“The bond,” she mused. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You and I do have a bond, kiddo. Forged the day I vowed to protect you if anything happened to your parents. And those dreams… they weren’t just dreams.” She shook her head to clear it. “The future. Of course. Because my life wasn’t complicated enough already. What a way to celebrate Blathaine.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “And they call you Lexa?”
“Yes.” I’d thought it would take longer to convince her. Thank the gods for the soul channel. You couldn’t fool that.
“At least Mira will be happy the name stuck.” She shook her head to clear it. “Alright, kiddo, let’s see if we can find someplace to talk in this godsforsaken mess. But I should warn you, if you’re looking for easy answers, you’re going to be disappointed.”
We stepped outside into a city made of tents and I was struck by the overwhelming darkness. Even in the deepest night at home, there was some pinprick of light. Some stars. Some hint of moonlight. But here, now, the darkness was absolute, as if someone had draped black velvet over the entire world.
“What time is it?” I ventured, though a part of me already dreaded the answer.
She looked at me, brows lifted. “A little before ten in the morning.”
Morning. This impenetrable darkness, this crushing blackness—this was morning.
“Fourteen hours left,” I whispered, more to myself than her.
“Left for what?”
But I was staring up at where the sky should be, where the sun should be blazing. “There’s no sun.”
“We haven’t seen the sun in twenty-seven days.” Stopping, she grabbed my upper arms, her grip tight enough to bruise. “You have the sun?”
I nodded slowly as realization flowed through me. Blessed Erde, today was the day. I assumed I was going to travel back to a Blathaine, but I hadn’t known… hadn’t even thought that it could bethisBlathaine.
She let out a whoop of laughter, tinged with desperation, never noticing my despair. “You have the sun,” she repeated. “Then we find a way to beat this. We have to.”
I nodded slowly again, not trusting myself to answer.
They did find a way—she did. And it caused her death.
We rounded the corner and I froze. He was younger, his hair not nearly as silver, his face missing the lines of bitterness that the years would carve into his face, but it was him.
Zachariah.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
Violet stopped when I did, following my stare. “What is it? Oh, my father?” She looked between us, confusion clear on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“He can’t see me.” The words came out sharper than I intended.
“Look, I know he’s a mean old bastard, but?—”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her back around the corner. “I need you to trust me on this, Violet. Hecannotknow I’m here.”
Understanding dawned in her turquoise eyes, followed quickly by a flash of pain. “He fucking survives, doesn’t he? After all this, after everything he did, everything we’re fighting for, he survives, and you…” She swore again. “Okay. We’ll go the long way. But, kiddo? Someday, you’re going to have to fill me in here.”
She led me through what had once been an orderly army camp but now felt more like a refugee settlement. Tents were crowded together in haphazard rows, their canvas sides pressed so close they touched, creating narrow alleys barely wide enough for a single person. It smelled of too many people living close together, of smoke and fear and unwashed bodies. And underneath it all, the cloying scent of desperation.
Torches were everywhere, thrust into the ground at irregular intervals, their flames struggling to illuminate anything against the darkness that pressed in from all sides. Soldiers moved through the darkness with careful steps, clearly having learned to navigate by sound and touch. Voices carried strangely here, sometimes swallowed entirely by the darkness, sometimes echoing through it.
I could barely make out the castle, even though it was right there. The stone blended in with the unnatural darkness. It looked like the entire army was encamped in the yard.
“Not the entire army, but close,” Violet explained when I asked. “We pulled everyone back when the Veil fell. We still have scouts at the natural boundaries, to sound the alarm, but if they break through…”
She didn’t need to finish.
When we reached her tent, she perched on the cot and I could see exhaustion in every line of her body. “Alright, kiddo, here’s the quick version of what I’ve learned. The gods raised the Veil to protect us from the darkness. For millennia, it held. Then it started to fray. Holes began appearing. Darkness slithered through those holes. It kills everything it can reach, turning the people into creatures none of us recognize.”
“It’s happening at home,” I admitted, before I could think better of it, sinking down on a trunk.
