The sighing shifts, curling through my mind, pressing into my chest like something alive, something searching.
And then, it speaks.
Not with words. Not with sound. But with haunting certainty.
“You were sent to destroy her.”
A cold stillness settles into my spine.No. It can’t be right.The heavens are wrong.They have to be fucking wrong.But the words press deeper, slicing like steel between my ribs.
“You are the balance. The blade at the throat of power unchecked.
If she’s destroyed, the world is saved. If she isn’t, all is lost.”
I don’t breathe. I don’t move.
The air feels thinner, sharper, pressing into my skull until it might split open.
“She is not salvation, unless destroyed. She is ruin. And you are the one that must destroy her before the fire spreads.”
My fists clench at my sides, nails digging into my palms, but the pressure in my chest won’t ease. The weight of the words coils in my gut like a slow-turning dagger.
Elyssara is shifting beside me now—her face soft with wonder, or hope, or with relief perhaps. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t see the way my breath comes sharp and uneven, like something inside me is fracturing.
She doesn’t know what I’ve heard.
The wind around us begins to fracture, the tunnel of light flickering, fading. Reality is rushing back in, the Stars overhead returning to their watchful stillness, but the words remain.
Heavy. Unyielding. A command. A fate.
Destroy her.
The silence that follows is absolute. The mountain air bites against my skin, sharp and cold, but I barely feel it.
Elyssara exhales, steadying herself. And smiles.She fucking smiles.The sight of it almost cripples me.
I force my face into something unreadable. Something she won’t question.
She doesn’t know what I’ve been told.
And Stars help me, I don’t know if I can do it.
And Stars help us all if I can't.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ELYSSARA
The silencein the air lingers, and so does the eye contact between Kael and me. His expression is stoic and unreadable, hardened over years of keeping a careful mask in place and solid walls around his heart.But I know better.I saw the way he fought the truth from the heavens. The way he flinched. And the way he slipped his mask and walls back in place before meeting my gaze.
He pauses, as if figuring out what to say. “So, you heard it then?” He asks in a voice that’s far too even and calculated.
“The compass first,” I say, clipped, in lieu of an answer. “And then I’m assuming you’ll hear my truth, anyway.”
Something in his eyes belies his calm exterior—a moment of panic, or realization dawns on him as I get the words out.
He gives me a brief, emotionless nod and sets off to locate the compass.
“Ah, Kael?” He spins around to face me once again, “I can feel it calling to me. Just like the blade.” I don’t wait for his response, before saying, “This way, come on.”
