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I blinked and attempted to focus on the bird that was dancing and twisting in front of my eyes. It wasn’t a real phoenix, no. It was small and made of gold and gemstones, and it dangled from a leather cuff. Zan’s cuff, around Zan’s wrist.
Zan. I tried to sit up, but I cried out in pain. My body creaked when I moved, as if I’d been left too long in the rain and had begun to rust. And my back—?it was slick with blood. My blood, from the wound I’d taken from Zan and made into my own.
“Aurelia?” he whispered, hands in my hair.
I reached for him, and he wrapped me up into his arms and buried his face in my neck, half in relief, half in disbelief. “This isn’t real,” he said.
“You’re here,” I said. “It worked.”
My happiness was short-lived. I pulled my bloodcloth from my pocket and stared at it, whipping in the wind. The first drop of blood—?my mother’s drop of blood—?was gone completely, erased as if it had never been. It wasn’t a dream or some terrible hallucination. Everything was real, and that meant—?
“My mother. Merciful stars, she’s dead. She’s dead, Zan. And it’s my fault.”
He held me tighter, murmuring soft, comforting words against my temple, into my ear. He, too, knew what it was like to lose a mother.
We spent two days in Aren’s tower as the storm seethed around us and the fire raged below, passing stories of our childhoods back and forth and huddling together for comfort. Zan worried constantly that if he let me close my eyes for more than a minute, I wouldn’t open them up again. “I won’t let go,” I reassured him. “I refuse to let go.”
Dying once had cost me my mother. I couldn’t let Simon or Kellan face the same fate. I used thoughts of our loved ones as a ward to keep death away.
The storm broke in the middle of the night, and we woke to the sight of sails on the fjord below. The ship was flying two flags: one, the raven of the Silvis family; the other, the Renaltan royal arms.
We descended the tower stairs a final time, and I ran my fingers across the stones painted with Aren’s story. Goodbye, I thought, though I knew she would not hear; having passed the weight of her calling on to me, she was in the Empyrea’s care now.
The ship was waiting for us just outside the rubble of the castle’s shoreline. We emerged from the tower to the sound of cheers; a dozen guards were leaning over the sides of the ship, lowering a plank ladder and jubilantly shouting, “They’re here! They’re alive!”
Kellan was the first to greet us, offering an arm to help Zan climb over the edge before they both turned to hoist me over together. “Why are you here?” I asked him as he took in our sad states. “It’s a risk to sail through this wreckage when you had no proof we’d survived.”
He gave me a wan smile. “I’m still alive,” he said. “That was proof enough. Besides, I had no choice. Orders of the king.”
“Aurelia?”
I turned to see a small form silhouetted in the doorway of the captain’s cabin. Conrad was wearing a new brocade suit, with our family’s crest on the breast. On a chain around his neck, he wore our mother’s signet ring; his fingers were still too small to wear it on his hand. Next to the ring hung a diamond-and-opal winged horse.
I tried not to cry when he buried himself in my arms; he was the king now, and I didn’t want to embarrass him with my tears. “Mama’s dead,” he said in a small voice.
“I know,” I said, swallowing the hard knot in my throat, “and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But look at you! I’ve never seen a nobler king. She would be so proud of you. I know I am.”
He said, “Aurelia, I don’t think I’m ready. I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. Toris is gone, and the Tribunal will fold without him. You’ll be the first king in five hundred years to rule without their influence. Imagine what you’ll be able to do! It’ll be hard, of course, but you’ll have me to help you. Mother told me to protect you, little brother, and I will. And look.” I pointed at the ruins of Achlev. “I lived through that. It turns out, I’m very hard to kill.”
He nodded, reassured, and straightened his kingly shoulders before scampering off to order Kellan, at the helm, to take us home—?no matter that the location of “home” was still rather unclear to us all.
I turned my attention to Achleva, giving it one last look as we sailed away. Buildings had collapsed; many had burned. The fjord, returned again to a crystal blue, had risen and flooded the streets; entire neighborhoods had been washed into oblivion. And the castle was nothing more than a burned-out, hulking shell. Achlev’s Wall and the three towering gates were gone, as if they’d never existed.
And yet, even in its devastation, it was still beautiful—?rough and also exquisite, like one of Zan’s charcoal sketches. I was overwhelmed by the wonder and terror of it.
Zan came to stand with me as we watched the horizon diminish. “Cataclysm,” I said.
“Annihilation,” Zan replied. “And yet, we made it through. It’s over.”
I tried not to think about the relentless insistence in Malefica’s whispers, Let me out, let me out. Zan was right, it was over. It was time to look forward, not back.
“Does that mean I get to collect my payment now?” I asked.
“If you still want your image in gold, you may be disappointed. I’m fresh out of gold.”
“As I recall, my price was to tell you a secret and have you believe it, no matter what it is.”
