Page 227 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“For now,” I said, nodding. “We will find her. Mags will find Aren, and they will get us all home. What did Ally say about the prophecy? The last line? About the fourth?”

Finally, his song stopped, and he lifted those haunted eyes to me. “The fourth horseman will only be brought down by a combination of things: the angel of death; The Great Commander, whole and healed; the fertility goddess; the warrior; the witch; and the Wraith.”

I nodded in confirmation. “We’ll find her, August. Even the enemy sees you together in the end.”

August shoved a hand through his hair and scooted back on the bench to straddle it. Facing me fully at last, he admitted, “It’s the damage done through the middle I’m worried about.”

FORTY-FOUR

AURORA

ALVARA

“Mummy!!”

“I’ll catch you up!”

“Faster, mummy!”

Laughing, I shook my head, following all three feet of my little stormbreaker, her auburn waves brushing her shoulder blades as she bolted around the bend. I turned my face to the sun pouring into the garden—the days at last growing longer, warmer.

“Oh, Rorrry!” I sing-songed, lifting my face even higher.

Her laughter was the only response.

We’d built this garden with our own two hands—her daddy and me—placing each stone in the path now clicking beneath my boots.

“I’m going to get you!!” I growled with absolutely no intention of running anywhere. It was much too perfect a morning for that. She squealed with laughter anyway, my smile growing as I followed the sound around the vibrant yellow blooms of the gorse bushes.

“Boo!” she shouted, hopping out from behind the wall of flora.

Beautiful, my daughter—ivory skin rouged pink by the sun. She might’ve been my spitting image, but those eyes were all her daddy’s—rimmed in dark lashes, glimmering like emeralds in the light filtering through the branches…

“El! Elly! You’re alright!”

I shot upright in bed, gaze darting around before landing on a vaguely familiar woman with eyes dark as stone and skin nearly as pale as her hair. Her hands were raised placatingly, lips drawn tight. Looking down, I found a plush red comforter embroidered in gold thread.

God, everything ached.

My joints strained as though they needed to pop. The steady thrum of my pulse in my ears almost—almost—drowned out the throbbing headache.

Slowly, with the world spinning around me, I raised my hands.

Wrong, somehow.

My arms were too slender, bones protruding as though the skin struggled to cling to them. There should be scars there. I couldn’t explain why, but I knew to my core there should be nicks where only smooth ivory skin remained.

Wrong.

“El?” the woman said softly. I should know her. Should, but didn’t. Breath quickening, I absorbed my surroundings—black wood floors, dark stone walls, rich burgundy drapes tied back from the windows with golden ropes.

“Where am I?”

“Safe,” she said with a smile. “We got to you in time.”

My brows furrowed. “In time for what?”

The smile that followed looked pained at best, grief tugging at the corners like a broken marionette. “It’s normal to forget some things when you ascend, El.” Her throat worked, the swallow tight and agonized. “I hoped that you’d remember me.”