I didn’t push. Didn’t argue. Because as much as I hated it, Wickett was right. If we didn’t find Vitoria, if we didn’t end this in time, Lucy would die anyway. We all would.
At least this way, there was a chance.
“We have to leave her a message,” Pip said quietly, flying to the cave entrance. She pulled parchment and a stub of charcoal from her pack. The pack the Oracle prepared because she’d known she was going to need it. My eyes slid to the fury-born, narrowing.
“She’s a messenger,” Aureth said, taking my side. “Parchment seemed appropriate.”
Pip spread out her paper. Her tiny hand shaking as she wrote:
Lucy - We will come back for you. Wait for us. Please. - Pip
PS. Calder stole your cheese. He didn’t want you to know, but I saw him do it. In case that’s why you didn’t come back.
She zipped back into the cave, weighing her note down with stones, protecting it from wind, and making sure it would be visible if Lucy returned. When she returned, her eyes were rimmed red.
We mounted in silence. Calder helped the Oracle onto Riot’s back. Wickett checked his weapons. I climbed onto Silas, feeling the weight of leaving settling over us like a blanket.
“She’s smart,” Calder said, though I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. “If anyone can survive out here alone, it’s Lucy.”
“She’s smart,” I agreed, because what else could I say?
With heavy hearts and heavier silence, we took to the sky.
The Sable Deep raged beneath us, black water churning with whitecaps that looked like teeth, violent enough I was grateful we were flying instead of sailing on a lycan ship. Nothing lived down there that wanted to be found. Nothing survived that didn’t have nightmares to offer in return.
Cutting across the horizon, as far as the eye could see, the purple Erelith burned. My stomach plunged as we raced toward the towering wall of flame, away from the known world toward whatever lay beyond. The eternal flame circled our world like a fence line, a boundary none could cross, reaching from sea to sky. No one could venture beyond the fire, and based on our speed and Riot’s determination, we were moments from flying into it.
“Stop. Stop!” I screamed as we flew closer to certain death, but no one could hear me over the roar of wind and wings and violent ocean.
This was madness.
This was suicide.
This was... a sliver of land peeked from the chaos. An island, just as Calder had suspected. A tiny crescent surrounded by raging sea, but the Erelith cut across it. There was enough roomto land on the dark sandy beach, but no way to continue on to where the locator spell had marked the map.
The wall of purple fire was deadly. Untouchable. And a huge fucking problem.
Riot landed in the ocean, swimming to the tiny shoreline as Si and I hit the beach. I held my breath, staring into the dark waters, waiting until everyone had walked down his massive head and stepped onto the beach, dry as bone. Riot shifted, water pouring from him as he joined us.
Everyone blocked the heat with their arms, squinting up at the endless wall of eternal flame. I felt nothing, not a lick of warmth beyond my own body heat. But I supposed that made sense. When the Furies first came to Fuerlis in their rage, their anger and desperate need for escape, they birthed magic unto this world and from that same violent creation, the first Phoenix rose from the flames. The Erelith and I were made of the same fire, born from the same ancient power. Of course it wouldn’t burn me.
“Don’t touch it,” Pip said nervously from Calder’s shoulder. “It’s instant death to all but the Phoenix. Even the sister Furies can’t survive it.”
I drew a long breath. “So we flew all this way to stand on a beach and admire the fire.”
“There has to be a way through.” Wickett was already moving along the flame’s edge, searching for something that might indicate passage.
The Oracle stood very still, facing the Erelith. Corvus twitched on her shoulder, unusually quiet. Like they were both waiting for something.
Then, the fire parted.
Cut fromwaterflowing through flame to create a doorway where none had existed.
A woman stepped through.
She had dark skin and was robed in black fabric. Runes covered its edges: protection, warding—things I both recognized and had never seen. Stacks of dark jewelry adorned her wrists and neck; each piece engraved with symbols that hummed with power. Her face was sharp; her green eyes sharper. “This is the edge of the world. Go back to wherever you’ve come from. There’s nothing for you here.”
The Oracle remained notably quiet. No cryptic warnings. No prophetic guidance. Just silence.
