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But there was no pain on Jocelyn’s face as her hazel eyes met Elyria’s.

“No,” Elyria whispered, pressing her palm uselessly to Jocelyn’s chest, wisps of healing magic skittering over her body. They did not go anywhere. They did not do anything. It was too late, and the damage was too great.

“No, no, no—stay with me, please,” Elyria begged.

Jocelyn’s breath hitched. “It’s . . . all right,” she said brokenly. Her face was already so pale.

Elyria shook her head, tears blurring the world around her. Vaguely, she could hear the sounds of continued fighting, the pained cries of the cultists, her father’s labored grunts, the screeches of gryphons, and yells of others who must’ve finally arrived to help.

She kept her gaze on Jocelyn. “It’s not,” she whispered. “I—I can fix this. I just need⁠—”

“You can’t,” Jocelyn said gently. “And that’s . . . all right.” Her hand found Elyria’s wrist, her fingers surprisingly strong when they wrapped around it. “This is how . . . it was always meant to be.”

The words were sharper than a knife as they carved away a piece of Elyria’s heart. She hated the reminder of the last time Jocelyn had said them to her, right after Elyria had gotten her wings back, when they’d still had hope, when they’d still thought they might possibly win.

Jocelyn smiled then—a soft, serene thing. “You will not lose that hope, Elyria Lightbreaker,” she said, and Elyria couldn’t even be shocked at the fact that she’d voiced her fears aloud. “You’re going . . . to win,” Jocelyn continued, the rise and fall of her chest growing shallower. “You’re going to . . . make something better . . . out of all of this.” She took a final, shaky breath. “It is the one thing in this world I know to be true.”

Her grip loosened.

Then fell away entirely.

And Elyria’s heart fractured right down the middle.

Somewhere in her mind, or maybe in her soul, there was a pounding, a beating of fists on a door, frantic and frenzied.

Elyria did not open it.

She only bowed her head, bringing her forehead to Jocelyn’s for one lingering moment before laying her friend’s body in the snow.

Then she stood, retrieved her staff, and blinked—once, twice. The battle in front of the crater roared back into focus with brutal clarity. Cultists clashed with soldiers and fae. Gryphons and monsters collided.

And Elyria walked to the edge.

Movement snagged her gaze, and her eyes went to her father, several yards away. His face was pale, his expression drawn. Blood trickled from his nose, and when Elyria’s eyes dropped, she saw it was trickling from a wound in his side, too.

Her fractured heart cracked further.

Her eyes narrowed on a cultist that must have just recovered from the onslaught of her father’s power, because his eyes and ears were bleeding as he crawled toward him. Elyria turned from the edge of the crater, shadows pooling in her hands.

“No.” Tartanis’s power broke through her mental door, blowing it open, and the flood of emotion that came with it—distress and anguish rushing down the bond from Cedric—made Elyria stagger.

The cultist lunged for her father, piercing his shoulder with a crystal rapier before someone else wrestled the sanguinagi back. Tartanis fell to one knee, his emerald eyes meeting Elyria’s.

She cried out, one arm reaching for him.

He inclined his head, something like a smile on his lips when he splayed his fingers and his mental power blasted Elyria back.

And she fell down, down, down, into the depths of the world.

54

WHERE YOU GO, I WILL FOLLOW

CEDRIC

Cedric was already running when Elyria fell into the crater.

For one frozen heartbeat, the entire world narrowed to that single image—her face twisted in a shout, one arm outstretched, the other clutching her staff as she was blasted off her feet. Her wings had flared, she soared backward, and the darkness swallowed her whole.