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“I shouldn’t tell you this, since you seem blissfully unaware of the power you hold over me, but… I will give you whatever you want, Saeris Fane. Always. No matter what it costs me.”
In an estate full of valuables and riches, it was the books they were saving.
It had been Belikon’s first priority when he’d assumed the throne of the Winter Palace to seek out and destroy anything that might threaten his reign. For as evil as he was, he was also smart. He knew that, to control his people, he had to control the information they had access to. Hide the truth from people, and you kept them in the dark. Burn the books, and you got to rewrite history and the future.
Zovena was gone, then. And Tal had bolted into the fray as well.
“Fisher didn’t make it through the shadow gate.”
There’s no sign of Ren or Kingfisher now. It’s not as if they’re just very far away, either. I’d still get some kind of reading if that were the case, but there’s nothing.”
“Which means Madra has found another way to travel between this realm and Zilvaren,” Carrion said.
“‘You cannot eradicate magic from a city. Once it takes root within a community, it never leaves. It will find a way to thrive, one way or another. You just didn’t care to look for it.’”
‘The strongest magic is circular. Like a wheel. It is the symbol of forever, the beginning and the end of everything. It carries magic on a loop, amplifying it, giving it strength.’”
“Zilvaren,” I said breathlessly. “The city, fashioned after the shape of a wheel. The walls form the wards, but they aren’t spokes. The whole thing…” My head was spinning. “It’s a sigil. This entire time, Madra has been using the city itself to siphon the magic of its inhabitants. Zilvaren is the biggest piece of spellwork ever created.”
“If we wanted to create a ward against her magic, could it be done?”
“You’re talking about warding a realm. That kind of spellwork would require Fae and witch magic, working side by side. You’d need an entire coven of powerful witches and at least ten strong Fae wielders to build something that monumental. You’d also need something that belonged to Madra.
We’d gotten lucky. Very lucky. The object we’d sprinted down here hoping to find was right there, still strapped to the guardian’s belt.
The plague bags were full of ashes from the sacrifices who were burned in Madra’s honor… but they also contained her hair
“Imagine loving Kingfisher. Imagine not being able to stop yourself. And then imagine that he couldn’t give a fuck about you, and he took pleasure in hurting you every opportunity that he got. And then imagine selling your soul to the devil so that you could follow him into hell.”
“I didn’t feel… fucking… anything. It was always a game to her. I don’t know how she did it.
I came here to die… and once again the fates have snatched back my peace.”
“One thousand… and sixty-three years, five months… three days…” His voice tapered to a whisper. “That’s how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my face, Saeris. If I’d gotten here an hour earlier, I would have done it. I would have jumped.”
“How can I consign myself to another endless dark when I’ve been given back the light?”
“What’s its name?”
“Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means… redemption.”
There were historians among the crowd. Someone would record this moment—the day the satyr community received the Daianthus heir—and when they documented the first thing their Forgotten King had said to them, it would be this: I really like your horns.
“I need you to knock me out.” She recoiled, sinking deeper into the mud. “You’re insane,” she said. “Probably. But it’ll help save Fisher.
But then there was the third rune. Gods, the third rune, which the Hazrax had given me! It was right there. And what had he called it? A rune for undoing? For breaking? He’d said it didn’t give me magic. It gave me an ability. If I used it on the door…
Wherever he had gone, it was somewhere I could not follow.
It is irrelevant whether the Blood Court exists, Saeris. It is you who I observe. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you have given me permission to follow and witness alongside you.”
This has nothing to do with you!” The Hazrax’s slitted nostrils flared. “Naive child,” he said in a piteous tone. “Of course it does. I have a hand in everything, but you will learn that soon enough, I suspect.”
Why did you come here, child?” the Hazrax demanded. “I came here for him!” It shook its head. “No.” “I came…” I remembered, then. The realization I’d had on the steps in Inishtar. The piece of information that had come back to me as Carrion had addressed the satyrs. “I will allow you to change your mind,” the Hazrax said. “You have one minute to fulfill the task you came here to complete and request a different favor. I suggest you move
I ran across the room and picked up the tiny ceramic figurine of the kingfisher bird.
I saw what had been placed underneath the figurine immediately: a small, crumpled piece of paper. The same crumpled piece of paper I’d dumped on my nightstand a week ago, along with all the other bits and pieces I’d been carrying in my pockets. But it wasn’t a crumpled piece of paper. It was a folded piece of paper… artfully crafted into the shape of a stargazer. It was the first little bird. The one that had lost its magic and fallen to the ground when it had left the library. The missing page from Edina’s journal, not torn out, because it had never been bound in. I’d had it here all along!
I beg you for my favor. I need you to transport me to the Wicker Wood!”
For the first time in Yvelian history, a god sword had entrusted itself into the hands of someone it wasn’t bonded to.
“Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, I hereby call you by your true name. I declare all oaths you have sworn null and void. Rise, Khydan Graystar Finvarra, in honor of the name you were given at birth! Rise up and fight
“A rune for undoing. For breaking.”
I’d spoken his name and told him to be free, what do you think I did then, Belikon?” “His name. You—you—” She nodded. “Yes. I undid the magic that binds it. No one can use it against him now. No one will ever control him again.”
In all my years alive and traveling this realm, I had never encountered anything so mighty and brave as this little fox with the heart of a wolf.
Well. They shouldn’t have touched you if they’d wanted to live, should they?
