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The days passed slowly once again, and the ruins only grew more frequent. Lost pestered their caravan often, and the soldiers maintained a constant guard rotation. Emara didn’t miss how they seemed to avert their gaze as they cut through the small patches of Lost. Almost as if they were afraid of seeing a familiar face.

Emara combed the trees and fields for any sign of the Shadow Heir or her Maldibor companions but found none. If not for Shad’s nightly visits, she would’ve started to worry that maybe they had reneged on their deal after all. During the day, she dozed on and off as the wagon bumped east through destroyed towns that blended together into one path of destruction. The Lost wandered the charred buildings and overgrown roads—some almost looking human, while others were little more than walking skeletons. But all held those same black eye sockets sparking green with dark yanaa and hate.

At night, she lay awake, staring into the darkness as Shad spoke to her in low tones. He told her stories of the Heirs of long ago—Shadow, Dragon, and Time. He told her of the Shadow Heir that had single-handedly slain an army and the Dragon Heir that had created a cage of fire as the magi imprisoned the ancient man-killers in Carceroc with a yanai barrier like the one that had once protected all of Okarria.

He told her of the Time Heir that had brought a magus back from a yanaa-riddled madness and saved a King from certain death. Of another Time Heir that could not only heal, but also inflict pain with a touch. And another still that had trained his own warrior clan, healing and fueling them with yanaa while they danced through battle like marionettes.

“Do you really believe those old legends, Shad?” She petted his back absently, something she’d been hesitant to do at first, but that he seemed to enjoy. Around them, the soldier’s campfires burned in the ruins of a dilapidated town square under a moonless night.

“It’s from The Heir’s Way, an account written by the magus historian, Dorinar. Who, by the way, would have a fit if he thought you were questioning its authenticity.”

“What about the Heirs that you remember? Did any of them have such extraordinary gifts?”

“Kaia Dashul called the spirit guide, Odriel, as a girl, harnessing the Dragon’s Rage to defeat Idriel’s immeasurable demon army, and giving Klaus Thane the opportunity to kill a demon of godlike power.” Shad’s eye closed in contentment as she ran two gentle fingers between his ears. “Aza Thane crossed to the land of the dead, destroying the child of Idriel known as the Heir-killer and defeating a soul-eater.” His eye opened halfway. “Is that enough for you? Or do you require more?”

She nodded, her stomach sinking. If that was true, then there had to be something wrong with her. “What about my mother? My grandfather?”

“Your grandfather and great-grandfather protected the south from the encroaching dead for centuries. They worked tirelessly and were renowned for both their skill and their kindness.” Shad shifted, rising to his paws and stretching in a deep bow. “And even without a Time Heir to mentor her, your mother’s partnership with Klaus and Kaia made them unbeatable, bringing peace to Okarria for over a decade.”

“Peace,” Emara whispered. “Wouldn’t that be something?” Anger curled inside her as she stared into the rubble around them, the campfire’s shadows dancing across the aging devastation and into the edge of the ever-expanding desert they called the Deadlands. “My mother should have stayed. How could she turn her back on the other Heirs like that? On the people of Okarria?”

Shadmundar turned to her, his gaze soft. “She did it out of love. For you.”

Emara picked up a rotten, oblong periapple from the wagon bed and threw it into the night. “And we can all see how that turned out.”

“We can never know what would’ve happened if we’d made different choices. Perhaps if she’d stayed, you both would’ve been killed, and we’d be further in darkness.”

Emara ground her palms into her eyes, the overflow of helplessness and fatigue threatening to drown her. “I hope I can be who you want me to be.”

Shad drew closer, rubbing his head against her arm. “You already are.” He pressed a paw on her knee. “And—”

A chest-vibrating bellow echoed through the air, deep and craggy. Emara leapt to her feet, her bound hands immediately clamoring for weapons she didn’t have. “What in the skies was that?” The ground shook as the answer to her question barreled toward them. She jumped down to take cover behind the wagon. “It’s too big to be the Lost.”

Shad’s fur stood up on end, his pupil narrowed to a slit. “Not necessarily.”

A hulking creature as tall as two men crashed into the already ruined town, its long limbs swinging through the air. The thing had a gray, muscular body, four arms like monstrous clubs and a second head growing out of its neck. It had a roughly human face, with a toothy smile of fangs the length of Emara’s hand. A trio of soldiers rushed the tree trunk legs of the creature only to be swatted away as if they were scuttling roaches.

