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Silas’s voice was all that she could hear. Black tar smoothed her mind, dipping into the cracks of her subconscious. Probing and prodding, the sensation tripled until a burning cold gripped her. Tears blurred her vision, searing her eyes as a memory forced itself into her: bright emerald eyes blazed with life on a young pale face. A voice like the soft tinkling of chimes called out for his parents. A smile stretched wide, turned into a silent scream.

Pain like nothing she had ever felt before seared through Areanel as she watched the memory of Silas’s shaking hands inject needles into the small veins of an arm.

‘No more pain,’ he whispered, gently touching his temple to hers at the same moment he did the same in the memory. But instead of her, Areanel heard the wheezing breath and saw the soft wisps of midnight blue hair. ‘No more pain, sweet Resmundur.’

The silence that stretched across her mind was heavy and unbearable.

Then she was screaming. In the memory. In her mind. In the cave. Wailing, keening lamentations.

NO!

Her mind shrieked at Silas’s admission. Howls of anguish growing so loud they blocked the sound of weapons clanging against each other. Her baby had suffered at the hands of his own blood.

Numbness crowded her; she didn’t even feel the mountain rumble as her power seeped into the very marrow of the stone, cracking and pulling it apart like her soul.

Resmundur. A spike of pain twisted behind her ribcage. Her baby. Tears cascaded in salty rivers down her bloodied cheeks. Silas, her brother… he had taken her baby from this world.

Sobs racked her body; the weight of her grief dragging her down. Silas’s hands still gripped her head, and he slid down with her. Her hands grasped the only thing she could—the collar of his shirt. Blade still gripped in hand, settled between them, the muscles in her arms strained like she couldn’t decide what to do—simultaneously, she wanted to push him away and hold him close. How could he have done such an atrocious thing?

Landing hard on the cold floor, another sob tore from her lips, and she was unable to swallow it down. Not just some rebel, but her own brother. She didn’t want to believe it. Had someone made him do it? But she had seen it with her own eyes, the memory forcibly pushed into her mind by Silas himself. His power had always been precise, factual; what he shows, he has experienced himself.

Cries of misery and pain spluttered from her, and a loud crack echoed around them; stalactites fell, spearing into the stone floor. Was that thunder or her losing control?

She was a creature unravelling. Resmundur. Her Resmundur. ‘W-W…Why?’ Areanel spoke around her sobs.

‘Andreas.’ Silas tilted his head as though she should already understand. ‘Take what you took and return it.’

For a moment, Areanel had thought there was clarity behind his eyes, but then he started to ramble again, and she could not help the broken whimper that escaped her. Her brother was truly gone.

‘They killed Mother. Selcirith took her, so I was going to take theirs. All of them must die. I can’t stop. Son of the South will die. Then I can bring her back. Veil will fall. Father needs me. The East flies. Life returned. The North has darkness. Shadows born. Shadows remade. Light lost. A child dies. Worlds collide. I have to kill the others. The children mustn’t survive!’

Suddenly, a whistling screech flew through the air, followed by the unmistakable sound of a thud.

Glancing through silver tears, Areanel turned to see Caius falling to his knees.

Nymlaris stood, chest heaving, and stared agape at the point of an arrow that protruded from Caius’s neck. A dizzying numbness soared through her at the sight. Blood spurted from the wound as he fell back, grey eyes glued open and glassy, the final breath of life shuddering out of him.

Silver glinted in the moonlight, and rain slowly pattered against the floor at the open mouth of the cavern. Standing there, in all his regalia, was King Aerileas—bow in hand. His bright blue eyes were glacial as he stared upon the scene, then they shifted to her. What was he thinking when he looked upon his weeping daughter and the son he’d thought long dead?

There was no emotion in their father’s cold gaze as he surveyed them. Then, the king gave her a single nod.

An order.

Another mission.

Not for his daughter, but for his General and an envoy. A sentence only his left hand could carry out.

She knew what she had to do.

Trembling, Areanel turned back to Silas, who continued to mutter unintelligible nonsense under his breath. She could see that her brother was long gone, his mind lost to the madness that had seized him. So, she allowed him this one moment. A single truth before his inevitable death. Lips curling, her features pinched with pain. ‘L-Look into my mind, Silas?’ Areanel pleaded for him to use his power, to reach inside her mind if this was to work. She needed to show him the truth.

Azure-hued eyes looked into her own questioningly, trepidation heavy as he glanced between her and their father, who had stepped further into the cave. ‘Father is here. Is Mother coming, too? It’s going to be okay now. We can bring her back. No more pain.’

Agony—the kind that sat behind the ribs and festered—throbbed in a constant rhythm as she spoke the lie. ‘It’s okay.’ Her face crumbled when he looked at her with such growing hope. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

Inky hair swished into his gaunt features as he nodded. A rush of warm detachment flushed her mind as Silas pressed his fingers into her scalp once more. This time, Areanel shared a memory—one she had kept hidden away from everyone, even herself.

Areanel remembered thinking their mother had looked devastatingly beautiful that day. Or perhaps all children adored their mother that way? Regardless, Queen Vada walked with a bouquet of flowers, and Areanel had thought it odd because her mother usually cultivated only useful herbs—but that day, she had picked the dark purple monkshood flowers and placed them in a vase in her private chambers.