The beasts swarmed us as soon as we reached the infamous Gaoth Pass, where the Kingdom of Shadows bordered the Kingdom of Storms. I’d smelled the rot far before we set our sights on the shadowfiend army attacking Kalen’s warriors. It was a terrifying sight to behold—an entire swarm of them with their vicious fangs and talons piercing through the flesh of centuries-old fae. I held my arm up to my side and motioned my own warriors forward, even as fear clenched my heart.
They raced into the fray while my second held back—my younger brother, Mykon, who had inherited my father’s elite fae blood.
His throat bobbed as he surveyed the choked battlefield before us. The Gaoth Pass was a small, winding road that cut through the towering mountains on either side of us. On the right side, the rocky wall rose high. Somewhere beyond it, Dubnos perched on a cliff and looked down on where the storm-filled lands stretched east. On the left side, those mountains were even rockier, even more jagged. Only bandits lived in those dangerous hills, where venomous snakes and shadowfiends were known to prowl.
Mykon held up his hand. “Fire?”
I shook my head. “Fire from here, and we’ll burn our own men.”
Mykon growled as if answering the power in his blood, as if he needed to feel the heat and magic of it roaming across his skin for a moment. He would not release it, though. Not unless I gave him the signal.
“Stop playing with it.” I moved my hand to the hilt of my sword. “Time to join the fight.”
“I’m not playing with it,” he said in a strange, faraway voice.
I shot him a quick look and noticed he was right—his fingers were free of fire. “Well, come on, then. Just stay near me and don’t get yourself killed.”
I started toward the battle, but Mykon gripped my arm and pulled me back. His eyes were frantic. “I can’t call upon my power. Something is blocking it.”
A chill swept through me, but I shook him off. “We’ll talk about this later. Our people—”
“Ruari,” a low, feminine voice said from behind me.
I tensed. I knew that voice. Dread crept down my spine, but I turned to Mykon and said, “Join the fight. Don’t go to the front lines.”
Mykon gave me a panicked glance before nodding and backing away from me.
And then I finally faced my mother.
She was wearing the same skin as before—Morgan’s. Her long silver hair now hung in a loose braid over her shoulder, where she’d strapped a fresh set of black fighting leathers over her muscular frame. Her silver eyes swept across me, haunted and strange and achingly familiar. Even like this, even in another stranger’s body, I would have recognized her anywhere.
It was hard to imagine how Kalen hadn’t. I supposed it had a been a long, long time since he’d seen her. And he did not know what it was like to watch her move from form to form, always changing her appearance but never those eyes. It didn’t matter if they were blue or silver or bleeding red. They were alwayshers.
Swallowing, I dropped my hand to the hilt of my sword, still sheathed. “Mother.”
She gave me a wicked smile. “My son.”
Anger burned through me. At her, for putting me through this. At my father, for starting this whole thing in the first place, for turning her into who she had become. Deep down, I knew I wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t done it. I never would have breathed in the sun-drenched air and watched the birds flit through the skies, singing their songs of life. I never would have felt the soft kiss of mist on my face. I never would have seen a child smile.
A child, like my brother—allmy brothers and sisters. They only existed because of this, too.
But still, I hated it.
And most of all, I hated the mortals who had pulled my strings all these years. They’d whispered the secrets of their visions with me, and yet they had not warned me of this.
“You killed the dungeon guard in Endir,” I said, my voice as hard as the steel I carried by my side. “I should have known not to trust you.”
“You told Gaven about me when I asked you to keep my existence to yourself.” She arched a brow, such a strange expression coming from Morgan’s face. It was so familiar and yet so foreign all the same. “Perhaps it’s the other way around. I cannot trust you.”
I bristled. “Why are you here?”
She took a step closer, her eyes flashing. “Did you think I didn’t know what you were up to all this time? Working with those ridiculous mortals and setting aside your little stash inside that cave?”
Heart pounding, I drew my sword, though what I planned to do with it, I still did not know. Because in spite of everything I’d seen and heard and been told, I could not hurt her, nor could I bear to see her bleed from someone else’s hand. And she knew it. With a glint in her eye, she kept advancing on me.
“You’ve been working with the King of Talaven, thinking you could stop the gods’ return, but you were wrong. Andromeda is here, and the others have awakened, and there is nothing you can do now to stop them.”
I shook my head, refusing to listen to her. These were Andromeda’s words, not hers. She wanted me to believe it was hopeless, but it wasn’t. Itcouldn’tbe. We had done everything the visions had told us to do.
