She wanted Wesley to know that it was okay for him not to be okay.
“What did they do to you?” she asked.
“It wasn’t about me,” Wesley said. “It was about her.”
“Zekia?”
“She’s just a scared kid,” he said. “Ashwood is in her head and he has her thinking that this war is the only way she’ll ever be safe. She thinks that she’s protecting me and the rest of our people. I think that she’s afraid of what he might do if she starts to doubt him.”
“You’re wrong,” Tavia said.
She didn’t think Zekia was just a kid, following orders because she was too afraid not to. That kid had tried to kill them on the Kingpin’s isle and then she’d stolen Wesley—the only family Tavia had left—and did Many Gods knew what to him.
She wasn’t a child, she was a monster.
“She’s had it rough,” Wesley said.
“Well, excuse me if I don’t feel sorry for her,” Tavia said. “We’ve all had it rough, but when someone tries to kill the people that I care about, it kind of dampens my sympathy.”
“She wouldn’t have killed me,” Wesley said.
“Just her own sister, then?”
Wesley didn’t seem to have an answer for that, so he sighed instead. “You seemed to be the one who has a problem with Saxony,” he said.
“That’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, then get over it already.”
Tavia narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll take advice on holding grudges from you,” she said.
Gods, how had she forgotten how easily he got under her skin? Wesley could make Tavia mad in a moment and she wondered how in the fire-gates she’d actually missed it.
He was infuriating.
“How was Ashwood?” she asked, trying to distract the part of herself that wanted to argue with him.
Wesley barely mustered a shrug. “Mostly it was just me and Zekia and the shadow demons she got to rough me up when she got tired of me kicking her out of my head.”
His expression was blank and his tone was far too apathetic, like Wesley was talking about it happening to someone else, or like he didn’t care that it had happened to him.
Tavia cared.
She hadn’t seen a shadow demon before, but she’d heard enough stories to know that she never wanted to. They were the worst creatures in the four realms. They were death made visible and so Tavia couldn’t stop herself from grimacing at the mere mention of them.
Wesley saw it—he saw everything, even if he wasn’t looking at her—and so quickly he righted himself, adjusting those cuff links and putting on the smirk she hated.
“I didn’t see Ashwood much,” he said. “He probably thought that it was best to let Zekia wear me down. The lesser of two evils and all that. Plus he was busy destroying our city.”
“Is Creije really ready to fall?” Tavia asked.
Wesley nodded.
The rain soaked down Tavia’s legs.
She couldn’t stomach the thought.
“If we lose our home,” she said. “Then I…”
She trailed off, because she didn’t have an end to that sentence. If Creije was gone, then Tavia didn’t know what she would do.
“We won’t lose it,” Wesley said. “Ashwood might be good at being a murderous dictator, but I’m not so bad at it myself.”
“Trust you to make being a sociopath a competition,” Tavia said. “What if Creije is too far gone to save already? What if we don’t live to bring it back?”
“Skeht, Tavia,” he swore. “Can you try being a little more positive?”
“I’m just saying,” she said. “It’s not like we’re invincible.”
“You’re so morbid,” he scolded. “Trust me, it’s going to be fine. There isn’t a world where I’d ever let anyone hurt you. There isn’t a future that exists where you’re not okay. So drink your damn Cloverye and quit being such a huge downer on my first night.”
Tavia almost laughed, but as she looked at him the sound got caught in her throat. She’d just noticed, suddenly, without reason, how much browner Wesley’s eyes looked in the wake of lightning.
There isn’t a world where I’d ever let anyone hurt you.
Tavia’s breath disappeared somewhere deep in her chest as Wesley kept his gaze locked on hers, his face newly serious.
Wesley’s hand was sitting idly on the ground between them, and Tavia didn’t give herself the time to second-guess before she placed hers overtop.
“I’m so glad that you’re here,” she said.
Only, she didn’t know what to say next. Tavia had thought about the moment when she saw Wesley again, what she’d give to make it happen and what she’d do once it did, but now that he was here she forgot about every scenario she’d thought of.
She forgot everything but how beautiful he looked.
“Tavia,” he said.
Her name was magic on his lips, a spell that pulled her inward.
She wanted to kiss him.
She’d wanted to for years, really, but she’d never dared to let herself think it before. Now, though, after knowing what the world would be like without Wesley by her side, it was all Tavia could think about. She wanted to feel him pressed against her. Feel his smile on her neck. She was hungry for him, like the trees hungered for the rain and the stars hungered for the night.
They had never spoken about the thing that existed between them, as broken and complicated as it had become, and Tavia wasn’t sure what words she could say to put it back together in all the perfect ways.
What if she ruined it somehow?
“I missed you,” Wesley said.
Lightning cracked across the sky.
“Me too,” she said.
Wesley’s hand was warm under hers and he turned it so that their fingers locked together. He squeezed her hand tightly.
“No matter what happens, I’m not going to leave you again,” Wesley said.
