“The winds of fate shall reveal all that was lost.”
The light thinned and the air cooled. I squeezed Couscous harder, desperate to stay, but the vision was already slipping, and when I blinked, it was gone, leaving only the echo of it in my chest.
I looked around at the others. Next to me, Jace’s face was lit with something fierce and bright, smiling, a wild light burning behind his eyes. He looked like he had seen a future worth fighting for, and nothing in the Three Kingdoms would stop him from reaching it.
Malissa stood perfectly still, but her eyes shone with a mist, like she was holding back tears at whatever she’d seen. She flickered her gaze toward the throne, longing and wonder evident in her face.
Unlike everyone else, Blake stood frozen, his hands clenched into fists. His face was drawn tight with something that looked almost like grief. His eyes burned, wide and unblinking, as if he were still trapped somewhere far away. For a moment, he looked younger, stripped of all the heavy armor he usually wore, and his mouth pressed into a hard, bloodless line.
He was in pain.
Slowly he blinked, as if coming up from far away, and turned his head toward me. For a breath, the emotionless mask he wore slipped. I saw it then: something raw and vulnerable in his eyes as he looked at me.
Then it was gone, shuttered back into the ruthless Twin Blade.
“Assemble your bravest, your deadliest, your finest. At the end of thirty-six days, the gods will choose from your warriors, in the Culling,” the Diviner said. “Then the Raveling, the restoration of the seal, begins. A combination of all four dominions’ magic is required to heal each one. Every Anchor must be repaired beforethe solstice in the twelfth month. If not, the seal to the Demon Realm will break and hell itself shall be unleashed.”
The room stirred at her words. I thought of demons feeding on Edith and Couscous. And it would begin with this very dominion.
The Diviner turned to the king, her mask gleaming with light. “Mistake Us not. What We offer is power beyond anything you have ever known.”
The Diviner’s form flickered, caught between worlds. Her crimson robes rippled like liquid light, dissolving into the air. For a moment, she was both there and not. Then, in an ethereal shimmer, she faded into mist, vanishing, leaving only a faint ripple in the air where she had stood.
For a heartbeat, there was only the sharp intake of breath as nobility and warriors alike processed the implications. Then shouts and eager whispers erupted.
“The Dominion of the Silver Tyger shall lead this fight.”
The king’s face was alight, flushed with emotion. His hands clenched, knuckles white with feeling while his eyes burned as brightly as the writhing jade tygers of his throne.
Voices rang out from the crowd, emboldened by the promise of power.
“The tyger strikes true!”
“The Dominion of the Silver Tyger shall have not a king but an emperor!”
“It is the Will of the Tyger!”
The crowd roared in triumph.
Ire’s eyes flicked to the king, just for a fraction of a second, and I saw it.
The cold assessment of a man just a few steps removed from the throne, waiting for his opportunity.
“The Diviner said every dominion’s magic was needed torepair the Anchors,” Malissa murmured, her voice thoughtful. “She didn’t say anything about one dominion ruling.”
The words had barely left her lips before the king turned, his joy snapping into fury. Without hesitation, he struck her across the face with the back of his hand, the crack echoing through the throne room like a whip.
The blow sent her crashing to the floor, her platinum hair fanning out around her like a spill of molten silver. She lay still, blood sliding from the split in her lip, and for a breath, she stared up at him, something dark beneath the surface.
“If I wanted an opinion,” the king snarled, “I would speak to another yang. No one wants to hear what a yin has to say. You would do well to remember that. The Diviner said all dominions were needed to fix the Anchors. She never said anything about them ruling equally afterward. It is difficult to rule when you are dead.”
The king turned to the court, his voice booming once again, commanding the attention of everyone present. “The Dominion of the Silver Tyger shall prevail after the Raveling! Metal is the strongest of all elements, not found but forged. Fire may burn, wood may grow, water may carve its path, but metal endures. It is beaten, remade, and through suffering, it becomes unbreakable. The tyger was born to rule.”
The court erupted in wild chants, the walls trembling as the people began to drum and stomp in rhythm. “The tyger strikes true! The tyger strikes true!”
I watched as Blake quietly crossed the dais and pressed a small shiny object into Malissa’s hand. Her fingers closed around it, and for a moment, all the sharpness drained from her face. She looked up at Blake, her eyes unguarded for once.
Blake returned to the king’s side, and Princess Malissa pushedherself to her feet and opened the object he had given her. It was a small mirror.
