“Something I’d suspected but hoped would turn out to be false.”
His brow knit in confusion. Before he could realize what she meant, a magic-dampening collar like the one she’d freed him from only days ago was snapped shut around his neck. He whirled on the draconic who’d chained him, but Vivyan pointed her sword at his heart.
Emory stepped away from him. Vivyan gave her a curt nod. “You all right, girl?”
“Fine. The others are at the Sunforge?”
“Waiting for us as planned.”
Confusion slowly gave way to anger as Sidraeus looked between them. “What is this?”
Emory forced steel into her words. “The truth the eldritch showed me,” she said, “was about you. You omitted something from your story. You’d already tried wresting the gods’ power from them before they imprisoned you. You got Tidecallers to stand before the fountain and siphon its power off to you. Except it didn’t work. The Tidecallers burned out completely, too much power ripping through them, and they died. And despite this, you were willing to risk it again on me. The last Tidecaller who might do alone what four of them died trying.”
“Emory…”
“But that’s not even the worst part, is it?” she added with a bitter laugh. “The worst part is thatyouwere the one to sacrifice the Tidecallers in the end.Youwere the one to give them up to the gods so they could be bled dry.”
His gaze turned stony. “I did what I had to.”
No denial. No remorse. Emory shouldn’t have expected any different. “You’re just like him,” she muttered, studying Keiran’s face. Someone else who’d meant to use her. Suddenly they seemed like a single person.
Sidraeus’s eyes flared, a reminder of the deity beneath. “I amnothinglike him.” He pulled on his chains to no avail, reduced tohuman frailty under the magic damper. “If I didn’t give up the Tidecallers,” he seethed, “the gods were going to destroyeverything. Wipe clean the realms of the living and the dead, burn everyone and everything in them—myself and Atheia included—just so they could build something better out of the ashes.”
“And why would they do that?”
“Self-preservation, fear, spite—does it matter? They saw Tidecallers as something that was never meant to exist. The one threat to their godhood. That’s the kind of power the gods have, to end us all in the blink of an eye if they choose. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you offered your Tidecallers as sacrifice.” Their blood on his hands. “And now me.”
His jaw tightened. “Believe me, if I had known—”
“I’m done believing you.” The sounds of battle raged on around them. Emory motioned to Vivyan. “Take him.”
The draconic tugged on his chain, but Sidraeus dug his heels into the ground, trying to fight back. Vivyan yanked him to her with ease, Keiran’s body too frail with the deity’s power dampened.
Sidraeus stilled, seeming to accept his fate despite the feral edge of his scowl. To Emory, he asked: “What will you do to me?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe we’ll leave you in the sleepscape where you belong. But I’m done being used and lied to.”
Anger brewed in Sidraeus’s gaze, a storm on the brink of violence. But there was something else there too. Something like hurt, and betrayal. Maybe even… pride?
“You see?” he murmured, a note of appreciation in his voice. “We’re the same, you and I.”
“We’re nothing alike.”
“We could have set these worlds right together. Now I’m afraid we’re doomed to remain rivals.”
She walked up to him, anger roiling in her stomach. “Let memake something very clear. There is no world that exists in which we could beanythingbut rivals. I despise this body you wear, and I hate the monstrous soul that fills it.Rivalsdoesn’t evenbeginto cover it.”
Something heated flashed in his gaze.
Emory stormed off ahead of him and Vivyan, barely sparing a glance to the battle still raging. Most of the Fellowship of the Light had been rounded up by the Golden Helm, kept alive for now. Gwenhael had landed amid the golden flames and bloodshed, munching on something Emory didn’t want to consider.
Suddenly Ivayne was catching up to them, blood splattered on her face, her smile a flash of brilliant white. She clasped Emory on the shoulder. “You did good.”
Emory tried to smile back, tried to be proud she’d successfully duped Sidraeus, but all she felt was hollow. After the eldritch had shown her the truth of him, she’d found Romie in dreams and told her everything. They’d devised this plan for Emory to make Sidraeus believe she was still on his side. He knew of Vivyan and Ivayne calling on the help of their fellow knights-errant to ambush the Fellowship, but he hadn’t known it was meant as a distraction to capturehim.
She would not die for him, would not play into his quest for revenge.
