Chapter Sixty

“NOOO!” Asterin screamed from the rooftop. Her desolation shattered the skies, yet her cry was lost to the utter anarchy on the ground as fear spread rampant across the Pavilion like plague. Confusion rose thick in the air. Citizens turned to savages, fighting and clawing at those in front of them to get a better glimpse of the stage or those behind them to flee.

Impostor Asterin heard her, though. She looked up toward the roof in stunned shock, her shoulders heaving and splatters of crimson staining her cheek and the collar of her dress.

Though Orion hadn’t seen Asterin’s mother since a decade prior when they were still children, it took him less than a single glance at Elyssa’s face to realize what he had done. He clapped his hand to his mouth in utter horror and fell to his knees at her side. His lips began moving furiously in an attempt to heal her.

Elyssa lay on her back, convulsing on the ground, suffocating on her own blood, one limp hand clutching the sword impaled through her body. Rivulets of crimson dribbled down her jaw. Harrowed emerald eyes searched the sky, desperately. Hopelessly. But as if an Immortal was answering a final prayer, her gaze somehow lifted to the roof and found Asterin—the real Asterin—for a fleeting, heartbreaking second of relief . . .

“Please,” Asterin whispered. “No.”

And then she was gone.

Asterin clawed her nails down her face and let out a howl of rage. How had it happened so quickly? Magic was supposed to solve everything, even mortal wounds. Especially mortal wounds.

No. She shoved herself to her feet. She could still heal her mother. There was still time, there had to be.

Asterin hurled herself off the roof.

Multiple pairs of hands shackled onto her from behind, latching onto her wrists and ankles and waist and yanking her back before she could fall.

Rose gripped Asterin hard, devastation shining wet in her golden eyes. “It’s too late, Asterin. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Asterin sobbed as Quinlan pulled her into his arms. She buried her face into his chest. “No, no, no, no—”

Her head snapped up when Killian whistled, her expression grim. A signal to Impostor Asterin.

Onstage, shadows raced toward her outstretched arms, swirling around her body in a vortex as she began to shift. Bladed feathers shredded through her gown. Feathers of iridescent green and blue rippled down her arms, burgeoning into monstrously beautiful wings. From her brow flourished a helm—no, a crown, hewn from feathers and steel and blood.

Screams of terror and panic penetrated the air as the crowds struggled to flee the plaza, trampling over one another in the attempt to get as far away as possible from the stage and the demon upon it. It seemed like the screaming would never cease, each cry louder than the next.

When Orion saw the demon, a darkness passed over his face. Slowly, he withdrew the sword from Elyssa’s corpse and eased to his feet. Asterin could see his hands shaking all the way from the roof as he crept behind its back, sword poised to kill—

The demon launched itself into the air and soared toward the roof. Killian was already on her feet, waiting. Asterin lunged for her, but there was Quinlan again, jerking her back, with Rose and Eadric further barring the space between them.

“Let go of me,” Asterin screamed, her voice breaking as she thrashed against Quinlan’s iron hold.

The demon didn’t land long enough for Asterin to free herself. It did, however, glance back for the briefest moment, giving Asterin a perfect view of its features.

And it was wearing a new face.

The face that haunted her every dream. Her every nightmare. The face that belonged to the person she hadn’t been able to save.

Her heart lurched to a standstill.

Her blood roared in her ears.

The world went very, very dark.

“Luna?” Asterin whispered.

Her old friend averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, Asterin. I really am.”

With that, Luna opened her wings and shifted fully. A wicked beak sliced forth from between her eyes. Turquoise irises blinked ruby. Talons ripped through her silk slippers, extending past her ankles in hard knots of gold.

As Luna vaulted into the sky, Killian took a running leap into open air and latched onto those talons.

“Stop it!” Asterin shouted hoarsely. She summoned a handful of wet snow and flung it into Quinlan’s face, causing him to recoil from her. It lacked elegance, perhaps, but it distracted him enough for his grip on her to loosen. She wrested herself free and threw her arms toward the heavens. “Stop running away from me! ”

A violent shriek of wind knocked Luna sideways, followed by another that ripped fistfuls of feathers from her wings and sent both her and Killian tumbling. Before either of them had time to react, however, Asterin commanded a wave of water to slam into Luna from behind, drenching her from the tips of her wings down. The sharp crunch of frost crackled through the air, and in less than a heartbeat, Asterin had encased Luna’s entire body in a husk of ice.

Luna careened through the sky. With her wings immobilized, Killian had no choice but to try and veer them back toward the roof.

