IYA’S ULTIMATUM ECHOED IN FARON’S EARS AS SHE RACED OUT INTO the courtyard, hoping that she would catch a glimpse of her sister’s dragon before it was gone. But the skies were clear of everything but gold-tinted clouds and Ignatz’s sapphire body circling the island Faron now knew was called Caledon. Nearing noon, the sun was high in the sky, and yellow light glittered across the whitecaps of the Ember Sea. On any other day, it might have been beautiful.
Right now, it just made her unspeakably lonely.
Her sister had been here, or near here, and Faron had been too late to see her. She would never even have known if not for Iya’s announcement, which broadcast his shrewd message across their bond with a brief image of the source: a familiar green dragon twisting this way and that to avoid Ignatz’s powerful flames.
She had no idea if Elara had been coming to rescue her or to stop Iya, if she had been doing reconnaissance or just been on her way to the Langlish capital, Beacon, unaware that Faron was down here at all. Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she realized she didn’t know which option was better or worse. All San Irie thought she was a traitor. Elara probably did, too.
Now your home is in shambles because of you.
She shuddered at the memory. She knew the truth, and so did Reeve. Once she saved him—once she saved him and Gael—it would all be worth it. She had to believe this would all be worth it. Otherwise, she would shatter into a million pieces, her legacy little more than a pile of useless trash.
Faron turned back into Hearthstone, only to stop at the sight of four Riders emerging from the gatehouse entrance. Gavriel and Mireya Warwick wore crisp new riding leathers, his red-brown hair and beard trimmed and her lithe body free of decoration except for her silver wedding ring. Behind them, Marius Lynwood and Nichol Thompson wore their uniforms, which were riding leathers masquerading as fitted suits with red accents. It was clear that Luxton had treated them all well in the last nine days, because they looked less as if they were in the middle of war and more as if they were on their way to sit for a portrait.
Her hands clenched into fists. Meanwhile, her people were rebuilding the capital and burying their dead for the second time in ten years.
Because of you.
She blinked and found herself across the courtyard without having made a conscious decision to move. Iya’s group had filed through the rounded mouth of the outer wall, talking among themselves unintelligibly, while Faron trailed several feet behind wondering when her surroundings had changed. Her heart pounded, both from the bone-deep knowledge that they were up to something and from the terror that she might be losing time again.
It had gotten bad, after the war, so bad that she had once woken up in the middle of a barren field, barefoot and wearing nothing but a cotton nightgown, Irie floating before her. Faron had been sweating so profusely that the fabric clung to her skin, and her pulse had still been racing with warning from the dregs of her nightmare. Instead of dragons, the sky had been filled with stars. Instead of an inferno, a light breeze had caressed her overheated skin.
What happened? Faron had asked, hating how small and scared her voice sounded. She had survived war, for gods’ sake. Why should she be afraid of sleeping? How did I get out here?
You summoned me fifteen minutes ago, Irie had said in a gentle tone. Her hand had lifted and then fallen back to her side as she likely remembered she was only corporeal inside a temple, not on former farmland that would never grow anything again. You said, ‘We’re being attacked,’ but you… There’s no one here, Empyrean. Everything is all right.
None of it had sounded familiar to Faron, whose last memory had been of hugging Elara before going to sleep. No matter how hard she had tried, she couldn’t fill those blanks with anything but nightmares of dragonfire. Fifteen minutes? She’d been outside for longer than fifteen minutes?
Faron hadn’t realized she was crying until Irie’s fingers passed through her cheek, drawing her attention to the fat tears leaving wet trails across her skin. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to—I’m wasting your time.
Time spent with you is never a waste, Empyrean, said Irie. I withdrew because your body was weakening, but I am otherwise happy to stay. For as long as you need.
