My fingers twitch once, then go still.
Someone seizes my shoulders, pulling me from the ground and breaking my tether to Castletree.
Magic surges through me. Not mine.
Ezryn’s.
A flash of Spring, bright and sharp, rushes through my veins, and I gasp, a ragged, raw sound as air floods back into my lungs.
Ezryn’s voice, hoarse and furious, booms above me. “You almost killed her!”
“She’s my daughter!” my mother snaps. “I know what she’s capable of!”
“And she’s my mate!” Ezryn bellows.
Everything stills.
I wasn’t enough.
The castle groans. Another tremor splits the stone beneath us. The air chokes with dust and ash. The tree’s branches curl inward like dying fingers.
I blink through tears, my body trembling violently now, and I know.
There’s nothing I can do.
Even with Ezryn’s power inside me, I’m just a drop in a boiling ocean.
Castletree will fall.
81
Farron
Irun.
The halls of Castletree split apart around me. The roots groan and stone screams as it cracks. I leap over a fallen beam and duck under a tangle of vines and broken masonry. Magic hangs heavy in the air, wild, raw, and wrong. My lungs burn with smoke and dust.
Most of the staff are evacuated. I led them to Caspian, who has wrapped them in shadows so they can hide in the back gardens.
But two are missing.
Mandaria. Paavak.
Where are they?
I turn, boot skidding on loose stone as I barrel into the Autumn wing. The temperature shifts. It’s warmer, like the heat of a long-burning hearth. My chest tightens. No?—
My feet carry me faster until I burst through the double doors into the library.
Gods.
The library is falling apart.
Golden light streams through fractured windows, dancing across the leaves that gust up from felled trees. Books tumble offshelves. The floor is littered with torn pages. The fireplace still burns somehow, casting a soft orange glow over the worn velvet couch in the corner of the room. Half the tables are overturned, stools broken under fallen branches.
“Mandaria!” I shout, voice raw. “Paavak!”
A cough. Then another.