They crashed down rather than landed. Killian grunted in pain as she twisted sideways, using her own body to soften Luna’s landing.

Asterin stormed over to Luna, grabbed her by ice-stiff shoulders, and hauled her upright. “What have you done to yourself?” she demanded.

“Nothing I didn’t desire,” Luna replied simply.

“Desire?” Asterin growled. Luna winced as the ice crawled farther up along her neck. “This is what you desired ? To dethrone me? To turn into a monster?”

“I had a choice between this or execution,” Luna snapped back, “because my mother traded my life to a god before I was even born. What kind of choice is that?” She shook her head with a snort of derision. “Though knowing you, I’m sure you’d rather have had me accept death.”

Asterin wanted to scream through her gritted teeth. “When will you realize that I never wished harm upon you at all? That I would have thrown myself in front of that damned arrow for you, or any other threat to your life? I would die an infinite number of times to save you, Luna. Even now.”

The resentment in Luna’s expression wavered for the briefest moment. “Even now?”

Asterin’s throat tightened. It hurt how much she missed her friend. “Without question,” she whispered. “Without hesitation.”

Luna stared into her face, unnervingly silent.

No one dared move.

Finally, Luna’s lips curled slightly. Except her smile didn’t reach her eyes, not even close. “But see, that’s the whole problem with you, Your Majesty. You would do that for almost anyone—maybe even, under the right circumstances, a complete stranger. That’s just the kind of person you are. Selflessly brave . . .” Luna tilted her head back to look down her nose at Asterin. “And disgustingly indecisive.”

Stunned, Asterin couldn’t even summon a response.

But Luna wasn’t done. “You’re always the hero whenever the stakes are lowest, Asterin,” she hissed. “Once you’ve made a choice, you know that there’s no going back. Yet all you can find in yourself to do is regret.” Revulsion blazed across her expression. “Regret is for the weak.”

“Fine,” Asterin said quietly. “Then holding lifelong grudges is for the weak, too. Only the strong know how to forgive.”

Luna’s smile returned, much wider now. “Oh, but I’ve forgiven you, Asterin. In fact, I should be thanking you . . . for teaching me the value of making a choice and rising from the aftermath, stronger than ever. So do yourself a favor, sweetheart. Turn your back. Leave me alone to become who I want to be, not who you want me to be, and I’ll spare all of your lives.”

With a deafening crack, the ice surrounding Luna splintered. Asterin threw her arms in front of her face as dozens of bladed feathers exploded forth in a shower of fractured ice.

“Asterin! ” Quinlan yelled out as Luna shot straight up into the sky on newly liberated wings. He flung his arms out. Scorching heat bloomed around Asterin, melting the ice and even a few of the blades.

But something was horribly wrong.

Mouth agape, she lowered her hands from her face and stared upward.

The flames . . .

The flames burned black.

Asterin cried out as the circle of black flames only surged higher. They licked at her, scorching her hair and shoulders. And they were closing in, fast.

“Put them out!” she heard Rose shout beyond the dull roar of the fire.

“I—I’m trying!” Quinlan yelled back, the panic clear in his voice.

Asterin called upon a deluge of water, but it passed through the flames. She sucked the oxygen out of the air, but the fire burned on. Ice did nothing to smother the inconceivable inferno, and wind only fanned it.

Nine elements at her beck and call, and she might as well have had none.

“It’s spreading!” Eadric thundered. “Asterin, you have to get out of there!”

As if she hadn’t thought of that herself.

The night sky overhead writhed and rippled from the heat. Every breath seared her lungs, and her head felt woozy from the fumes. She wobbled forward and collapsed onto her knees.

The roof quivered as a tremor rumbled through the building.

The bellow of arguing voices. Need to get out of here. Need to stay. They blurred together. Soon Asterin didn’t hear anything at all.

Her eyelids fluttered shut.

So this was to be her funeral pyre.

Then, from high above, there came a whoosh of blessedly cool air. Asterin just barely managed to crack one eye open as great wings cut through the infernal flames.

A dark angel spiraled toward Asterin and snatched her up in talons of gold. Those wings shielded her from the heat as they burst through Quinlan’s shadow fire and soared into the sky.

Over the city they glided, the districts strangely absent of their usual twinkling lights. Hazy blotches swarmed the buildings. Asterin blinked sluggishly and tried to clear her distorted vision. It didn’t work. After a few more minutes of squinting, she had the sickening realization that her vision wasn’t distorted at all.

But she still couldn’t comprehend the scene unfolding below . . . because the blotches were flames, devouring her city.

And . . .

And Axaris was burning.