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Ramapheal finally deigned to glance at him. “Did anyone see what she could do?” Did you leave anyone alive?

Ikarus stared up at the Ancient One. He’d lied about how Felim died. Who was to say he wasn’t lying about this too?

“No,” Ikarus said. “There were no survivors.”

Ramapheal nodded, seemingly pleased. “We must act quickly. This girl is going to lead us to the Vordellians’ pieces of the Arch—and allow us to be rid of this place and the Bane once and for all!”

Cheers swept through the throne room. People rose out of their chairs, clapping and shouting praises to the vapor and darkness, screaming, Yes, yes—our time has come!

Ikarus flinched when a taloned hand clapped him on the shoulder. “You have served me well, my boy. Your work with the girl is astounding. You’ve brought me the perfect weapon. One just as ruthless as you are, just as merciless. She’s one of us now, and I think her friends should know that, don’t you?”

A snap of his fingers and the thousands of tiny spiders crawled down from pillars and up through the cracks in the floor to Ramapheal’s side. He whispered something to them, then they were scurrying up like a skittish cloud of black smoke to swarm around Aleena’s bones, moving as one to gather around her crown and pull.

It took a long while for the crown to let go—not because it was too heavy for the creatures but because the thing seemed to have fused to the old queen’s skull. The spiders tugged and tugged, but the crown would not budge, refusing to be parted from her, even all these years after her death.

But something had to give eventually.

Aleena’s skull cracked, the sound tearing through the room, loud enough to turn Ikarus’s stomach, and he could barely look as the spiders placed the rotting greenish-blue crown in Ramapheal’s waiting hands.

The Ancient One stared at the crown, the symbol of his enemy. “She shall wear this.” He dragged a clawed finger over the opals welded into each spike. The smile that spread across his pale face was the thing of nightmares.

Moving slowly, deliberately, seeming to savor every last moment, he lowered the crown onto the human’s head. “Let them see her coming,” he cooed, standing behind her to secure the clasps that held the crown in place at the base of her skull. “Let them look upon this and know that it is not I who has brought this destruction upon them but their own beloved Aleena.”

The room descended into applause.

It was everything Ikarus had ever wanted. Everything he’d worked tirelessly for for weeks now. Years. His entire life.

They’d be free soon. There’d be no more darkness and caves. Emelda. Aeris. Malakai. They wouldn’t die like his father. Serone would finally be able to soar above the clouds, and Emelda would finally be able to have a proper garden. His chest tightened, thinking of all the things she might be able to do with sunlight to aid her magic, the things she might grow.

And she’d live to grow them. They all would without the Bane steadily turning their insides to stone.

They’d all be safe, every one of them.

This one task had secured everything, made him a vital, immovable piece at Ramapheal’s side and no doubt secured their victory in this long war—but as Ikarus stood there, watching the single tear that slipped down the God Killer’s cheek, he questioned for the first time since he’d earned his horns if it had really been worth the price.

48

“Ido not like this,” Twiigs was saying from his perch atop Theron’s shoulder.

“Me neither.”

“I am worried about Soraya.”

Theron’s chest prickled just hearing her name.

He’d thought running into her earlier had been a stroke of luck. He hadn’t been able to find her in Illieck. He’d tried—but then there’d been smoke and blood and the scout he’d sent to the burrow she was supposedly being held in never came back.

He’d thought he’d missed his only chance—then she’d wandered right into the middle of their training exercise earlier.

She’d stood there, face as lovely as any of the sun statues, right within his grasp.

Then she’d attacked them. With magic. No weapon. She’d picked blood up from the floor and wielded it like a blade made just for her. Better than any gun she ever had or Vordellian steel.

It didn’t make any sense. Not to him or Command.

“I do not like this,” Twiigs said again. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“I know.” He’d been thinking the same thing since he’d gotten the message from Ma’varea to meet. Something was off. In the air. In the ground. Even the shadowed trees and statues below seemed to feel it. Theron swore he’d seen them move a few times now, inching away as though even they were anxious about what was to come.