yes, yes, the blade.”
“But I don’t know where it is or how to find it. Can’t you tell me anything else?”
“That’s all I saw,” she said sadly.
“Did the Liege hurt you?” Layla rubbed my aunt’s leg. Herstarkly cratered face told me she felt as helpless as me. We had so little information and now, not enough time.
“The Liege shared,” Aunt Vera said.
“Shared what?” Reyla came over to sit on the table in front of us.
“Everything,” Vera moaned, cupping her face. “It was too much. Not enough. For a blade to be forged in light,” she chanted in a sing-song voice, “it must be torn away from thorn’s blight and veiled beneath the gaze of eternal right.”
“How can we do any of this?” Layla asked. “Whereis the blade?”
“If a particular blade can end this,” Airia said sharply, “we need to find it.” She crouched down in front of my aunt and tugged her hands away from her face. “Can you tell us where it is? Be specific.”
Aunt Vera’s gaze spiraled around the room before she focused on Airia. “Yes,youknow.”
Airia’s complexion took on a ghostly hue. “I don’t know anything. Where is the blade?”
“There are no sounds there,” my aunt said, her face knitting. “Not even the wind or a roar or a peep of a bird. Just endless sorrow you’ll never escape from.”
Reyla’s hand on my knee trembled. “I remember a place like that, and I hope I’m never sucked into that world again.”
The ether?I asked Vexxion.
