Rora knew when it all started by the way everything went so still. And she knew when it all went wrong because Aro went too still, like all his blood had turned to ice.
Aro, where he was staked down next to her, strained against the ropes, twisting his head and arching his back, his eyes unblinking, and his face was skull-white. Twisting like he was trying to face the mountain, like something was pulling at him that he couldn’t ignore.
Neira had promised, “When I claim the mages, I can leave Aro untouched. We’ll need him, after all. I’ll ensure he isn’t affected by my command.”
She’d lied. Of course she’d lied.
Rora was screaming, fighting against her ropes, tearing her wrists and ankles to shreds, but the damned ropes held. Joros was swearing, shaking Aro by the shoulders, shouting in his face. He’d taken all of Rora and Aro’s weapons, and now he pulled out one of Rora’s own daggers, the one with the shattered blue stone in the hilt, and he slammed the dagger’s point into the palm of Aro’s hand.
Aro screamed, and Rora’s voice matched it.
“Wake up, damn you!” Joros shouted, his nose nearly touching Aro’s, one hand shaking her brother’s shoulder while the other pressed his thumb harder and harder into the wound he’d made in Aro’s hand. “We need you—”
Through it all, Vatri just kept praying as she knelt in front of her tiny fire.
Rora couldn’t remember who it’d been who had asked Neira what would happen to the witches when she claimed them, but whoever it was had made sure to ask it when there weren’t any witches around to hear. “I’ll need an incredible amount of power to battle the Twins,” she’d said, “even in their weakened state. I’ll need all the power I can hold.” That hadn’t really been an answer, which was almost as good as an answer, in a way. Witches were their power, it was in their blood, and if Neira needed as much power as she could get, if she needed to take everything a witch had . . . A witch with nothing left was just dead.
And Rora watched her brother, and she couldn’t see it happening but she knew it was, knew that Neira was pulling out all his power the same way she was with all the other witches. Knew that Neira’d kill him, and it wouldn’t even be for anything except her own stupid revenge.
Neira would kill him, and he’d die thinking Rora still hated him, and that cut deeper than any blade ever could.
Rora could twist her hand, the ropes digging farther up her arm. They were close enough, staked right next to each other, close enough that she could stretch her fingers and wrap them around her brother’s stiff-fingered hand. All she could say was his name, “Aro,” his name that matched hers, their father’s favorite joke, “boy” and “girl” in the Old Tongue.
Aro blinked.
The mountain exploded.
It was like a hundred suns rose at once, all in the same place, a burst of light that made Rora’s eyes burn just for the little look she got before she squeezed her eyes shut. That didn’t block out the screaming, like cats yowling, like people dying, like gods fighting—
Something hit Rora in the chest, and then everything was fire.
She hadn’t ever asked what would happen if everything went right, if Joros and Neira and Vatri’s plans all came together. She hadn’t wanted to know. The rough outline was enough: You’re the bait. You’re the trap. They’ll go looking for new bodies, and—that was enough. She didn’t want to think about what would come after that, because thinking about it would make her run screaming until she found the end of the world.
She figured, if it happened, she’d learn about it when it happened. The best way to learn was by doing.
So Rora wasn’t prepared for the moment when her body wasn’t just her own anymore. She wasn’t prepared for when she had to fight a god.
Fire burned inside Rora and made her scream, a scream that matched the one someone else was screaming with her mouth. She could feel claws under her skin, behind her eyes, like a swarm of rats crawling and clawing and trying to tear her to pieces, to get her out of the way, to take and take and take. Rora tried to hold on, tried to grab for anything, but how do you hold on to something with just your mind? All she had was her fingers around Aro’s hand, all she had to hold on to was her brother, and he was slipping, too, she could see the fires burning along their flesh, the ropes burning and falling away. The fire faded from her skin but it still tore through everything inside, and Rora felt like she was smashing herself against the walls of a cage, looking for a door or a flood or any way to stop the pain.
And then Rora stood up, only it wasn’t Rora choosing to do it. Aro stood next to her, and when she looked over at him, it didn’t even look like Aro anymore. It was like someone else had put on his face and it didn’t fit right, the angles were wrong, the eyes were wrong—
There was still the sound of praying, and Rora turned to look at it without wanting to. There was a priestess, and a fire, and a searing anger welled up in Rora, an anger that wasn’t her own, an anger at her Parents and their world and all that they had made and all that they had taken.
She would kill them all. Take their lives to fuel her radiance, take their lives so she could rise once more in her true form, her Brother ever at her side.
She was Sororra, and she would see the world burn to ashes.
