The skryr lay still as the world outside their window burned. Cassi had hardly left the room in two weeks, except to scavenge food from the tavern downstairs. He’d nearly reached the end of the diary—and she’d been right. It was important. The author was the prophetess herself, and her memories told the story of the end of everything, or maybe the beginning, depending on how one looked at it.
Come on. Come on.
Cassi’s knee bounced, making the floor squeak, as she stared at the skryr’s impassive expression. Bronze magic glittered around his fingertips and simmered in the air above his body. There was no telling how soon he’d wake. Sometimes he spent a few hours deep in his power. Sometimes it was only minutes. This time, he’d been asleep for nearly a day. They’d eaten a quick lunch together the afternoon before as he described the chaos of the dragons flooding through the rift, the mages scattering, and the avians hiding; all while the prophetess and the riftmaker shuffled the eggs around, trying to avoid detection. They’d shared one final night together before she bid farewell to her sanity and let her chrono’kine magic consume her.
And that was the last Cassi had heard.
As soon as the skryr had finished eating, he’d reached for the diary, ready to uncover its end. There was only a single entry left, not overly long and hastily scribbled, the writing messier and heavy handed. Foolishly, she’d thought it wouldn’t take long. But the man had been deep in his power for hours, and the memories stored within those final pages must have been vast indeed, because he showed no signs of waking anytime soon.
Oh, come on!
Cassi flicked her gaze to the window again. Fire danced across the rooftops of Da’Kin. A roar split the sky, rattling the glasses on the bedside table. The room bounced, the building unsteady as the tides below shifted unnaturally, a rising and falling that could only be caused by magic. A battle was clearly taking place outside the inn. It was against her nature to sit and hide, to do nothing, but this final diary entry held the key to everything. Cassi didn’t know how she knew—instinct, a gut feeling, sheer hope—but she did.
Still, the wait was killing her.
She twiddled her thumbs. She counted the floorboards running parallel across the room. She traced the cracks in the plaster walls. She closed her eyes, trying to recall the lullaby her mother used to sing, something about foggy seas and the soft whipping of sails as the magic guided her home. Just when she was about to give in and slip into her spirit body to figure out what exactly was going on outside, aethi’kine power lit the skies.
Cassi jumped to her feet and ran to the window.
Golden sparks stood bright against the fog, dazzling as they rushed in steady streams toward the dragons torching the city. The magic wrapped around the beasts and they froze, moving nothing but their wings as they hovered in midair. The shadow creature emerged from the tallest spire of the castle, surrounded in a metallic glow. Its ebony wings pushed slowly through the haze, as if facing strong winds. Two more creatures rose from the rooftops, also fighting against the magic.
No.
No.
No.
Cassi threw open the glass and leaned her head out, trying to taste the spirit in the air. A breeze ruffled her hair, carrying the scent closer.
Malek, she realized. It’s Malek.
Relief washed through her, followed by something she’d never expected—grief. It cut sharp and deep, stealing the breath from her lungs as she pictured him alone in that tower, his flesh burning, his body dropping, his power flooding out to the world in one final act of stubborn control. The man had tortured and abused her. He’d been her greatest dream and her worst nightmare, her first love and her fiercest rival, her dearest friend and her diabolical king. And now he was dying. Cassi didn’t know where Lyana had gone, or what had happened to Rafe, or why Malek had chosen this fate, but she knew enough to understand that the dragons were killing him, and, for the world, he was letting them.
“I have to go.”
The words spilled out before she could stop them. Unlike in the world above, where each window was crafted for access, the one in this inn was too small for her body, let alone her wings, to squeeze through. Heart thumping, she spun, the world blurring as her thoughts rushed too fast to process. The skryr lay still on the bed, his bronze magic flowing. The fate of the world might very well rest on his remaining alive, but she couldn’t sit in this room any longer. Not when Malek—not when he—
Cassi scrawled a hasty note explaining she’d be back, in case he woke before her return, and then she took the stairs two at a time. Distantly, she recognized that if the dragons were trying to chase Lyana across the skies, the danger was over for Da’Kin. As soon as that golden power winked out, they’d be gone. Still, she grabbed the innkeeper by the collar on her way out.
“If you let anything happen to the man in my room upstairs, I’ll end you. I’m one of the king’s dormi’kines, and now that I know the scent of your soul, there’s nowhere in all the skies or the seas where I wouldn’t find you. No one goes into his room. No one comes out. Deliver his meals to the door and keep your mouth shut. I’ll be back.”
