Kaelric brought my knuckles up to his lips and kissed them. “Okay,” he breathed. “But then we go home and start living for ourselves.”
I nodded.
Living life for myself? As an eldest sibling of twelve, I had no idea of the concept.
The road into Aerlyn from the train station ran like a ribbon of broken glass between the buildings I’d once longed to live in. The city rose ahead of us with its towers clear and clean against the sky. But the magical shimmer that used to float between things was gone. The buildings were dull and had lost their shine.
Inside the city, there was confusion. People walked around in shock, wide-eyed and staring at their hands as if expecting to see blood, to see some sign as to why they could no longer conjure magic from nothing.
Lamplights that had once been lit by magic now had tins with wax candles floating in them. A woman in a blue dress sat on her stoop and stared into the street with a vacant expression. Her dress was low-cut, showing her chest and a lack of marks there. Elites were no more. She was just… human. She was not weeping, not looking afraid, just in pure disbelief.
Men and women turned to look as Kaelric and I passed, their gazes going to our chests as if looking for marks.
We walked hand in hand past the devastated and humbled citizens of Aerlyn, once called Elites, now just humans. When we finally reached the house of Draven, Cassian was outside. He sat on the front stoop, staring in disbelief at his hands like everyone else.
At our footsteps, he looked up with tears in his eyes.
“You knew,” he said to me.
Because why else would I come?
Kaelric dropped my hand gently so that I could go sit next to one of my best friends. I never loved him in the way he loved me, but it killed me to see him in pain.
“Did it hurt?” I asked.
He grasped his chest where his mark used to be. “Like someone tore my heart out.”
I winced. “I’m sorry.”
He pursed his lips, looking confused.
“Why? How?”
“It was the Creator’s wish, and Valkaryn,” I told him, touching the empty scabbard at my waist. “Elites misused magic.”
His gaze flicked to my hip and the empty sheath there, and suddenly he was no longer worried about losing magic. “Are you okay?”
This was why I loved him.He cared for people in a rare way I hadn’t seen in many others.
“I will be. Areyouokay?”
He let out the breath he was holding. “I will be,” he echoed. He peered up at Kaelric. “Can you still shift?”
Kaelric nodded.
Realization dawned on Cassian’s face. “We deserved it.”
Hedidn’t. But most everyone else did. I remembered how the Elites watched the Dregs burn from their balconies and did nothing, how they’d then denied any aid to us.
From where we sat, there was a perfect view of the charred remains just outside the gates. The Dregs were just a flat black field now.
He followed my gaze. “We could rebuild it, nicer than before. I could pay for everything. Your people could come back…” he hedged. In his heart, I think he knew we wouldn’t.
“Don’t rebuild it,” I said.
Cassian’s head came up. For a breath, surprise showed there.
“What instead, then?” he said.
