But then, Tol had his bond with the Sun Forger, the source of their holy order. No one knew where she slumbered; rumors and folklore were all they’d had to go on for centuries. But ifanyone could find her, persuade her to help their holy cause, it was Tol.
Certain he’d found the solution to all their problems, Tol rushed to the Chasm where he knew the Knight Commander was posted. The Chasm was many things: a prison for beasts and humans alike, the fighting arena where they were pitted against each other for sport, and below that, the alchemists’ workshop where all draconics were made, a place only those who had mastered in alchemy could enter. Tol was called to it now by an overwhelming sense of wrongness, his feet guiding him to the site of his rebirth as if of their own volition.
The workshop was aflame. Shouts and screams echoed off the walls, and there was a distinct smell of burning flesh as robed alchemists and armored knights tried to appease a great, raging beast thrashing about the workshop.
No, not a beast—adragon, eyes wild as it tore through its most loyal servants with fire and teeth and claws.
Tol didn’t understand. There was no reason for a dragon to turn on those who venerated it.
Pain stabbed through him, felt from both the dragon and the draconics. Their suffering became his own. And just as he began to understand why one had turned against the other, just as a crack formed in the foundation of his world, threatening to bring down everything he knew, a pain like no other erupted inside him.
Tol fell to his good knee, his scream making the earth beneath him tremble.
When Tol was a boy, his heart had given out. And despite all the unthinkable hurts he’d endured since, all the battlewounds his body had weathered throughout his draconic training, there had never been a worse agony than that first death and the painful remolding of his heart and body that followed.
Until this.
Tol felt that same pain again now, only tenfold. It was the pain of a life ending. A heart ceasing to beat. A sun forever setting, never to rise again.
Death had a certain taste to it, one that was easy to recall even years later. It filled his mouth as he screamed toward the heavens, scorched through his senses as he writhed on the ground, tore through his body like a raging inferno.
Tol thought his alchemized heart had finally given out. That the flame within its golden chambers had been snuffed out like the torches in a great echoing hall blown out on a sudden gust of wind. That he had been deemed unworthy of this second life, and now he would know true death.
But it wasn’t his heart that gave out.
It washers.
He felt the Forger die, their connection severing in the most horrid of ways. Tol raged and cried at the sudden emptiness within him. He wished his heart would stop with hers, because that would be a far better fate than having to endure her absence. He wanted to dig his own heart out, throw it into the very flames that had forged it, angry that it could feel so much pain.
When the dragon turned its attention to Tol, a dark promise of death in its eyes, Tol held his head high. This time, when he died, it would be for good. He gladly accepted this fate,knowing what he now knew.
He was too full of pain and grief to realize that the very heart he was mourning had started beating again, ever so faintly.
The world could burn for all he cared; he very much intended to burn with it.
23BAZ
THE INCOMING TIDE HAD THEMscrambling farther up the shore. Baz stared forlornly at the disappearing cave mouth. Panic seized him as he realized no one else had emerged from the depths after them. “Did you see any sign of the others?”
Kai swore in answer, running a hand over his wet face. “We need to go back. Make sure they’re safe.”
If the others hadn’t been sucked into this same peculiar void that had pulled Baz and Kai through time, then the monstrosity that was Keiran’s reanimated corpse might have already gotten to them.
And if that didn’t do it, then the deadly magic of the doors surely would.
Baz quickly assessed himself and Kai. They showed no signs of withering away like Travers and Lia had. He could only hope the others would be just as lucky.
Kai suddenly shot to his feet and waded into the roiling waves.
“What are you doing?” Baz bellowed after him.
“We have to get back.”
“But the tide’s coming in.”
“So use your magic to make it low tide again. We were so close…”
A wave broke against Kai, pushing him into Baz’s steadying arms. Kai shoved out of his grasp, motioning to the cave mouth with angry determination. “The tide, Brysden.Now.”