Shad jumped down beside her. “It’s a fanged giant.” His gaze scanned the peeling flesh and vacant eyes. “And it looks like it’s indeed dead.”

The giant picked up a fleeing soldier and flung him against a stone wall with a wet crunch. Somewhere in the distance, another bellowed.

“If it’s one of the Lost, we need fire!” Emara shouted over the soldiers. “The Lost corpses are dry and will catch easily.”

Heeding her words, several soldiers armed with torches approached the giant, but the difficulty was obvious. They could scarcely get in range without the giant crushing them with a meaty fist. One of the soldiers tried to throw the torch at the creature, only for it to slap the brand away.

Emara bent to get the knife from her boot with her tied hands. “If I can get a bow I could—”

As if reacting to the sound of her voice, the creature bellowed again. Emara’s head jerked up, and the black holes of its eyes settled directly on her. With another deep cry, it charged straight for them.

“Bleeding rot.” Emara scrabbled to her feet and took off for the nearest fire, wriggling her wrists out of her loose bonds as she ran. Of course, the monster had come for her. She should’ve known.

“Protect the girl!” Shad shouted from somewhere behind her, the strangled growl of the giant nearly drowning him out.

Emara chanced a look over her shoulder just in time to see two claws raking through the night. She dove forward with a roll, but just as she got to her feet, the other arm slammed into her, sending her skidding across the weed-choked cobble stones.

Pain rippled through her in an agonizing wave as she tried to suck in the air that had been knocked from her lungs. But at least it had bashed her toward the fire. She reached out for one of the burning branches, her fingertips skimming the end of the stick before a giant hand closed around her ankle, dragging her away.

The darkness of its yanaa rushed through her in a sticky flood that nearly made her gag. With a scream, she seized a loose cobblestone as its other two claws wrapped around her middle. Bloody drool dripped from its mouth as it brought her toward its knife-like fangs, its greedy black eyes boring into her from its two grotesque heads. Someone yelled below, and she buried the sharp stone into one of its eyes. It flinched back, and its grip loosened just enough for Emara to kick free and make another break for the fire.

The giant gave chase with huge steps, and Emara skidded to a stop in front of the bonfire, grabbing a burning stake. The monster lunged for her, but Emara darted in between his arms and buried the torch in its face.

It bellowed, lurching forward, and she slid under its legs. Jumping to her feet, she threw her body into its back, giving it one last shove into the fire.

The giant wailed again, its arms flailing as the flames licked up its legs, but it wasn’t dead yet. The walking wall of fire turned on Emara, still hungry for the yanaa within, and she ran, sprinting through the old rows of crumbling buildings with the giant staggering after.

She made another blind turn and found herself trapped in a dead-end alley. She backed against the stone wall, heart galloping in her chest as she searched herself for weapons. Remembering her knife, she pulled it from her boot, brandishing the pathetic four inches of steel toward the flaming monster.

“You’re dead,” she said to it, trying to swallow down her fear over the growing heat of the flames. “Just die already.”

Its gaze still glittering like polished onyx, it reached its long arms toward her… and then abruptly lurched to one side. Emara jumped back, the giant crumpling as if its leg had just been cut out from under it, moaning until at last it collapsed into a flaming pile of embers.

For a moment she stood, rigid and mouth open. “W-what… Did I just…?” An invisible hand grabbed her arm, and Emara screamed, nearly jumping out of her skin.

“Calm down.” Aza blinked into sight beside her, a black sword with a spiked hilt in her hand. “We need to move quickly before they come looking for you.” With that, she pulled Emara along behind her as she jogged around the still burning corpse.

“But where are we going?” Emara asked, trying to make her frozen legs work.

“There were two others, and Rendaro’s hurt,” Aza said.

Realization dawned on Emara, jolting another surge of urgency through her and whipping away the pain. She freed her wrist from Aza’s grasp, pumping her arms hard as she ran. “How bad? Is he far?”

Aza turned down another alley where a giant lay prostrate, its head separated from its body. Farther in the shadows, a man with a torch in one hand and a giant broadsword in the other stood with his back to them. Nearer, the silhouette of a wide-shouldered man hunched over another, slimmer body, and beside them, Shad’s single eye glowed in the darkness, his whiskers quivering.

“But where’s Rendaro?” Emara asked, wary of these new strangers.

