“Thousands,” Zell cut in. “Plural. Thousands.”
I stared at the crystal in my hand and felt sick to my stomach. It was so beautiful, so bright and delicate, it was impossible to think that it’d be capable of something so terrible. And even if we all agreed to it, I’d still be the one doing it, the one making the ultimate call. I’d be the one with the blood on my hands. It’s not like I’d just be able to target the bad. Men, women, children, innocent and guilty alike, all dying that horrible death because of me. How would I live with myself afterward? Would I fall asleep every night thinking about them? Or would I harden, convince myself it was for the greater good, refuse to look back on what I’d done?
“It doesn’t matter now,” my father said, jerking me, us, out of that. “The first thing we have to do is take back the throne. Everything else we can decide after that.”
Ellarion nodded, and Lyriana did too, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Maybe it was a cop-out. But I’d take not having to weigh the decision for every second I could. I closed my palm, and the crystal vanished as if it had never been there, as if the power to kill the population of a city wasn’t residing inside me.
I’d started tracking my kills as a way to keep the war in perspective, to remind myself of the cost of what I’d done. It kept me grounded. It kept me whole.
What would I do when the number was too high to count?
ONCE THE NOVELTY OF FLYING through the sky wore off, the Skywhale turned out to be pretty damn boring.
The navigator estimated it would take us a day and a half to get back, and while that had seemed impossibly short at the outset, after our fifth hour or so in the air it felt excruciatingly long. I paced restlessly around the ship. I polished off the last of the wine. I watched through the portholes as the Hands worked, alternating shifts in the wings, and tried not to think about the fact that the will of six men was all that was keeping us in the air.
Night fell around the time we were leaving the Red Wastes, crossing over into the Southlands. The others seemed to have found ways to occupy themselves: My father was still on the bridge, manning the controls, even though the ship seemed to mostly be flying itself. Ellarion was busy with the navigator, grilling him on the details of the ship, trying to figure out just how much power its cannons packed. And Zell was napping down in the soldiers’ bunks, because he had the supernatural ability to fall asleep if he needed rest no matter how anxious he was.
So I wandered instead to the viewing deck. This was simultaneously the best and scariest part of the ship, a rounded balcony jutting off the captain’s quarters where you could sit and look down at the world below. The view was incredible, way better than looking out the windows: you could stare directly down at the landscape, feel the rush of wind in your face, marvel at how high we were. You could also fall over the waist-high railing and plummet to your horrific death, but no one but me seemed to care about that.
I’d thought it’d be empty, but as I approached the metal door I could see through the porthole there was already someone there. Syan. She was right up against the railing, staring down at the inconceivably high drop, her back turned to me. I started to turn to head back inside, but there was something off about her, something in the way she was slumped against the railing, that made me hesitant to abandon her. She’d been through a lot in the past few days, more than any of us; I might’ve become the vessel for the power of an ancient terrible being, but that was still probably easier than the confrontation she’d had with her mother.
So I slid open that door and stepped outside, onto the slick metal surface of the deck. Syan didn’t even look up.
“Hey,” I said, walking over to her. It was a perfect night out. Above, the sky was clear, the stars sparkling like diamonds, the moon a perfect white disc. I wasn’t going to go all the way to the balcony’s edge because, uh, no, but I went out enough that I could look over and see the world below. The desert of the Southlands sprawled before us, but in the moonlight it looked more like a dark sea, the dunes glistening like frozen waves.
“Tilla.” Syan turned back to me. “I’m sorry. Do you want the balcony?”
“Naw. It’s fine. I just wanted to talk. You okay?” I asked, though honestly, the answer was pretty clear in how awful she looked. Her hair was messy, hanging in tangles around her shoulder, and her orange eyes were puffy and weary.
