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The leading edge of the green swell of power devoured everything in its path. I clasped his wrist in preparation of spiriting us away, gathered my magic, and…nothing.
“Zorander…get us out of here,” Raz growled. I tried again. And again.
There was nothing for me to reach for, no thread of power to grasp, not from the right one, anyway.
I could reach that dark, cold power, but I had no desire to. That magic felt wrong, and my power to transport us away had disappeared. Horror shivered through me as I measured the vanishing distance between us and the churning edge of the green wave of light.
“I can’t.” My voice shook, my entire body trembling as I looked behind us, but there was nowhere to hide.
“I can’t find my magic, it’s like it’s…gone.” Helpless. I was fucking helpless.
I looked down at the woman I loved, then over at my oldest friend, and all I could think was…I’ve failed you both.
Anaria fought her way out of my arms and spilled into the dirt, skinning her palms on the rocky ground before she pushed up to her knees and crawled in front of us.
Before I could yank her back, she threw her hands out and cast a shimmering shield, seconds before the wave slammed into us with the force of an explosion. The fragile shield bent inwards with a groan, but held, Anaria’s gritted teeth and closed eyes a testament to how much effort she put towards protecting us.
Everything.
She would give everything to save us, and my heart soared and broke at the realization.
I crouched behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist to keep her steady, letting her focus on maintaining the shield, bolstering whatever was left of her magic, the approaching collapse that I was sure was coming.
“Too much,” Raz muttered, huddled behind her, hand braced on her shoulders. “She’s using too much fucking magic.” His eyes found mine, and they held the same fear that locked my heart in a vise.
He was right. We had to get out of here. Trees sprang up all around us, ice-cold water pooling around our ankles as a shallow stream flowed past us to the east. Above our heads, wide, green leaves unfurled to block out the sun, and then the wave was gone, roaring off to the east, leaving us in silence.
No, not silence.
Not the dead, empty silence this realm had become accustomed to, but a vibrant silence of rushing water and rustling leaves, where even the wind seemed to sing as it rippled through the newborn forest.
“It’s over, Anaria. You can stop now.”
Anaria slumped into my arms, her body boneless, though she stared in wonder at the chatter of birdsong chirping from the forest that hadn’t even existed a moment ago. “She was right,” Anaria breathed. “After all her lies…the Oracle was right about this. The magic returned.”
Bought with the blood of ten thousand innocent men, I wanted to point out. Not that my men—or any of us—had been given a choice. No, we’d all been used as pawns by the Fae King and the Oracle to serve their own ends. Whatever those might be.
I scrubbed my face and set Anaria down beside the stream.
“Can we drink this, do you think?” she asked softly, touching her toe to the crystal clear water.
The trees were heavy with nuts. Brambles sagged beneath the weight of bright red berries, and Raz stalked over and sniffed them suspiciously. “Would you trust anything that wasn’t here a minute ago?”
Anaria’s nose wrinkled in answer.
“So no drinking and eating.” She peered through the forest, thick enough only the very tops of the mountains were visible, then ran her toe through the water again. I thought I felt the ground shudder beneath my feet in answer, but that could be an aftershock, the earth settling back into place.
“That would be wise.” Within these trees, we couldn’t see much further than a few hundred feet, but I expected if I climbed one of these trees, this forest stretched across the flatlands, from the foothills to Tempeste to the Gulf of Kaerius to our south.
The sheer amount of magic it took to remake an entire realm…I didn’t want to consider that. Not when we stood right in the center of such power.
“What now? Do we walk to the portal and head to Blackcastle?” Her green eyes glowed brighter than the dappled sunlight, her blood-flecked hair moving in the gentle breeze. “Or do we go north and take the tunnels back to Nightcairn Castle?”
The trees around us rattled, birds squawking as they exploded out of the branches, a fell wind screaming through the newly made wood. A shadow of pure black swooped between the trees and engulfed her, Anaria’s eyes flying wide, her scream cutting off when the Reapers swept her away.
Raz and I both lunged forward, arms sweeping through the misty black trail Anaria’s captors left behind, but she was gone. The stream bubbled happily around my feet, and I bent down and picked something up from the rocks.
An iron band.
