feel like Cygnus just punched a hole through my chest.
My legs collapse, and I pitch forward, knees slamming against the rocks. I can hardly feel it. I can’t feel anything—my whole head isroaring—I can’t breathe.I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
My chest heaves, trying to force air into unyielding lungs.
“Lyria…” A hand touches my shoulder.
I yank back like a wounded animal, howling,“Get away from me!”
I’m not angry at Cygnus. I’m warring with everyinchof my being to keep my Talent from obliterating him…and every other living thing in this cave. I feel ten thousand pounds ofiron pressing down on my chest, and my vision goes completely black. On all fours, I start dry heaving, still gasping….
“Lyria…”Cygnus’s voice is pained, but he doesn’t draw closer.
It’s a long time before I can get down a real breath. Even longer before I can sit back up. Gradually, the attack eases. My trembling slows, and I find the will to draw back my infernal Talent, until it’s a manageable fire under my skin.
There are Elves under Crown City. The Evermoreans live.
I’m not alone.
My throat is raw. One word is all I can manage.
“How?”
Cygnus’s eyes spark, and I know he understands what I’m asking. “You know about the fyres at the end of the Long War?”
I wobble a nod.
“Well, Verdish history doesn’t tell the whole story,” he says.
No shit.
I’m too raw to retort, so I just wait for him to elaborate.
“When Verdin took control of Evermore, he made sure that every account of that battle reported zero survivors,” Cygnus explains.
This was the version of history I grew up with. The fyres were the decisive end of the hundred-year Long War, when Verdin used dragons to raze the Evermorean capital. In a single day, the fyrefleet leveled an entire city. Magical fyre doesn’t burn like regular fire; it melts rock into liquid and can swallow a home in an instant. It’s impossible to know how many thousands of Elves were lost in the fyres. But it marked the single most horrific act of the conflict. A whole generation, an ancient dynasty…gone in a day. Mother won’t talk about it, like so much of her life, but I recall once when she had too much wine, she described the horror of seeing ash fall from the skyand the clouds turning crimson as the fyrefleet soared over the mountains….
Wait.I feel like an idiot as it hits me:How could she have seen the fyres? How did she get out?
Cygnus’s next words answer my unspoken question.
“What the history books leave out is what wasunderthe capital. In the cavern around the Everwell, there’s an ancient city where our people once made pilgrimage to worship the Old Gods. They call it Ruin. And it was reinforced with spellcraft to protect the most sacred, well-guarded resource in the world.”
The name draws only faint recollection, like something I’ve heard in a lullaby.
Cygnus leans in. “So, on the day of the fyres, Queen Soleste led a host of Evermoreans underground to take shelter.”
“Queen Soleste was never executed?” I say. Cygnus nods. My chest seizes. “And the Evermoreans survived?”
“Some of them did, yes.”
I’m burning with shame from my ignorance. Carried with it is rage toward my mother for not telling me any of it. She wasthere.She had lived through every horror Cygnus was describing. How could she think it wasn’t important for me to know? If there is a secret Evermorean stronghold, why didn’t shetakeme there?
“If there are Elves underground, why haven’t they come to help?” I finally ask.
“Because once the Evermoreans fled to Ruin, they never returned. No one knows why.”