Tavia shivered as the rain soaked through to her toes.
She didn’t speak, for fear her voice might not sound like her own. For fear that if she started, she might not be able to control everything that came spilling out.
“Do you know why I love Creije so much?” Wesley asked.
Tavia shook her head. “Good booze?” she guessed, gesturing to the Cloverye.
“Creije is the city that showed me magic and wonder,” he said. “It’s the city that shaped my soul. But most of all, it’s the city that gave me you.”
Tavia’s throat was painfully dry.
“If we don’t die, then you’re going to really regret embarrassing yourself with that speech,” she said.
She laughed nervously, but Wesley’s face didn’t change.
He brought his thumb to her mouth and swiped a raindrop from her lip. “I’ve never regretted any moment with you,” he said.
She hadn’t either, even the bad ones that Tavia had once thought would be so easy to throw away. Now she wanted to cling to each of them.
Wesley didn’t kiss her, but he did keep his hand tangled in hers, and after a few breaths, after they stared at each other for so long that Tavia could see her reflection in his dark eyes, Wesley turned to the ledge and looked back out at the army below.
They sat there like that, in the quiet of the forest, with the wet rain trailing down their legs and the bottle sitting between them, and their hands tied together. Neither of them spoke again and neither of them needed to. Tavia hadn’t known what the right words to say were, but Wesley always did, and he’d said them when she wasn’t brave enough to.
For the first time, Tavia felt like things would be okay.
She felt like the world wasn’t ending after all.
16
ZEKIA
Zekia was very good at being invisible.
She was also very good at being alone, even in rooms of people. Even when those rooms and those people were in her own mind.
Wesley was gone, again.
He h
ad left her with Ashwood, again.
And this time, he had hated her enough to drill into her mind while doing it.
He’d left holes there, where she was sure there wasn’t space left to leave any more, and now Zekia felt the shiver of emptiness in her bones. He didn’t understand that none of this was a choice.
She’d tried to tell him about the future and how it would be worth it in the end. Every death and every bad thing would make way for the light, because Zekia was saving the world.
She was saving everyone.
She was good.
And once they were done in Creije and Tisvgen, they could travel to Rishiya and begin the next phase. That was where the resistance was, waiting to be liberated to Ashwood’s new realm.
Where Zekia’s Kin was.
Where her family was.
Where Wesley was probably waiting for her to save him again.
He doesn’t want to be saved, her mind chided. Not by you.
Zekia tried to push her thoughts aside, but they were stronger than her. Probably because there was hardly anything left of her anymore. No family. No Wesley. Even her visions had turned against her, only ever feeling like nails in her skull when they came.
Without her Kin to help steady her powers, what should have come to Zekia as wisdom was now always an army of futures that seemed like they were attacking her, fighting for space in her head, and they wouldn’t stop until Zekia had disappeared and all that was left was a shell, filled with their wicked deaths.
Even having Ashwood’s Crafters by her side didn’t help. Zekia needed her Kin. She needed a blood connection to settle her spirit.
It had been worse since Wesley left. Zekia felt more unbalanced than ever. Visions were a funny thing. They were never certain, almost always perilous, and they sent Zekia into a tailspin that made her forget who she was and why she was.
This one was no different.
Or it was different, because it was worse. Because it was the first one in so long that was clear.
Zekia dropped to the floor as the images flashed in her mind.
Her mother was a goddess.
She had bronzed eyes and freckles that sparkled like glitter in the sun. Her hair was a bundle of tight curls, just short enough to touch the very tips of her ears and though she wore a dress the same deep and galactic purple as the Loj—though her smile was warm and her eyes were kind, and the staves against her black skin looked like pretty pictures—she was a fighter.
Zekia could tell just by looking at her. She wasn’t sure how or what it was exactly, but a part of Vea Akintola looked ready for war.
She’d grown up on stories of her mother, and even a few scattered photos, but those did no justice, and stories were often prone to lies. People liked to remember the dead the way they weren’t. They liked to take the best parts of them and pretend that was all there was.
Zekia had grown up being told that her mother was perfect and she’d grown up knowing it wasn’t true. Now, seeing her as clear as a shadow moon, Zekia could understand how the lies got mixed with the truth.
Her mother was not perfect, but she was glorious.
She carried a child in her arms who Zekia knew was her brother, though she’d rarely heard about Malik besides what a great leader he was destined to be. All the stories about her brother were about what he could have been, or should have been, but rarely what he was.
Malik was supposed to save them.
Malik was supposed to be Liege.
Malik was supposed to change the world.
And instead they got stuck with her.
Zekia’s brother was tiny and that struck her as odd, since he would have been older than her if he were still alive. But now she was looking at him, a baby, and she was suddenly the older sibling. It felt like an enormous responsibility, even if it was to a dead boy.
Vea carried Malik into a small shed.
Zekia watched.
Vea held him up in the air and sobbed.
