She falls to her knees and lies back, every muscle in her body trembling. I put my boot on her neck. Her eyes meet mine, as red as Arianell’s blood.
“How does it feel?” I gaze down at her. “To be forced to do someone else’s bidding? It’s not very nice, is it?”
“We never forced you to do anything,” she whispers. “With a little encouragement, you chose to do it all yourself.”
Anger burns in my veins, hotter than any fire.
“Go ahead, Gethin. Play the song,” I say, my eyes still locked on Seren’s face.
“All of you will regret this.” She sneers up at me. “But most of allyou, necromancer.”
I press my boot harder against her throat and lift my eyes to Gethin.
“Do it,” I command.
His fingers dance over the harp strings, and the aching melody of theBallad of the Godsfills the Observatory. As Brioc joins in, the tenor of his voice weaves through the music, the shape of the chamber catching the sound and hurling it upward into the open sky.
From outside suddenly comes the screams of the dead, their vicious tones scraping through the beauty of the song. I cringe and try to block them out with my hands over my ears, but when their voices begin to weave into the music, that’s when I finally understand.
They are not screaming. They’re not even wailing. They’re trying to sing. And not just any song.Thisone.
Slowly, as I listen to the music and the voices and feel strands of remembrance weave though me, everything suddenly makes a horrible, twisted kind of sense. The dead are trapped. Without the magic of the stars to lead them to the Otherworld, they’ve had nowhere to go. And they’ve been waiting—begging—someone to sing theBallad of the Godsso that their souls might move on.
The music swells, each chord tugging at the broken pieces of my mind, until the song reaches an almighty crescendo.
Then silence. The dead stop screaming. And everyone in the Observatory holds their breath.
A pulse of silver light tears through the open dome. It surges past us, crashing through the chamber, racing down the stairs, and bursting through the doors to unfurl into the world.
Then aboomreverberates through the ground beneath us.
Wild, unfettered magic mists the air.
The screams do not return, and somehow, Iknowthey won’t be heard again. The dead are at peace, at last.
Heart pounding, I tip back my head. A glittering canopy stretches as far as the eye can see. Stars, everywhere. Hundreds—no, thousands of them. Tiny silver sparks leak magic fromtheir core, letting it rain down over us. I breathe deeply, tasting it on the back of my tongue.
Taliesin wraps an arm around me, and I fold into the crook his shoulder while we gaze up and bask in the glow of our new world.
A world that will no longer be ruled by the Order.
“The stars have returned,” I say, looking down at Seren. “You’ve lost.”
“Lost? I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken.” A guttural laugh spills from her lips. “Magic once tied elves to their promises, and now that it has returned, every oath you’ve ever made will become binding once more.”
My heart stops.
“Every oath,” I whisper. Taliesin’s arm tightens around me.
End the exile.
Rhian gasps from across the room. “But that means—”
I never hear the rest. Hundreds of memories flood my mind, breaking loose all at once, spilling over each other in relentless waves until I’m drowning in them.
42
HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO
