This was a washed-out version of the dreamland I’d seen in the tome.
It felt like it was dying.
Res trilled quietly, the sound a soft rasp yet somehow still too loud for the silent forest.
“I’m aware it’s creepy,” I grumbled back, and the wood swallowed my voice. The uneasy atmosphere made my skin crawl and my muscles tense. Part of me wanted to turn and run. I pressed on.
Finally, the tree line broke, granting me entrance into a large glade. The air here felt thickest of all, each breath an effort to draw in and push out. Fog blanketed the clearing, hanging low and heavy as overripe fruit.
The mist drew together in a shudder, and then all at once, it dispersed, scurrying like shadows before the sun. It revealed a circular pond on the far side. The water was a pale gold, as if lit from below by a thousand candles. At the center sat a small island connected by several thin land bridges, a single tree standing at its center.
Bright silver and gold leaves hung heavy on branches thicker than my torso. Gnarled roots lifted and fell through the earth like the body of a snake, reaching out of the edges of the island into the glow of the lake.
At the base of the tree sat a bound figure, his head drooped.
Ericen.
Shearen stood with a sword to his once friend’s throat.
Razel stepped up to the edge of the island, flanked by five Vykryn in black leather. The queen’s own uniform was lined in gold, her hair woven back in a tight braid. A simple, gilded circlet sat over her brow, the edges of her moonblades reaching up over her shoulders.
Her smile was a sharp knife. “Hello, Thia dear.”
Twin emotions stampeded through my veins: a vicious fury entwined with icy hate. Lightning snapped from Res’s beak, striking the earth a foot from where Razel stood and sending up a shower of dirt. She didn’t so much as blink. Thunder echoed overhead, drowning the hard beating of my heart.
Razel laughed. “Oh, you want to play with magic?”
Figures moved in the shadows of the trees. Tall, lean, and hooded, they emerged from behind the drooping branches all around the clearing, surrounding us.
One stepped up beside Razel, lowering its hood.
Unnatural golden eyes stared out from a gaunt, angular face too sharp and hard to be human, and a strange glow emanated from beneath his pale skin as if moonlight were trapped beneath it. An immeasurable sense of age surrounded him like a cloak.
A Sella.
He lifted one long-fingered hand. A flame ignited in his palm.
“No.” The word fell useless from my lips. This was the figure I’d seen on Malkin’s retreating ship. The one who had truly set those strange, all-consuming fires.
Ericen’s words came flooding back.
The Sellas are still alive. Or at least one of them is. He’s been aiding my mother, perhaps since she destroyed the crows.
This was the Sella who had set fire to Aris on Ronoch.
Even with the traitors who had aided Razel, even with the elite Illucian archers and limited targets, Ronoch had still seemed impossible.
Now it made sense.
This was how the fires had erupted into infernos all at once. This was how they’d burned through stone and metal and bone.
Razel had been working with him from the beginning, and now somehow, there were more of them.
The queen spread her hands in a magnanimous gesture. “Allow me to introduce my friend, Valis. I’m sorry to say he wants you and your family dead every bit as much as I do.”
For the war. For locking them away. Everything Estrel had said was true.
“The prison your family trapped them in has been weakening. At first, only Valis was strong enough to emerge, but it’s weak enough now that others have joined him. This is only the beginning.” Razel turned to the strange tree. It pulsed with an unnatural golden light that filled the air with power, making it difficult to breathe. The world swayed, and a dark figure moved in the light.
