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“Some things have not changed.”
Corvus would never understand this world had forged me differently than most.
The Oracle and the Mistress tried to break me, make me a malleable tool, but instead, they’d turned me into a warrior who would never stop fighting until I could fight no longer.
Who wouldn’t stop peeling back the lies until I reached the truth.
“What you offer is a dream,” I clarified, trying to make my thick, clumsy tongue work properly. “A dream I will build for myself. Not trade away my power for.”
“Why build it when it could be yours so easily?”
I looked down at my feet, the glowing symbol pulsing beneath, sending waves of light to the others. This place was a nexus. A place of beginnings…and endings. If the gods had been made here, they could be unmade.
What ifthiswas the place I’d seen in the vision? Not some random mountaintop,but here?
My gaze drifted to the crushed bones sticking out of the rock.
The Oracle needed us because she derived her power—and now her youth—from the magic. She was chaos, and we were the key to both her survival and her resurrection.
But her brother was different.
Corvus did not thrive on peace. Because corruption…needed something pure to corrupt. Something like the magic. I could almost understand why she trapped him here. He would destroy the very thing that kept her alive.
Perhaps they reallywereat odds.
One thing was for certain. They were sides of the same coin.
The Oracle, with her greedy ruthlessness, and Corvus, with his wheedling manipulation, wanted the same thing. For different reasons, maybe, but the outcome would be the same.
They would destroy this world yet again if we didn’t stop them.
And while the cold hadn’t killed me yet, it soon would, judging from the numbness crawling up my legs, the lethargy clinging to my every thought, dragging me deeper into the darkness of sleep.
Yes, I very much wanted to sleep right now.
Corvus’s tone turned sharper, more demanding, sending stabs of pain through my head. “If you will not give me your power, there are other ways to sway you to my cause.”
Gone was the cajoling tone, and my muscles locked up, pain pounding through my head, my bones, my blood. This was brute force brought to bear. “Youwillgive me what I want.”
My starry magic rearranged itself on the floor, the sigils disappearing, starlight rearranging itself to become a moving picture.
“Look, little thief.”
Tavion writhed on the ground, the Mistress poised over him, the Oracle a hazy form in the background, her gleaming smile the only clear thing about her. Tavion writhed in a sea of blood…his clothes in tatters, hands scraping the floor in desperation as he tried to escape.
A whimper slipped between my lips, my lethargy chased away by fear.I had to do something. I had to stop this before they killed him.
For one desperate moment, I considered taking Corvus’s offer, even though it was a trap.
Anything to stop Tavion’s suffering.
“If you wish for your wolf to live, you will return the magicthat is rightfully mine.” He sounded desperate, frantic, before his voice slithered down to a cruel hiss. “Or I will let my sister devour him, until there is nothing left, not even his bones.”
I could barely lift my heavy eyelids, my voice slurring. “Fine. You want this, you can have it.”
What he couldn’t know…I’d been steadily drawing magic ever since my feet hit the floor, every surge of power I fed into the sigils echoed back into me.
I thought of how much Raz and Zor loved me. How much more love there would be if we were given more time.