“Not really,” she said. “Take care not to step on the zaryas.” She nodded her head down, toward the floor by her bare feet, and yep, sure enough, there they were, two smooth stone orbs lined with bands of slick sharp metal. “I found them in the jail cells, locked away in a chest with other weapons. They were my brother’s.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good. I mean, not good, but, good that you found them, and, uh…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Syan said, mercifully cutting me off. “I came out here to attune to them, and then…” She trailed off, clutching the railing tight and gazing off to the south, to the sprawl we were flying away from. On the horizon I could just barely see the edge of the Red Wastes, a thin line of darkest crimson.
“And then?”
She breathed deep. In the darkness, the streaks in her hair were brighter than ever, burning like cold flames that gave off a gentle halo of glowing blue. “I am never going home again,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “No matter what happens, this is it. This is the last time I’ll ever see it.”
“You don’t know that…” I tried.
“I do,” she replied. “I will never see my family again. I will never walk the streets of Benn Devalos or bathe in the Crystal Spring or watch the sun rise over the red sands.” A single tear streaked down her cheek like a raindrop. “Even if we take the throne back. Even if we prevent Zastroya. I will never be permitted to return.”
“I’m sorry, Syan.” I wanted to hug her, but wasn’t sure if that would be okay. “I had to flee my home too, you know.”
She turned back to me. “What was it like? Your home?”
“Beautiful. Nothing like this, of course. It was a forest, a real forest, not like that piddly crap you see in the Heartlands. There were redwood trees that reached all the way up into the sky, and foggy hills littered with the ruins of ancient stone castles, and blacksand beaches that looked out onto the Endless Ocean. And if you came out at night and looked to the sky in the West, you’d see these bands dancing there, green and blue, like ribbons in the stars. The Coastal Lights.” Was I crying too? Yeah. Apparently, I was. “There’s nothing in the whole world like it.”
“You miss it.”
I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Every day. But life goes on. I promise you, it goes on.”
“I hope so,” she replied, even though it was clear she didn’t believe it. There was so much pain in her eyes, so many layers of hurt and loss and shame. “I am sorry I lied to you, Tilla. To all of you. I never thought it would go like this. I never thought I would be so wrong.”
“It’s fine,” I said. Objectively, I probably should have been angrier, but after everything we’d been through, it was impossible to hold a grudge. “You did what you thought you had to. And it worked out, right? We captured Miles and got the Skywhale and…” I thought of the other thing we’d gotten, the power burning in me, that horrible looming decision. I decided to move on. “If we’d stayed back in the Heartland, we probably would’ve just gotten captured. This is the best outcome, you know?”
“It is not just about the outcome. It’s about what I believed! It’s about…about…” Syan said sharply. “I believed my dreams came from the Nightmother because she needed me to prevent Zastroya. I believed I’d been chosen. I believed I was special.” Her zaryas twitched on the floor by her feet. “But it was all a lie. The Nightmother did not care about us. There is no Sunfather looking over my people. Those creatures, those ‘Titans,’ they made this world into what it is now, and they looked at us like lowly beasts.” The Skywhale dipped, sending a gust of wind billowing through her
hair. “It’s a lie. All of it. Everything I ever believed is a lie!”
“You’re not the only one,” a voice said from behind us. Lyriana. She stepped out onto the balcony and walked past me, over to Syan by the railing. “Trust me. I know exactly how you feel.”
“You do?” Syan asked.
“Of course,” Lyriana replied, like how could anyone think otherwise? “I grew up in the faith of the Titans, Syan. I dedicated my life to their service. I prayed to them in times of need. I sacrificed so much to try to live in their image. And even after everything that happened, after the fall of my Kingdom and the deaths of my family and the horrible things we saw in the crypt, I still believed. With every fiber of my being, I believed.” She gazed out at the landscape below. “My whole life was built on a lie.”
Syan turned to look at her, taking it all in. She seemed to soften, just a little. “How are you able to deal with it?”
“I have no idea,” Lyriana replied. “Honestly, it takes everything I have not to just collapse screaming. There’s so much going on inside me. I feel shame and confusion and anger, so much anger.”
“And pain,” Syan added.