She ran.
Emerging from the cramped first-floor tavern, Cassi spread her wings and took to the sky, no longer worried who might see. Her singular focus was on getting to that tower before—before—
Just before.
As she flew across the city, the aethi’kine power on the wind faltered. The golden beams flickered. The dragons and creatures roared, fighting against its hold. Just as she crossed over the castle wall, it faded entirely. In a blink, the beasts disappeared into the mist.
No!
Cassi swept into Malek’s study, her heart fortified against what she’d find inside, but nothing could have prepared her for this. He lay crumpled on the floor, unrecognizable. His fingers had melted down to the bone. Boils covered his neck. His exposed flesh was raw and running like hot wax. A dusting of blond hair surrounded him, the tendrils rising into the air as her feathers caused a draft. His scalp was bloody and bald. He shivered, his body in pure shock.
Her breath hitched. She froze, unsure whether to run to him or turn away. He’d always loomed like some sort of invincible god in the back of her thoughts, but now, at the end, she realized he was just as human as the rest of them.
“Malek?”
He flinched on the floor.
Cassi broke and dashed across the room before falling to her knees beside him. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for Lyana’s healing touch, to ease his pain if nothing else. As it was, she hovered her hands above his broken body, unsure if touching him would help or hurt.
“Malek, I’m here,” she whispered. “You’re not alone.”
“R— R— R—”
“It’s okay,” she soothed. “You don’t have to say anything. You don’t—”
“Rafe,” he wheezed, the name more breath than voice, but she heard.
“Rafe? What about Rafe? Did he leave with Lyana? Where’d they go?”
“B— B— Bring…”
Footsteps sounded behind her. Cassi glanced over her shoulder, finding Jacinta in the doorway with wide eyes, horror written across her normally severe features. Tears already streamed down her cheeks, but the flow strengthened at the sight of her king, as though this were the confirmation she’d been dreading.
“Is Rafe here?” Cassi asked, but Jacinta showed no signs of hearing as she stared unblinkingly at Malek. Cassi tried again, more loudly. “Jacinta! Is Rafe here?”
“What? Rafe?”
“He just told me to bring Rafe. Is he here? In Da’Kin? I thought Lyana must have left. Why isn’t he with her?”
“I don’t—” The metal mage broke off, shaking her head. “I’m not—”
“Listen to me,” Cassi interrupted, unused to seeing the woman so helpless. But Malek had been her world, her entire belief system, and now he was moments from his end. “There isn’t much time. I know you loved the king and I know you believed in him, so snap out of it and heed his final wishes. Rafe is close. He’s got to be. Find him and bring him here immediately. Go!”
The mage took off running.
Cassi turned back to Malek and watched him tremble on the rug, still not sure if she should touch him—or if she could. After everything he’d done to her, she thought she’d be cheering when he finally found his demise. She thought she would ache to deliver the last blow. She thought she’d feel free. Instead, the burden sat heavy at the back of her throat, a tight knot robbing her of her voice as a burning sensation needled at her eyes. Looking at him now, she didn’t see the king who’d coldly stolen her sky, who’d commanded her to murder and lie, who’d whispered in her ear as he forced his mages to torture her awake. She saw the boy who’d run with her through fields of wildflowers under a purple sky, who’d drawn rainbows across her dreams and made it rain candy, who’d held her hand on the grass while they studied sugar-spun clouds and shared secrets no one else would understand—about their parents, their fears, and the world they would build together.
His hand found hers and clutched it with surprising strength. She tried to ignore how hot his skin felt, how it squelched when they touched, and the blood that ran down her fingers.
“R— R—”
“Jacinta will find him,” Cassi said. “They’ll bring him.”
“No,” he said with sudden clarity, his throat raspy and his breath short, but his voice somehow carrying strength. “King.”
“King?”
“Rafe. King,” he repeated, more adamant.
Cassi exhaled softly, the realization somehow making her heart hurt for him more. No one, not even Malek, deserved to find his entire life a lie right at its very end. “Rafe is the king. He’s the King Born in Fire.”
“He. Lyana. Sphaira.”
The words were broken and cracked, but she understood. “He needs to go after Lyana. She went to Sphaira.”
He nodded, coughing as his body convulsed. “I—tried—”
“You did, Malek,” she urged, squeezing his fingers even if it caused him pain, because he had to understand. In the end, when it mattered most, he’d given up everything to save the world. “You held them. She got away. And Rafe will be here any moment. I’ll tell him what you said. He’ll protect her. He’ll keep her safe. And because of you, they’ll see the prophecy through.”