Most days, Faron had wanted nothing more than to get rid of the gods. Her job was over. The war had been won. Their lingering presence, their infinite powers, had been more of a nuisance than anything else. But in that moment, all Faron had been able to manage was a sharp nod. And, true to her word, Irie had remained in that field with her, watching the sky for threats, until Faron had stopped shaking enough to return home. Even then, she’d had to check that her sister, her mother, and her father were safe before she’d felt close to sleeping.
There would be none of that now. No safety. No comfort. The gods had been a pain, but they had also been like parents to Faron when she couldn’t confide in her own. Then they had lied to her, ordered her to kill her sister, compared her to Iya before Faron even fully understood who that was. Despite all they’d been through together, she was sure they had told Elara that Faron was the one who now needed to die to end this war.
She wished that was enough to stop her from missing them.
The sound of waves sucked her back into the present. They were at the beach, and Lightbringer sat where the grass met the sand, while the other two dragons—Goldeye and Irontooth—lay across the golden coastline with their eyes closed. It took her a moment to notice that Iya stood in the shadow of Lightbringer’s folded wings. Since she’d last seen him, he had cut Reeve’s hair military short, except for the red-brown curls still adorning his brow. Instead of his charcoal military uniform, he wore a new pair of riding leathers, like the Warwicks. It was so unlike Reeve that, for once, the dissonance of his face with Iya’s personality didn’t catch up with her.
Yet.
Iya leaned with one hand against the dragon’s body, as if he were a wall instead of a war beast. Faron shuddered at the thought of being that comfortable with the creature who had killed her neighbors and set fire to her town. But if she needed to stay on his good side to achieve her goals—
“You have never been on my good side,” said Lightbringer. “And your lies are transparent.”
“Only because you’re in my head,” Faron fired back. “What, is the inside of yours too boring?”
Not that she could have said that for sure. She might not have known how to build a barrier around her own thoughts, but she had spent the last week testing the one around his. She imagined the bond as a corridor between their souls, but where hers had an open door that she couldn’t seem to close, his had a fence, a moat, barbed wire, and several security guards. Dusk or dawn, midday or midnight, she would inch as close as she could, her efforts going unnoticed because they were just that pointless.
Lightbringer snorted. “I do not need to be in your head to see your weakness, Faron Vincent. I feel it.”
She swallowed hard.
“So, why are we here?” Lynwood asked, reminding her that there were other people in the world. He was sitting in the sand between his dragon and Nichol Thompson, who Faron had since learned was his cousin. One leg was drawn up to Marius’s chest. His square jaw rested atop his knee, and his dark hair hid his eyes from view. “If you’re sending us out to gather recruits, we should get to it before we lose the sun.”
Gavriel and Mireya hadn’t bothered to join Irontooth; instead, they remained in the grass with Faron. Faron could only see their profiles from where she was standing, but Gavriel stood at ease, his arms behind his body and his eyes intent on Iya. Meanwhile, Mireya had her arms folded over her chest, her legs tensed as if she wanted to start tapping her foot impatiently. Faron wondered if they looked at Iya and tried to see their son in him, clinging to the strength that they had traded his body away for. Or perhaps they were glad that Reeve was gone, because now all that was left was the key to the power they felt they had been denied.
Their expressions gave away nothing.
Iya gestured for Faron to come closer, and she reluctantly obeyed despite the prickle of nerves that washed across her skin. And when Iya stepped out from the shadows and took her hand, Faron tensed even further. The last time they’d held hands, she had chosen to leave her home behind with nothing but the hope that she would make the most difference at his side. That had felt like diving from a cliff, but somehow this felt worse—an unknown she couldn’t even begin to guess at. All she knew for sure was that whatever was about to happen here wouldn’t be good.
“Once, I believed in loyalty. Friendship. Family. Courage.” Iya laced their fingers together. His hand was dry, whereas hers was sweaty, his grip steady whereas hers was trembling, but if he noticed, then he’d discarded it as being irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. His gaze focused on each of the Riders in turn. “But then I was betrayed, and something about centuries of imprisonment makes one far less trusting.”