Zekia watched.
Amja drew strange symbols on the floor, her hands shaking the entire time.
Zekia watched.
And then Malik cried and the shed was engulfed in black flame and everyone screamed and the forest withered and all the while Zekia watched.
She wanted to look away, or even blink. But you couldn’t blink if the thing in front of you was actually inside of your mind.
You could only watch.
Only listen.
Only wish that it would stop.
The flames seemed endless and Zekia wasn’t sure how long she would have to stare as her mother and brother died, but soon minutes passed and the black smoke faded, as did the forest, and from it Wesley Thornton Walcott appeared.
A phoenix from the ashes.
The smoke morphed into his face and he was standing in front of her, with his bone gun pointed at Dante Ashwood, while a song chanted in the distance.
Time will be carried in strange hands
across the realms and through stranger lands.
What is done will be undone,
a battle lost is a battle won.
When midnight rings on a child’s betrayal,
every success is doomed to fail.
It repeated over and over until Zekia started mumbling the words to herself, humming the tune like she had known it her whole life. It played for so long that when it finally stopped, abruptly and without warning, Zekia kept singing, thinking that it might start up again.
But it didn’t.
And Wesley still stood there, pointing his gun, like he was frozen in time. A clock chimed somewhere and only then did Wesley blink, as though it had sprung him back to life.
Dante Ashwood, made of magic and the kind of dreams you remembered vividly one moment and forgot the next, smiled.
“My boy,” he said.
“Not anymore,” Wesley said.
He fired the shot and Ashwood exploded into a flurry of shadows that flew away like bats. They screeched and screeched as they fled toward the shadow moon.
And the sun burst through.
The darkness faded and the light broke and all around Wesley, silver soaked the streets.
Magic dust. Staves inked on the stone under people’s feet. Painted on buildings and thrown between jugglers like balls, while a crowd clapped and laughed and sang.
A world of magic.
A world of peace.
Zekia let out a breath like it was her first as the vision faded and she was plunged back into the real world.
She gasped in the air and clutched at her throat, the blood from her nose dripping down to her chin.
She wiped it away with shaking hands.
Her demon nudged at her legs, but Zekia could not move to calm the beast, nor reach into its mind to tell it to just go away.
It didn’t make sense.
Wesley—her Wesley—destroying the man who was meant to make the world better, and creating something even more glorious in its place.
Zekia pressed a hand to her head to try and stamp out the future, but it still sang in her mind like a song she’d never forget the tune to. Like the ghostly vision that Ashwood had shown her, only for some reason Zekia felt this one in her heart and in her spirit.
It soothed her, and that was the most confusing part of all.
When Dante Ashwood walked through the door to her room, Zekia pulled herself to her feet and quickly brushed off her dress. It had dust marks from the floor and it wasn’t quite white anymore and she didn’t want him to be angry about that.
“What is it, my little warrior?” he asked.
He crossed the room and reached out a hand to her bloody face.
“Was it a vision?” he asked. “What did you see?”
Zekia pushed the possibility of a new future out of her mind, where he couldn’t find it.
“I didn’t see anything new,” she said. “More of that scary world we have to stop.” She looked up at him. “We will stop it, won’t we?”
&nb
sp; Dante Ashwood nodded and kept his hand on her face, stroking her cheek like she was his favorite thing.
“Of course we will,” he said. “Together, we will change everything. But first, we must talk about your family.”
Zekia stared at the dirt on the edges of her dress.
The walls of her mind were closing in again and if she didn’t concentrate hard enough, then she knew she’d forget what she had just seen. She knew she’d forget everything that mattered.
Zekia was so tired of forgetting.
She was tired of her mind being such a lonely place.
She smiled up at Dante Ashwood and, in the perilous corners of her mind—where she kept the memories of Saxony and Amja and her father, where she kept the hearts of her Kin and the fragile pieces of her childhood she couldn’t quite let go—Zekia called out to Wesley.
Please, she said. Please don’t leave me here again.
17
KARAM
Karam fell onto the sand.
It only hurt for a moment—less than a moment—and it was not the kind of pain that mattered. It was like banging her knee on a table, or stepping on something sharp.
Quick, dull, and then gone.
When the bullet went through her chest, Karam didn’t feel much at all. Just the sand, wet on her face.
Still, her only thought was this: I’m going to die. I think I’m really going to die. And she had the idea that she should say something, her final words, but she couldn’t think of anything to say and when she tried to move her jaw to speak, all that came was breath.
“If magic won’t kill you, then maybe this will,” the Crafter said, stepping closer to her.
Karam tried to move to kick his legs out from under him, or charge at him, or do something, but her body felt so heavy. The world felt heavy and the more Karam tried to keep her eyes open, the more everything blurred.
She wiggled her toes, to check that she could still do that at least. Then she thought about praying to the Indescribable God, but all she wanted to do was curse it.
She hadn’t done everything she’d wanted to yet, had she?
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