Page 157 of Turncloak

Can we possibly prevent this devastating war?

Surely, surely, she could. She had already relegated one prophecy to another timeline—her killing of Levan, committed and then undone. Surely this could be undone too.

She had the Steel King’s letter. When she went back in time to save her parents, she would take it with her. Make sure it was handed to the Silvercloaks, to the king himself if she could. Give the Palace enough warning to prepare for a siege from the High North. Prevent the battle before it ever became a seed in the Bloodmoon kingpin’s mind.

Then again…what if knowing an attack was coming wasn’t enough to stop it?

Frantically running back over the Fifth Prophecy in her head, she tried to remember whether there had been any scarlet cloaks among the foreign forces—especially among the gray-cloaked Nyrøthi—but the visuals were already fading in her mind. Was there a way to replay the scene?

Beneath the confusion and the fear, there was also a desolate kind of sorrow, a balloon of swollen hope suddenly pierced, deflated. If the prophecy had foretold her saving the world, it could have led to the rehabilitation of Timeweavers, their historic pardoning. Lorissa Rezaran could have been a Hand of the Saints, and Levan could have been a Healer, and everything could have been different. Better. Now, if they were indeed successful in saving their parents…the queenpin would still seek the throne, perhaps violently.

Everything in Saffron splintered and broke at the thought of telling Levan.

Can’t you understand the appeal of being six years old again? Six years old, with a fresh field of snow in front of me? One unsoaked in blood, untainted by addiction. I would have no brand, both hands, nil ruinous cravings, and two parents who loved me. Can’t you understand why I want that so desperately?

Panic rose and fell with her breath. There was so much to consider—and it took her several moments to realize she was not the only one considering it.

Her gaze found Harrow’s.

The King’s Prophet’s expression was like none she had ever seen before. Horror and awe and confusion. Hunger perhaps, and curiosity, and…validation? But mostly horror. Deep and dark and devastating horror.

Levan looked between Harrow and Saffron, waiting for someone to say something. When nobody did, he slung out, “You saw it too, Harrow. You saw the prophecy.”

Neither Saffron nor Harrow found the words. They could not confess that they were going to sit the throne, oversee the end of the world…and that Levan would not be part of it.

“Silver,” Levan murmured, desperation threaded through the word.

She shook her head violently, the kernel of despair swelling in her chest, pressing out against her ribs.

The Augurests had been right. The Timeweavers would unmake the world.

She would unmake the world.

Trying to save it, of course—but she would unmake it nonetheless.

“Harrow,” Levan said, but now all the emotion was scrubbed from his tone. It was simply a command, and whether or not it was imbued with compelling magic, Harrow heeded it.

Saffron dropped her face into her hands and listened as Harrow told the kingpin everything.

Once Harrow had finished, Levan stood to his feet, smoothing down the front of his sea-soaked robes. His face was set like stone, like he was no longer a living, breathing mage with hopes or fears or emotions. He scooped Miret into his arms and then spoke with a ghostly emptiness.

“I’m taking Miret back to Flarence. Follow me or don’t.”

Before he was finished talking, he was already a dozen yards away, a hundred, and neither of them followed, neither of them even breathed.

And then Saffron was alone on a frozen clifftop with the mage who would stand by her side as she destroyed all of reality.

For several moments, there was only the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs, of soft snow crunching as Harrow began to pace. Everything was too white, too bright, too loud, and too quiet. Unreal, otherworldly.

“This is going to sound like the most arrogant thing any mage living or dead has ever uttered,” Saffron said slowly. “But I think I can prevent this.”

Somehow Harrow’s auburn hair was still arranged in perfect waves around his face, but his bronze cloak was disheveled and rock-torn. “How?”

Saffron leaned back against a tree trunk, the ridges of her skull rolling against the knots in the wood. A blackfox watched from a hundred yards away, head cocked. “Back at the Academy, I touched a relic wand that foretold me kissing Levan—and then killing him. In the Havenwood, that came to pass. Exactly as the relic wand had shown. I kissed him for what I believed was the last time, and then I killed him.” This confession hung between them like a noose. “But after that, a series of events went wrong, and I unmade that night, saved him. The death didn’t stick.

“So if I could override that prophecy, wrench us onto another timeline, who’s to say I can’t do the same with Sarcane’s vision? Maybe that’s what we saw at the end of the prophecy. Not me destroying the world, but pulling us onto a new timeline by force.”

Harrow stopped pacing, crossed to the edge of the cliff. Looked out over the slate-gray sea, the chalky sky above. “What if it isn’t?”