“It’s stupid.”
“It saved our lives!”
He sighs, exasperated. “I thought about you, okay?”
I reel back. “Huh?”
He looks furious with himself for mentioning it. “I told you it was stupid.”
“No, I just don’t understand.”
Cygnus squeezes his temples. “I realized I wasn’t breathing and I was thinking all these bad things and then I thought about you and how you were going to need my help…” He shakes his head. “I dunno. I guess it just snapped me out of it.”
I feel like a frog has crawled up my throat. I have an odd impulse to hug him, but Cygnus folds his arms over his body and starts talking again very quickly, blocking the chance.
“Anyway, when I came to, I realized I was lying face down in the water. And you were next to me in the same position.”
I start hacking again, my whole body convulsing with the effort. When it’s over, I drop my head between my knees, shaking.
“Thank you,” I finally say, when I’ve found my voice again. I tip my face to gaze at Cygnus, but he’s staring away, toward something in the distance.
“We did it,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Weactuallydid it.”
I follow his gaze over the lake and across the darkness. The mountains are gone. Instead, there sits a glittering city.
And when Cygnus looks back at me, I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen him beam.
“Welcome to Ruin.”
hen I tip my head back and look upward, I see no end to the blackness, just yawning emptiness, a dizzying void that seems to go on forever. It might be an infinite sky above us, devoid of stars.
This is no natural cave. No ordinary sky. This is spellcraft, as old as the world itself, handiwork of the Gods.
The city before us is massive. It sprawls over what seems like miles, with buildings on buildings, spindly towers, bridges and ropes crisscrossing over layers upon layers of civilization. Thousands of lights flicker in the windows, in dim shades of amber and gold, and reflect off the lake’s surface.
Cygnus and I follow the lights, like illuminated pinpricks on a walking path, wading through the shallows toward the beach’spebbly shore, which splits a pair of craggy bluffs. My eyes are ahead: on the city, and in particular the massive onyx structure that juts twice as high as the next-tallest building. It can only be Queen Soleste’s castle.
“What do we do when we get there?” Cygnus asks.
“Find food.”
I feel like garbage. My clothes are in tatters, and I don’t dare touch the tangles that have replaced my hair. Not the most inviting condition in which to make friends.
“We’ve got to get dry,” says Cygnus, reading my mind.
“And find water,” I add. “Water first.” My throat is ragged.
Slowly, we walk toward the city. The closer we draw toward the Elven kingdom, the more something seems off in the air. Our path meanders over uneven terrain, and it’s all I can do to keep my feet beneath me. Silence falls—spooky silence—the overwhelming kind. Buildings perch on the sloping hills like dark birds, their beady orange eyes marking our approach with disdain.
When we reach the first dwellings scattered along the outskirts, I’m surprised: These are more hovels than homes. The buildings are short and square, hewn from stone and metal. The streets are deserted. There’s no sun to tell time by. I see no children at play, no one traversing the narrow streets as they do in Crown City. The only animals I spot are scrawny, white-tailed rats. All lies eerily still.
As we approach the city’s heart, the condition of the city doesn’t improve. Everything is harsh and austere…joyless. There’s nothing of Verdinae’s charm. The closer I look, the more I see: walls spiderwebbed with cracks, dwellings without roofs, bricks and rags and other rubbish strewn through the streets or clustered near doorsteps.
Dread fills me, my worst fears confirmed. There may have been Elves here at one point, but they are gone now. Cygnus’sdream of rallying an Elven army to take back Evermore is just that, a dream.
I glance over at him. His expression is determinedly blank, but I can feel his disappointment. I find myself tempted to reach for his hand to comfort him, but I stop myself.
But as we near what seems to be the city’s central plaza, Cygnus and I finally hear some commotion.
