A hush falls.
An expectant silence fills the air as we wait for the curse to cover our stars in darkness.
I count the heartbeats.
One, two, three?—
Dark light pulses across the air, inky waves rushing so suddenly that Galla appears to choke on whatever response she was preparing for me.
Her words don’t harm me anymore, and her threats are hollow.
Because I have hope.
But as the dark canopy casts us into impenetrable night, the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Faster and thicker than ever before, the darkness bleeds across the air.
My sharp eyesight allows me to see through it even as the highborn, the ladies, and even Victor and Emiliana hunch low, flinching away from the sheer fuckingdreadsuddenly swallowing us.
This is not the darkness I’m used to.
Seeking its source, I focus on the western sky.
Far in the distance, Azul rises into the air, his blue feathers clearly visible to me, as is Thyra’s silver form on his back, even if they’re both only the size of my thumb.
Even if the darkness is so much thicker around them, it appears to pulsefromthem.
I take a step in their direction, expecting their forms to grow larger as they fly toward me. IwillAzul to beat his wings as quickly as he can, to bring Thyra to me, to bring back my hope…
But they only become smaller.
A chill strikes my poisoned heart.
They’re flying toward the bloodlands.
I’m frozen, my mind churning, trying to understand what could have caused Thyra to do such a dangerous thing, before I snap into motion, turn to Galla, and grab her shoulders with a snarl. “Release your fucking power. Or don’t. But know this: You don’t control me or my kingdom anymore.”
Turning away from her, I launch myself into a run, pausing only when I reach Victor. “Get Emiliana to safety.”
He nods, but I’m already speeding away, even as Galla’s pitiful cry follows me. “This darkness… It isn’t the same! I can’t… I can’t stop it!”
Without looking back, I shoot through the wide opening and out onto the grassy ridge.
If I thought I could commandeer someone else’s eagle, I would, but none of them will carry me. Only Azul would.
Even as I run as fast as I can, my arms and legs pumping, I know I don’t have a hope of getting to Thyra before she reaches the bloodlands.
Azul is too fast.
I can’t match him on foot.
But I won’t give up.
Not even when starlight explodes into the sky behind me, a bright-white pillar streaming upward. The rush of heat across my body strikes across my exposed head and through every crack in my armor, burning my skin in pinpricks. Making me hunch, forcing me to run faster until the light spreads out across the sky, promising the stars that will keep my people safe.
Except that they don’t.
The heat across my back cools, the starlight spreading across the sky vanishes into nothing, and still the darkness pulses from the direction that Thyra flew.