The relaxed air of the meeting splintered like glass. Nichol Thompson’s shoulders stiffened, his pale face even paler than usual beneath his short brown hair. Gavriel Warwick’s hands dropped to his sides, an artificial lack of tension in them. Iya not only seemed to expect this change but to be amused by it.
“The reason I called you here today is that I have promised power and riches beyond the pale, but those boons do not exist in a vacuum. To bring the world to heel, I will need my Four Generals. I will need you.” There was a dangerous edge to Iya’s smile, like a sheathed sword. That smile promised blood, to be drawn at his leisure. “Like the Hylands and the Sotos, the Warwicks and the Lynwoods are illustrious dragon-riding dynasties. When we take Langley, the people will remain loyal to you. For that reason, I am appointing you as the leader of my forces, answering only to me and, one day, Faron.”
“I don’t take orders from Iryans,” Lynwood sneered.
“I heard you take ass kickings from them, though,” said Faron automatically, because she had never met trouble she didn’t want to get into. “My sister told me all about your incendio.”
Color bloomed high on his peach cheeks. An incendio was a means of settling private disputes between Riders, and, though it had been her first one, Elara had thoroughly humiliated Lynwood in it. She had told Faron all about it during one of their fire calls, and Faron hadn’t been able to stop laughing. Marius Lynwood reminded her of Jordan Simmons, a bully she herself had taken great joy in humiliating.
And then she remembered that Jordan was dead because she’d let Lightbringer loose, and her body went cold.
“She got lucky,” Lynwood grumbled.
“You got lucky that it was her and not me.” Faron bared her teeth in a vicious smile. “Elara’s the nice one.”
His unblinking green gaze was challenging, and Faron knew that she was misdirecting her anger, that Lightbringer felt like too big of a threat to tackle right now and Lynwood was an easy target. But she didn’t care. Not right now. Right now, she felt in control for the first time in weeks, and she wanted to cling to that for as long as possible.
“Faron will need training to become the leader you deserve,” Iya said as though the two of them hadn’t spoken. “We can discuss the chain of command in detail then. For now, it’s time to cement your allegiance and share in my power. Let the Four Generals rise again, firmly under my rule.”
As he raised his hand, Faron began to feel strange. More somehow, not unlike the swell of magic within her whenever she summoned a god. It took her a moment to realize that Iya was using their bond to cast magic, their souls intertwining to power the spell, and another moment to realize he hadn’t needed to ask her permission to wield their bond in this way.
The pressure beneath her skin increased, until Faron felt as if her body might explode. Her temples pounded. Black spots danced in her vision. Iya’s grip was the only thing that kept her on her feet.
And then he let her go.
“The first time is always the hardest,” Iya murmured. “I should have warned you.”
“What”—Faron sounded as if she were speaking from the bottom of a well, her voice echoing in her ears—“have you done?”
“The four of them, and their dragons, are now tethered to us. They cannot do us harm, and their magic will amplify our own. Or, to put it more plainly”—Iya smiled in a way that made a shiver claw up her spine—“I summoned their living souls and chained them to our will.”
“This was not part of the agreement,” said Mireya Warwick. Her eyes were pitch-black voids, narrowed between long lashes. “We promised to serve you. You don’t need to puppet us—”
“I’ve heard that before.” Iya’s smile was gone, and his voice was cold. “Believing it landed me in the Empty. You wanted power. I have given it to you. But your true ambition—for power to eclipse mine—betrays you, Director.”
Mireya visibly bit back anything else she wanted to say. Lynwood and Thompson said nothing at all, their heads bowed toward the sand. The commander’s hands were in his pockets, but Faron could tell from the flex of his muscles that he had clenched them into fists. Clearly, none of them had been consulted before Iya had enacted this plan.
“Now,” Iya finished, “leave.”
