“Heeellllp meeeeee…”
I clutch Astenos’s mane, wanting to run. To stay. To fight. To flee. The screams mean nothing to me, but my eyes fill with tears at their pain. At the sorrow of last moments now weaponized to breed more death.
Four Reskala warriors form up around me—only four brave men against a flood of violence and hunger. Too few. No one had expected an attack here. No one had listened when I warned them. One little star and her intuition against an army and its ego. Now these Reskala would die for the mistake.
The first of the varkhounds hit the ground with a sickeningthud.
Roars follow. Snapping jaws.
“Rift! Rift by the tetheryard!” the Reskala shout.
Steel cries out in the night. Bone shatters. A Reskala vanishes into the tide of black bodies, swallowed whole.
Above, the rift sings. Not with voice, but with pull. An ache in the fabric of everything. Begging me to heal it. Begging me to stop it. My hands lift. Icanclose it. I must. For the Reskala. For Kailorien.
For myself.
::Stop. ::
Not my voice. Not the rift. Not Astenos. Thunder through still water.
:: The price for this is higher than you can pay. You do not owe them your life. ::
Truth. Naked. Undeniable. I do not owe these soldiers my allegiance. But my will is not about debt or justice. It is about Kailorien. My sun. My mountain. And about Zarrek, too. The pain he carried in all the wordshe does not say. About Thessia, and how I wish to know the end to the Lioness’s tale. How I wish to see her violet eyes again.
My vision blurs, hot tears spilling over onto my cheeks. An unnamed sorrow of a reborn star taking shape for the first time in the world’s memory.
My fingers steady.
“I must close it,” I whisper to the voice inside. “Please. Let me.”
::Is your ambition worth the trial? ::
“It is worth everything. Let me.”
::He does not even see you. Not as you are. Will you break yourself for him?::
“Not for him. Or anyone. For me. Because I must always be myself. In this world that does not see me, I cannot be anything else.”
My eyes snap open just as the varkhounds close in. Astenos kneels before me, his flank quivering. Without hesitation, I leap onto his back.
“Please,” I beg him, pressing my cheek to his neck. “Hold until I can seal it.”
He snorts in reply.
I raise my hands. Toward the rift. Toward the wound in the sky. Silver spills from my fingers like thread from the hands of fate. The strands reach, growing—touching.
::Remember your choice. ::
Pain explodes in my chest. A scream nearly breaks from my lips. The rift pulls. The Veil tears. The wind howls. Mana lashes at my skin like whips of lightning.
Voices shriek—
“Ssssslayyy…”
“Maaamaaa!”
“Sssssilver blooood…”
