I meet her wide eyes, brimming with reflections of the luminous moons. “Veya should go. Find a rock to hide behind.”
She wants me to leave Kyzari? Let her die alone?
Really?
I ease onto the ground beside my niece and cup her cheek in a manner that allows me to keep a finger on her weakening pulse. “There’s no honor in that,” I say with blunt determination. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Veya does not underst—”
“No. Not even a moonfall could rip me away.”
Uno hisses. “I warned.”
She pulls the shackle off.
My heart grows heavy as Kyzari’s eyes pop open, staring right at me, but not actuallyseeing. No doubt the lucid moment that’s had by some before they succumb to death.
Tears well in both our eyes, her face twisting in a way that makes me feel like there’s a mountain on my chest.
“I’m here,” I whisper, sweeping my thumb across her cheek. “I’m with you, darling.”
You’re not alone.
Her hands come up. Trembling, she wedges her fingers around the edges of her diadem andpulls—like she’s trying to pry it free. When it doesn’t budge, her face crumbles further, hands clawing, fingers digging so deep she gouges her skin, a swell of tears streaking from the corners of her eyes.
I take her hands in mine, bundle her fingers around Kaan’s málmr still strung around her neck, and gently squeeze. “It’s okay,” I whisper, choking on each strained word. “You don’t need to worry. I’ll get it where it needs to go.”
Her body shudders with a whimper, and something flashes in her eyes before she pulls a long, rattled breath that makes her chest rise all the way. Then her lips begin to move, murmuring a string of lyrical words I’ve never heard before.
“Hov ahka nuieljuak. Hov-at haquil. Nuieljuki taf maruli.”
The atmosphereshudders,its reverberations moving through my flesh and bones, taunting nausea to claw up my throat.
“Gov tuu, gelunith vat kin jist, hov-at haquil, Caelis.”Her song becomes more desperate. Strained.“Guithin-dahl mai. Quialhn. Tuu tahn atharuilé—”
I frown, searching her unseeing eyes wrought with frenzy.
Something’s not right …
“Uno, did you see this in your foretelling?”
My only response is a hungry silence. Like how it feels in the presence of a Moonplume, but more intense.
Edging up, I hunt for the miskunn, finding only a trail of footsteps. Little craters that dimple the snowy plateau, leading behind a rock that resembles a gray canine. As far as protection from a moonfall goes … pretty useless.
“Un—”
An icy force bludgeons me with such might I pitch through the air. Like being slapped by the seismic boom that pulses from an erupting volcano. Except there’s no fucking volcano here.
I tumble, plummet. Crash face-first into the hard-packed snow, all the breath exploding from my lungs.
Everything hurts, but nothing compares to the pound in my ears. Somehow both the loudest sound I’ve ever heard—drowning out anything else—yetghostly silent.
Around me, the snow peels back in disintegrating layers that fall victim to the pulse. I’m pushed, hair whipping into my eyes and mouth, tugging at the roots. It takes me too long to realize I’m slidingbackward—something that reminds me of being tossed and shoved by the waves while playing in the Loff when I was young.
I glance over my shoulder. See the ground fall away.
A cliff.