His hand went limp in her lap. The edges of his burned lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. When he opened his eyes to look at her, they were the same as she remembered, as tumultuous and deep as the sea, a vast pool she could lose herself within. But there was a difference too. They were open and honest, too aged to belong to the boy of her youth, more like a glance of the man she’d always hoped he might become.
“You,” he said, his voice losing vigor as his body grew slack. “Dreams. F— F—”
Your dreams have always been my favorites.
It wasn’t an apology, but she’d never expected one from him. In truth, she wouldn’t have believed it if he’d offered one. He wasn’t sorry. As long as the world was safe, even at his end, he would never be sorry for the things he’d done or the people he’d hurt. So maybe he didn’t deserve what she was about to do, or maybe he did, she wasn’t sure, but she knew she’d always regret it if she remained silent. Whether she felt this way or not, she hoped one day she would, and by then, it would be too late to tell him.
“I forgive you,” Cassi murmured, keeping hold of his hand as she said the words she so longed to hear from everyone she’d ever wronged, all the friends and lovers and even enemies she prayed would someday understand why she’d done the things she’d done—that, whether right or wrong, her actions had all been in the name of saving the world, same as her king’s. “I forgive you, Malek. For everything.”
He tensed and then relaxed against the floor.
Voices carried down the hall, then the heavy shuffling of boots. A group of mages stomped into the room, moving as one while flames simmered between them. It took a moment for her to recognize the body draped over their arms and the leathery wing dragging across the floor. Isaak stood at the front, drawing Rafe’s fire into his arms to keep it from burning the others.
“We found him unconscious on the rocks,” the fire mage hastened to explain. “We don’t know how or why—”
“Drop him here, now,” Cassi ordered, indicating the spot next to Malek. The king had known Rafe was injured. He’d known Rafe had fallen. And he’d held on with everything he had so, with these last few breaths, he could save him.
Cassi took Malek’s lifeless arm and placed it on Rafe’s chest.
For a moment, nothing happened.
She feared they’d been too late.
Then a golden wave burst from his palm and enveloped Rafe. The air prickled with the power, nearly pushing Cassi over with the force. The magic was as ferocious as it was brief, disappearing in a blink. Malek’s arm slid to the floor. His head lolled to the side. Next to him, Rafe jolted awake and jumped to his feet.
“Lyana!”
“She’s gone,” Cassi said, then swallowed the knot in her throat as she rushed to stand. “She went to Sphaira. I don’t know why, and the creatures went after her. Malek bought her some time, but I’m not sure how much. You have to go, Rafe. Now. You’re the King Born in Fire and she needs you.”
“I—” He broke off, his gaze dropping to the body at his feet, then shifting to the window before settling back on Cassi. A pained expression pulled at his features. “Xander’s in trouble. He was in the House of Wisdom when it fell, and I’m not sure if Lyana was able to settle the isle in time. Please, Cassi, go to him. Make sure he’s all right. Do this for me, and everything between us will be even. Save him, and nothing else matters.”
“I will.”
Without another word, Rafe took off. A heavy silence followed his departure, the mages at her back and the king at her feet now looming in the quiet. Cassi turned, meeting the eyes of Malek’s closest advisors. Jacinta. Isaak. Nyomi. Kal. Viktor. The people she had spent most of her life studying, envying, sometimes hating, because they got to see him in the light. To them, she was little more than a name he sometimes spoke, just another dormi’kine, one of many, yet they watched her expectantly now, as though she might hold the answers.
She didn’t, not even close.
But she did have a lifetime’s worth of knowledge of pretending.
“The king is dead,” she told them, not harshly but honestly, because it was the sort of thing one needed to hear to believe. “And with his dying breaths, he proclaimed Rafe the King Born in Fire. The world might end tomorrow for all I know, but until it does, we need to do everything we can to continue the fight. There’s no time to mourn. He wouldn’t want that. Instead, go out into the city and do what you can to help. Rebuild. Regroup. Send a team to the Salty Clam Inn. The skryr is in a room on the top floor, at the end of the hall on your left. Protect him at all costs, and make sure he doesn’t try to run. As soon as I get back, I need to speak with him.”
“Where are you going?” Nyomi asked, stepping forward.
“To keep my promise,” she said, already arching for the sky. Xander’s name whispered through her thoughts, louder and louder with each passing second. He was in danger, and she would go to him. Not for Rafe, but for herself. “There’s a raven out there who needs me.”