“And pain,” Lyriana repeated. “A pain deeper than I thought was possible. I’ve felt loss and heartbreak, but this…this is beyond that. It’s a pain in my soul.”
“What do we do now?” Syan asked. “How do we get past this? How do we know what to do?”
Lyriana was silent for a while, staring out at the night. There was something different in her expression, something I’d never seen before. Even in a tattered tunic, her hair dirty, her body bruised, she looked indomitable, majestic. Somehow in that moment, on the balcony of the Skywhale, her golden eyes blazing in the night, she looked more like a Queen than ever. “We have to do it ourselves,” she said at last. “We can’t rely on the past. We can’t turn to our parents. We can’t follow a path laid out for us by those that came before. It’s up to us to find the way forward. We’re the trailblazers now.”
Syan leaned toward her, hesitant, almost trembling. “We’ll be alone.”
And Lyriana turned to her and smiled. “No. We’ll have each other,” she said, and then she leaned forward and kissed Syan.
For one moment, Syan was surprised, her eyes wide, and then she leaned into it, kissing Lyriana back, slow, tender, the kind of kiss that made you desperately want someone to kiss you that way. The air around them pulsed and crackled, literal sparks of magic whirling all around. I let out a little gasp as the current shot through me, as Syan’s hair pulsed the most vivid beautiful sapphire blue, as the light around them dimmed and the whole world burned like it was on fire. They were together for a second, and then pulled apart, staring into each other’s eyes.
“You…I…I don’t…” Syan stammered.
“The last time I really liked someone, I didn’t kiss them until it was too late,” Lyriana said. “I’m not making that mistake twice.”
Syan stared at her and then smiled and leaned in, kissing her a second time, long and deep. I had a lot of follow-up questions for Lyriana, like, for starters, what? But I knew they’d wait, because this was one hell of a moment and I wasn’t going to stop that. The two kissed for one wonderful perfect endless moment, and then finally pulled apart.
“Now I know we have to survive,” Syan said at last.
“Why’s that?” Lyriana asked.
“Because I can’t die without doing that again.” Syan grinned and wrapped her arms around Lyriana, pulling her close. I could barely believe what was happening, but I was also grinning ear-to-ear, the grin you have from seeing something realized that you didn’t even know you wanted. They were so cute it made me want to cry.
As badly as I wanted to stay and get all the details, this was very much their moment now, so I stepped back into the stillness of the Skywhale and made my way back down to the soldiers’ quarters. Zell was there, on his side on one of the bunks, his eyes shut, his breath slow and gentle. I was really tempted to wake him and tell him all about, uh, that, but he looked so peaceful when he slept, so serene. Looking at him, you could believe he was just the gentle boy who held me in his arms, the boy who kissed my neck and whispered in my ear, not a hardened warrior whose kill count was probably in the triple digits. What would he do if the crystal was his? Would he hesitate?
It wasn’t worth thinking about. I lay down on the bed beside him and wrapped one of his arms around me, pressing my whole body against his and sinking into his warmth. He stirred just the tiniest bit, and even in his sleep he held me close and buried his face into my hair.
“I love you,” I whispered, and kissed the soft skin of his arm. I didn’t know what the future held. I didn’t know how we’d go from here, or what decisions I’d make, or who I’d have to become. I didn’t know how many more moments I’d have like this.
So I savored this one for as long as I could.
I MUST HAVE NODDED OFF, because my next memory was being gently shaken awake by Zell. “Hey. Tilla. We’re almost there.”
With a groan, I forced my eyes open. The bunk wasn’t much, just a hard slab with a thin mattress, but it sure beat a bedroll on the sand; I could’ve happily slept there for another, I don’t know, ten hours. Still, I blinked and pulled myself off the bed with a bare minimum of grumbling, following Zell up to the captain’s quarters.
