Page 16

“I need something. Why am I down here?”

“You remember the Coffers?” Kyer asked.

“I know of them, and that’s all.”

Kyer paused, pulling his neck to the dilapidated ceiling and taking a long inhale. “You were put in the Coffers by your father.”

“Valen,” he whispered, picturing the last memory he had of him—the wicked gleam in his eye as he watched Draven absorb the Serpent.

Kyer nodded slowly. “That’s him. Valen Hazevale. The Eternal Sovereign. You were his first child. His First Incarnation.”

Right… Draven was the first given life by Valen himself. He gave him a piece of the Guardian Flare after Draven was born without a soul. And if he was the first, where was the—

Draven launched upright, gasping as if it were the first breath he took. “Caine! Where is Caine?”

His burst of energy rustled the anxiety in the room. Draven’s words were fluid and clear, but Kyer stayed silent, chilly blue eyes dropping to the floor. His soul was from one of the Dawn Flares—the Allay, god of pleasure and wisdom. Draven had never seen such a soul in person. They were reclusive, keeping themselves out of the war. They generally didn’t travel this far north.

Draven stared at him, but it did not persuade him to answer. “Where is he?” he asked again, willing his legs to stand.

Kyer raised one hand out toward Draven, using the other to push himself to his feet. His bright eyes looked to his companions in the dark; the richness of his green outline flashed.

“You killed him,” he uttered.

A different sort of pain burned Draven’s insides. “No. I… I would not do that! Not to Caine. You lie!” The force behind his words made him uneasy. The surging river of energy filled his ears, stealing his focus from the world around him. Beneath his feet, his shadow seemed to undulate. His heart skipped a beat when the darkness began to creep up his legs, and the storm returned.

“Stop! Stop!” Draven knelt, covering his ears in an attempt to calm the noise.

Caine is dead. Valen killed him! Dead. No… Draven. Me. I killed him? I killed him.

A sudden heat burned a hole through his upper back to his chest. Draven winced, searching for its source over his bare skin…

But there was nothing! No foreign objects, contusions, or—

There was something. A jagged scar just to the left of his sternum—the remnants of a wound he didn’t remember receiving.

He touched it.

Flashes of a memory surfaced. Draven clamped his eyes shut, breath quickening, shallow.

How could I have survived this?

In the dark of the room, and with Draven bent over, the floor beneath him was illuminated with a green glow from his eyes. The darkness formed vines at the edge of the light, clawing at it like dry hands reaching for a pool of fresh water.

His body grew heavy. I didn’t. This soul, this god, had brought him back.

“How?” Draven’s body was begging to give out, and he wanted to let it. “How did I die?”

There was little pause in Kyer’s voice this time. The words were so solid that their weight thrust Draven to a place he wished would’ve stayed forgotten.

“Caine killed you.”

His last memory was a blur of chaos and heartache. The air was soured, torrid like the battle at the edge of Alokya. But on this night, just after the sun had set over the base of the mountain, ash rained from the sky. The village of Cara was coated in the aftermath of the Wraith’s touch, drowning the city in a thick fog.

Draven was kneeling over Valen, hand just above his chest, ready to rip his piece of the Guardian from him.

Alister’s booming voice broke through the air like thunder. “What are you doing!”

What I need to do. Draven felt the pull of the Guardian as it weaved through Valen’s body, so close now that he could almost taste it.