Her Brother’s hand was around hers. They had been tricked and betrayed—of course they had, the cursed humans couldn’t be trusted. Humans could only be trusted to care about themselves, and damn the world. It was the truth her Parents had never wanted to see, that even the most loyal of their humans were rotten at their very cores. They could never truly love a thing that was not themselves, they would turn their backs when they were needed most, they would break and they would break you—
Fratarro was the only constant, the only loyal creature in all the world. He was screaming in fury and in heartbreak, grieving for his former host and the new one even as he raged against all his hard-won power being torn from him. He had worked so hard, tried so hard, and the humans had taken everything from him.
She was Sororra, and with her Brother at her side, there was nothing they could not do. Together, they would see the world burn to ashes.
Somewhere deep, deep down, there was a wailing. Sororra’s host, still clinging to the shell of her body. Strange. Was this what her Brother had felt, with his last host?
She heard the praying, words to her Parents that stabbed like knives into her ears, and her roving eyes found the priestess robed in their yellow. She knelt before a small fire, a puny thing, as though she thought it would be enough protection. It wouldn’t be. It would only be the first flames to fuel the Twins’ destruction.
There was a man who stood in stark terror near the priestess, his body quaking and his thoughts practically screaming to Sororra. Usually she had to actively listen if she wanted to know a human’s thoughts, but this one might as well have been shouting them aloud. This is wrong and How? and Please please please and I’m so sorry and I promised.
He would be the first. His life would give her power, and it would silence the inane babble of his thoughts. His life would be the first to fuel the second rise of the Twins.
The praying stopped, the priestess falling silent, and Sororra turned back to face her in the same moment the priestess punched one hand into the fire, like jabbing a spear.
All the world went silent.
And from above, from beyond, from a place that only Sororra and Fratarro could hear, two sharp voices reprimanded in unison, “No.”
And the power of the Parents burst forth from the fire. A massive wave of flame that shot toward Sororra and her Brother, growing huge, burning, burning . . .
One breath.
The man’s babbling thoughts: I promised Aro, selfish Aro, coward and fool and so used to being protected. Did Vatri listen? Destroy one . . .
Her Brother’s fingers in hers, a faint tremble beginning. He was screaming, but it did not sound like his voice. It sounded like the scream that reverberated within Sororra, the scream of her host, and both voices melded into a single plea: No. Please.
The fire raced toward them, enormous, powerful, unstoppable.
Sororra reached for her power—she had to try. She had to protect her Brother. It was all and the only thing she had ever needed to do. But there was no power to pull from. All her reserves, painstakingly shored up, had been robbed from her with the death of her last host. She was weak. She was powerless.
A second breath.
The priestess’s scarred face seamed into a smile, grim and triumphant.
The babble again: He knew his sister would give everything for him, and I promised. Destroy one, and you destroy them both. I’m sorry. I promised.
The wave of flame narrowed, sharpened, became an arrow, shooting straight and unerring—
Fratarro squeezed her hand. Her Brother. Her other half. The only loyal creature in all the world. So long as they had each other, there was nothing they could not do. She had always believed that.
A third. The final breath.
He asked me, he was scared and horrified and grieving and resolved and he asked for a promise: “If it comes to it, and you only need to kill one of us . . . please . . .”
Fratarro had begun to turn toward her, his eyes full of fear and of understanding and of acceptance. He still screamed with the voice that was not his own, but beneath it she heard him say, “Sister. I—”
The flames rushed forward in a blazing spear, and the fire pierced through her Brother’s chest without touching Sororra.
The clamor of the world resumed.
The fire burned through her Brother, dissipating into him, dissolving him. Sororra grabbed him as his legs buckled, cursing, sobbing, shouting, the second voice within her echoing her words, but the Parents’ fire glowed beneath his skin, and it ate the light from his eyes. He clutched at her arm with what little strength he had left, and Sororra screamed a scream that shook the world. She was weak, she was powerless; she had not been able to protect her Brother, all and the only thing she had ever needed to do. She had failed him, she had failed him . . .
His fingers fell from her arm. His light faded and was gone, truly gone, burned away by the power of their Parents, who had given him life and denied him the freedom to create.
Sororra fell, still screaming, still clutching the body that had housed her Brother, and it was both voices in her that screamed. She shuddered and wept and the world continued to shake around her, until her voice became only one very mortal voice sobbing.
Destroy one, and you destroy them both.
Rora knelt clutching her brother’s body, and if she had had the power to do it, she would have seen the world burn to ashes.
Above the still and meaningless world, the sun began to make its slow reappearance.