It was midafternoon, I think, sunlight streaming in through the Skywhale’s windows and the blue sky visible outside. The others were there: Ellarion and my father gazing down at the land below, and Syan and Lyriana standing side by side, not quite holding hands but almost, their fingertips just centimeters apart. Lyriana glanced over her shoulder at me with a sheepish smile, and I have never ever wanted to gossip more.
“We’re about two hours away from Lightspire,” the navigator announced stiffly. “The encampment of the Southlander army should be nearby.”
“No kidding,” Ellarion said. I made my way to a window and looked down, and now I could finally see what they were all staring at. We were in the Heartlands, all right, sprawling plains and golden wheat fields as far as the eye could see. The Adelphus River surged below us, a massive blue serpent winding its way through the continent. And I could make out villages too, as tiny as children’s toys, little houses and castles that looked like I could reach out and pick them up.
But we weren’t looking at the fields or the river or the villages. No, all our eyes were on the long stretch of darkness cutting its way across the landscape like a scar, a stretch of trampled land and smoldering ash, littered with little black husks that I’m pretty sure were the remains of houses. It was like the battlefield we’d passed through but longer, an unbroken line, like someone had run over the continent with a gigantic plow.
The Southlands army had marched through here. And they’d left nothing standing in their wake.
“There, look! Lightspire!” Lyriana said, craning her head at one of the windows. I did the same and now I could almost see it too, on the horizon: a wide blurry shape that I think was the city’s walls, a glowing emerald tower that had to be the Godsblade. And all around it were tendrils of smoke stretching into the sky, hundreds of them, like an infestation. The city was burning. The siege had already begun.
“Now, this is the tricky part,” Ellarion said, his brow furrowed deep. “We’ll want to land near the rear of the Southlands army, with enough distance that we can safely touch down and exit the ship. They’ll definitely assume we’re hostile, so the most important thing is making sure they know we’re on their side….”
I stepped back, because I was still too groggy to dive into the details of planning anything. I hadn’t planned to sleep so long, so my brain still expected hours more time on the Skywhale to eat and relax and get ready. Things were moving too fast. I wanted more time up here, more time at peace with my friends, more time before the next battle or confrontation or awful decision.
“You ready?” Zell said.
“Yeah,” I lied. Relaxing an
d resting I could get later. But there was one last thing I had to do now.
I slipped away while the others strategized, pocketing an iron key off the table, and made my way to the back of the ship and down that spiral staircase into its underbelly. I was back down in the jail, that cold room with the three heavy doors, lit up only by the yellow light of a Luminae. I swallowed deep, tried to calm the unease in my stomach, and approached Miles’s door.
I knew this was probably a bad idea, okay? I knew nothing good would come of it. But I had to try. Once we landed, we’d hand Miles over, and I probably wouldn’t see him again until he was swinging from a gallows or being mounted on a pike. I wouldn’t shed any tears for him. But for my own peace of mind, for my own sense of closure, I had to talk to him one last time. I had to tell him how I felt, to make him really know what he’d done. I had to have that.
So I pulled open the door and there he was, slumped on the floor, wrists bound together with a thick iron chain. He craned his head up at me, and he looked even worse than before. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent, his eyes sunk deep into his skull, his lips cracked and swollen. His hair hung greasily along his face, and his hands were trembling, just a little. Still when he saw me, he couldn’t help but smile. “Tilla,” he said. “You came to see me.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “We’ll probably never talk again, so…yeah.”
“I take it I won’t be the one negotiating a surrender. Smart. I wouldn’t have let me do it, either.” He leaned back, nodding, oddly resigned to his fate. “So what’s the plan? Hand me over to the Southlanders?”
“I’m not going to tell you our plan,” I growled, even though he’d pretty much already guessed it. “That’s not why I came here.”
“No. You came to say good-bye,” Miles said. And the weird thing is, he was kind of right? I mean, for everything that had happened, for everything that he’d done, for how much I hated him…he was still the boy I’d grown up with, one of my first friends, someone who knew me on a level that almost no one else did. I had to say good-bye to that part.
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