We are not powerless.
With that, my Starkeeper soul implodes like a supernova, creating a black hole of magic that sucks akasha from everywhere. Masišta screams along with his men as every single one of their bodies dries to a husk, their magic nourishing the dearth of mine.
It’s both horrific and beautiful, frightening and sublime, when immense power claws up my body, through my bones, and the runes on my hands detonate. I feel the wings on my back expand wide as my spine bows with the influx, and the smirk on Laleh’s face turns to shock and then alarm. I touch a shimmering finger to the barrier and it fractures in a smoky spiderweb of cracks.
We are your end, revenant.
The magical voice is a high-pitched, multilayered sound that makes the remaining humans clutch their ears. I step past the shattered wards, and I cock my head at the necrotic creatures the god of death created.
Tell your master we are coming.
“Sura, it’s me,” Laleh cries. “Your friend. Don’t abandon me this time.”
But even in my heightened ascended state, I know that my friend—my dearest, sweetest friend—died a long time ago. With a single flicker of thought, the revenant who stole her face liquifies to purple-red sludge.
My light dissipates as I crash to my knees. “Papa?”
“I’m here, peapod,” he rasps, breaking the arrow with a grunt to remove the shaft. “Flesh wound.”
Everything is spinning, but I fight the dizziness as I send magic to his bleeding injury. “Why have you come? It’s dangerous. This war will leave nothing but rot and corpses in its wake. I need you and Amma to be safe.”
“Sheissafe.” He wheezes with a low laugh. “And well you know that I can’t sit still or silent and let our people suffer. That abomination with Laleh’s face came to Coban looking for you. I went to Kaldari for help, and the king’s cousin made the portal for us to follow her.”
I squint at Aran, who is staring at me with pleading, oddly hopeful eyes. “Why are you helping my father? You are an imperial runecaster on Roshan’s side.Fero’sside.”
“No, I’m not. My cousin isn’t lost,” he rasps. “And I think you’re the only one who can save him from the clutches of thatthing.”
“He’s gone, Aran,” I say. “His soul is corrupted. You saw what he did to me. What he made you do, too. To save him, you’re going to need the might of a god, and we’re in short supply of those, unless you have a connection to Saru no one knows about.”
Tears leak from him, his remorse a tangible thing. “Ashes, Suraya, I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But Roshan is fighting. He won’t stop, not while your starlight still burns inside of him. And it does, I promise. Please,please. If you ever loved him at all, if you hold even a spark for him now, please don’t let him go. Please don’t let his struggle be for nothing.”
Everything inside of me aches—my soul, my body, my heart—for the man I loved. Perhaps even still do, deep down where my heart is quietest. “I’ll do my best,” I say finally. “But, Aran, I can’t promise anything. The rot is an unholy essence. I... I might not be strong enough to save him.”
Relief floods his features. “I understand, Sura. Thank you for being willing to try.”
Pressure in the glade builds as a storm of shadows descends. When they clear, an apoplectic Darrius is standing there, fury written in every line of his powerful frame. My chest swells, and I smile, my heart so full I can barely contain it. “You found me.”
“I’ll always find you,” he says. His gaze flicks to my father and then Aran, darkening considerably at the latter. But then his voice lowers as I fall gladly into his embrace. “The manticore heard your call and knew you needed me. He shifted back and my magic healed us.”
“I’m glad,” I murmur. “Get my dagger? It’s over there... Masišta... dead.”
It’s my last thought before I let myself sink into my beloved’s shadows.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Isleep like the dead for three full days before my body—and simurgh—recovers from whatever it was that happened on that mountain. Despite the toxin I’d foolishly ingested, it had felt like some kind of augmentation... like an amplification of my magic, almost as if both my simurgh and I had become stronger.
The power I felt in that moment had been staggering in its intensity.
I think of the way my depleted wellspring had hunted the magic of the traitorous Aspacana like a soul-eating vampire, how their bodies had turned into empty husks as I drank down their life essences, how the revenants had melted to sludge, and I shiver with equal amounts of fervor and dread.
Gods, the recollections make me want to never open my eyes, to stay gone and safe forever. The world would go on as it is meant to. People will survive. Unless the realms are ravaged by war—agodwar—one they have no hope of winning. Then everyone I love will die. And everything I have done will be for nothing.
A groan escapes my lips.
“Starbright?”
The deep voice is a tether that I grasp on to. Darrius is my anchor, and yet, we still haven’t completed the bond. Is he still afraid? Or am I the one wavering because of what we might become? He’s the son of a god... and I possess monstrous celestial abilities that no one should have any right to. Monstrouscannibalisticabilities. I shiver and squash down those feelings.