Another huge sword lay next to the crouched man, his shaggy blond hair framing his angular jaw. At his feet, the skinny one on the ground looked only a few years older than Emara with long brown hair splayed across the dirt.

“He’s here,” the blond said, his tense emerald gaze meeting hers. A shock tingled down Emara’s spine—Makeo? “With the new moon, the giants caught us in human form.”

Emara nodded and knelt at his side, accepting but not truly understanding his words. Her gaze slipped up and down Rendaro to where dark blood pooled beneath his body. Steeling herself, she placed her hands over the three ugly gashes that had ripped through his stomach. The agony of the wound stole her breath away, and she pressed down harder, her every muscle tensing as she fought against the pain with her yanaa.

But it wasn’t just his gut, his chest too had been crushed, the bones cracked and splintered, his weak breaths whistling through his punctured lungs. Only his feeble heartbeat and that faint wisp of yanaa under her fingertips gave her any kind of solace.

“It’s bad.” Sweat gathered at her forehead as the strain of all the injuries threatened to drown her. “I don’t know if I—”

“Yes, you can.” Aza knelt and put her gloved hand on Emara’s shoulder, her fingertips poking through the ends. “But first you must believe it, Emara. You have power inside you that you haven’t yet seen. Take the seed of your yanaa, and let it grow.”

Emara’s chest heaved with the effort, splitting her yanaa into twenty different directions for thirty different wounds. Rendaro screamed out, and fresh blood welled beneath her hands. “There’s… too many. I’m going to lose him!”

“You are not.” Aza’s voice was slow and calm. “You are a Time Heir of legend, gifted with the strength of Odriel himself to heal the injured, strengthen the weak, and be the wall between life and death. To the tireless, he gave the hardest task. To the gentle, he gave the most power. That is you, Emara Alik, Ioni Rao, survivor of the blood-soaked west.”

Aza moved her hands over Emara’s, her pale fingertips brushing Emara’s dark skin, and the churn of her yanaa sent a bolt of shock through Emara. Power brimmed in Aza, ancient and so unimaginably strong it threatened to overwhelm her. But instead of pulling away, Emara’s yanaa crackled under Aza’s touch, coming alive all at once as if shattering unseen bonds. Her vision flashed black, and a glowing blue seed of yanaa blossomed before her. It burst forth into branches and roots of gleaming strength—illuminating the darkness of pain with veins of light—and something in her unfurled.

Flickers of the past sparked through her with spikes of hot pain. Her father’s bubbling laugh, the Dragon Heir’s wise eyes, the Shadow Heir’s smirk, and her mother’s brilliant smile. The comfort of stories soaking the air, a village nestled under enormous trees, dark nights of dance and song. And there was Aza, and Makeo, and another boy—Aza’s older brother Zephyr—teasing her with his flames.

Then there was the Lost, and Makeo dying beneath her—how her yanaa had filled her, overflowing into him until his chest knitted back together, just as her mother had taught her. The cold body of her father unresponsive under her glowing hands. The tears of the after. Her mother’s. Hers. Everyone’s. Tears of fear and guilt and grief. Then they were leaving the Heirs forever, no matter how she longed to stay.

In another flash, it all disappeared once more, like a fever dream leaving her gasping in a cold sweat.

But it was far from over.

Her yanaa burst forth as if shooting from a never-ending spring. With a cry, she forced the energy into her hands and through Rendaro, the branches of blue light flowering within him—the strength filling every part of his body until he could hold no more. His bones cracked as she forced them together, his skin whispering as it knitted, and the air whooshing into his chest.

With a sharp breath, he rolled to one side, coughing as air filled his mended lungs, and Emara drew her still-bloody hands away.

Rendaro stared at her, his green eyes wide with wonder. “You really… but I thought I was…” His fingers ran along the jagged scars adorning his abdomen.

A relieved grin carved Makeo’s weathered face, so much older than in her memories. “She’s done it again.”

A grim smile lifted Aza’s lips as she clapped Emara’s shoulder. “It’s only the beginning.”

Emara looked at her hands, wondering at the power that had flowed from them. Had that really been locked away all of this time? Her head spun, and she balled her hands into fists. “I’m… I really am the Time Heir.”

For a moment, they stilled in the shadows. Rendaro’s blood still soaking into the ground from his now healed wounds, and somewhere farther off, another giant bellowed into the night.