Strong arms hold me. I can still smell the rowan blossom clinging to Taliesin’s shirt, even over the thick, cloying stench of smoke.
He found me.
Then there’s a flash of orange against my closed lids. The roaring spit of flames. The terrifyingheatof it all.
But why is there a fire? Where even am I?
Taliesin carries me away from the maelstrom. I drop my head against his chest and breath him in…
I try to ask where he’s taking me, but darkness steals me away again.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
My puffy eyes crack open. Two figures blur as one through iron bars. Their heads are bent together—one dark, one red. Like blood against the night sky.
“I can’t believe she’s waking from her coma after hundreds of years,” one murmurs.
“What does that mean for the others?”
“I don’t know.” A pause. “But we can use her to control them if need be.”
“How is this even possible? Magic is gone.”
“Not hers. At least, not all of it. And the talisman will let us take what she has left,” one says. “We can redistribute it. Feed it into others who also have talismans. We’ll need her to keep using it, just enough to keep it from going dormant.”
“How?”
“We’ll have her resurrect rebels for us, so she can question them. Kills two birds with one stone.”
A sharptsk. “This is an extraordinarily bad idea. She’ll never cooperate.”
“Whatever she did to the sky…it broke something in her mind. Every time she calls her magic, she loses pieces of herself. She can’t even remember her husband anymore.”
Husband?
I lift my head, and a wave of dizziness crashes into me. Chains rattle from the manacles digging into my wrists.
“There must be another way,” the other insists.
“All the other gods are gone. And the stars are unreachable for now. She’s the only source of magic.”
“Except for Taliesin Wynn.”
A low laugh. “You think he’s safer? He is volatile. And he’s affected, too. Whatever she did, it blew back on him. The best we can do is keep him contained behind the wards and pray he never breaks free. Or remembers.” A pause. “He would destroy the world for his queen.”
“Taliesin Wynn,” I whisper, but the name is gone before I can fully grasp it.
TEN YEARS AGO
In my dreams, I remember, but only there. I try, again and again, to reach my waking self, but she’s as distant as the stars are now. Out there, somewhere, hidden behind the veil. The attempt to shape my power into something more than death worked. I didn’t destroy the stars—only stopped the Order from reaching them.
But the cost was far greater than anything I could have imagined.
In trying to save the world, I destroyed it. Most of the gods died, if not all of them, along with every elven magic wielder gifted with power. And for reasons I’ve yet to understand, the waters of the Northern Sea turned poisonous.
I didn’t save the world. I ruined it. Hundreds—no,thousands—died because of me. And now the elves have the Order’s boot on their necks. The overwhelming guilt nearly crushes what remains of my soul.
Now the Order has bound me. They made me swear an oath to fight for their cause. If magic ever returns…