They all left, straight-backed and walking in unison. Iya watched them with the same mild interest with which he might watch a rainstorm, indifferent to the fact that he had overwritten their minds and controlled their bodies. Faron wanted to be horrified—but, after all, wasn’t she the one who had shown him how easily this could be done? She had wielded this power against her own people to save Reeve’s life, once. One night, they had stumbled across two drunken Iryans who had taken out their anguish over the war on Reeve, beating him so badly, Faron had thought he was dead. She’d surged into their bodies, into their souls, and ordered them to leave, to forget what they’d seen and done. Her will had become theirs, shattering their autonomy for what she’d thought was a good cause. Now, watching Iya do the same, she wasn’t so sure there was a good cause for this power. Now it felt like a shared crime.
Because of you.
Faron stared at the two carmines who still slumbered on the beach. Goldeye had turned onto his side, baring his blush-pink stomach, his snout buried beneath one of his arms as if to protect it from windblown sand. Unless they were patrolling, the carmines were usually sleeping, the ultramarine was usually floating on her back in the lake, and the medallion was usually exploring the neighboring shorelines as if he expected to find treasure. Lightbringer had no such quirks, at least not that he’d shared with her. He’d shifted so that he was lying half on the warm sand, his wings blanketing his body, but he wasn’t tired or hot or curious. Grim was the best way she could describe the emotion wafting from him across the bond.
Then Faron realized she could feel him across the bond, a shockingly open channel to his mind. She didn’t know whether he was letting her in or if Iya’s power surge had bound them closer together, but she wasn’t going to waste this chance. Her soul rushed toward his. Maybe if she took him by surprise, she could finally command him. Maybe she could even puppet him the way he had the Riders. At the very least, she would glean some idea of his plans, and even that would be more than she had so far.
Faron’s soul dropped back into her body when something yanked her forward. Iya stood before her, his grip tight around her wrist, his eyes boring into hers. Her breath escaped in a gasp when she realized his eyes were hazel, rather than Reeve’s pale blue. This was not Iya who stared her down.
It was Gael Soto.
For the first time since she had released Lightbringer from the Empty, Gael Soto was looking out at her. Faron was too stunned to move, afraid to blink in case he disappeared.
“He’ll kill you,” Gael hissed. His voice was still Reeve’s, but, studying him now, Faron could see the stark difference between Iya and Gael. Even in Reeve’s body, there was always a flatness in Iya’s eyes, a cruel point to his smiles, a certain presence that screamed at her instincts to be on their guard. Gael was more curious about the world around him, but there was a shadow to everything he did and said, shrouded, as he was, in Lightbringer’s influence, rarely allowed to be his own person. There was a fear in his face right now that she couldn’t imagine on Iya’s—shared body or no shared body. “You heard what he told you last time you tried to command his soul. If you try it again, he will kill you, Faron.”
It wasn’t a guess. “Gael, how are you doing this—?”
But he blinked, and his eyes were blue again. Confusion flashed across his face, gone too quickly for her to interpret, before Iya’s neutral expression returned. It was a different kind of barrier, hiding everything he didn’t want her to see. His hand tightened around her wrist until her bones screamed for mercy, but Faron bit the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound. She would not let him see her break down. Not again.
“I was serious about your training,” he said, and there was so much venom in his voice that it felt almost performative. “The well of uncorrupted magic in your Iryan blood has proved useful, but you are weak in every way that matters. Once I decide the best way to strengthen you without making you a threat to me, we’ll begin. In the meantime”—Iya finally released her throbbing arm—“get out of my sight.”
Faron flinched automatically, expecting the words to be a magical command, but a minute passed and she was still standing there. The iciness of Iya’s gaze was a warning, and for now she gave in. She would rather be in her room, figuring out whether she had a bruise, than out here with him. He was using gentle Reeve’s body to hurt her, and bile rose in her throat at the thought of how horrified Reeve would be to see it. Their words had occasionally cut each other deeply, but Reeve would never physically hurt her. She hadn’t needed to like him to know that.
But as she walked away, her mind turned the mystery of Gael’s reappearance over and over, trying to make sense of it.
Or, more importantly, trying to make use of it.