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I narrowed my eyes. I wasnotgoing to let this stranger—Zavien or not—pit me against Jeddak, no matter what just happened between us. “You expect me to believeyou—the person who’s been stalking us in the shadows for days? Just leave me alone.” I marched into my room, not looking back.
“I’m not leaving, Rae. I’ve already lost you once. I’m not going to lose you again.” His words were unmovable mountains.
My hand froze on the door before I could slam it. Maybe it was the nickname he used or the intimacy in his tone, but something triggered a faint feeling in me that rippled through my nerves like a shockwave. I was suddenly sure of one thing:I knew him.
I’d been searching so long for my past, and here it was, trying to catch up with me. No matter how dampened I felt now, I couldn’t run away from it.
I turned back to face him. “Who exactly are you? Why have you been following us?” More importantly, I thought:Who am I?
“You don’t remember anything, do you?” he asked, not hiding the sparks of pain that flickered behind his eyes.
I shook my head.
“Suns, what did they do to you in Malengard?” he murmured. The way his jaw clenched made me think he didn’t want to know the answer any more than I wanted to tell him.
When I said nothing, he exhaled slowly like he was deciding where to begin. “I’m a Zavien, like you. You and your twin brother are heirs to the throne and the sworn protectors ofthe Azurstone. And I’m … a friend to you both.” The way he paused made me wonder if there was something more to our relationship.
Heirs to the throne? Protectors ofwhat?I already had too many questions. Even though I was keen to learn everything he knew about my past and my family, I had a few pressing questions I needed answers to first.
“So why have you been following us?” I asked again. I was keeping my guard up. He may be a Zavien and know who I am, but that didn’t mean I could trust him yet. He could be using my memory loss to his advantage.
“Technically, I’ve been followingyou,” he said, his breath visible in the cold air as he spoke.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
The corner of his lip quirked upward. “Why don’t we sit, and I’ll start from the beginning.” He took my hand and pulled me down to sit beside him on the small porch.
“You and I are from Stormrail, the kingdom of Zaviens, on an island far south of Eastlandra. That’s why no one here has heard of us.” He spoke slowly, watching my face for any spark of recognition. “Earlier this year, our kingdom was attacked by a powerful and malicious Magi named Reya Radeyah, known as the White Widow. She led a bewitched army of vagrants and animals—all under her spell—into the heart of our city in the middle of the night. You and I were asleep when the warning horns sounded. We were all taken by surprise. So many of our people fought and died that night, but we were still unable to protect the stone.” He bowed his head as he spoke of this defeat.
“What stone?” I breathed, hanging on to his every word. I remember Sora had mentioned something about a stone. As had Bloodbain.
“The Azurstone,” he said, his tone grave. “Some call it the Zavien stone. It’s what the White Widow was seeking. It’s a stonemade of pure, raw magic. Just like the Bramblemen are forever connected to the bramble, our tribe is bound to the Azurstone. It’s our lifeforce. We protect it, and in return, it ensures our lands thrive and our transformational magic flows through our veins. Without the stone, our kingdom has already begun to waste away, and our magic is weakening.”
“Did the White Widow take the stone?” I asked, trying to keep up with his story.
He shook his head. “No, but something else did. When our defenses fell late in the night, the White Widow was able to steal the stone, but before she could escape with it, a strange creature—a huge, scaly black bird with wings of flame—snatched it from her and flew off into the night.”
I wished so badly I could remember any of this. It sounded like a tale from a storybook, not the details of my own life. “How do you know the creature wasn’t under the White Widow’s spell?”
“Because the White Widow screamed in rage and fled the city to go after it,” he said, his pale-blue eyes locking on mine like he wanted to say,You were there, you saw it.
“So, what happened then?”
“That morning, you and your brother put together a band of fighters, including me and Sora, and?—”
“Wait, you know Sora?” I asked, not hiding the surprise in my voice.
“Yes. We all flew here to Eastlandra together, trying to track down the creature and the Azurstone before the White Widow did. But then everything went wrong.” Skyler paused, rubbing his temple as if it was painful to retell the rest. “We caught up with the White Widow on the southern coast of Eastlandra. We had the advantage of surprise, but it didn’t matter. She killed everyone in our company except you, me, your brother, Sora,and our friend Barrd. We were lucky, though. If she’d found the stone, we’d all be dead.”
“What would happen if she got hold of the stone?” I asked.
“If the Azurstone’s powers are absorbed by any one person, not only would that person be able to control—or destroy—all the magic in the world, but because our tribe is bound to the stone, Zaviens would be wiped out of existence.”
“Oh.” Fortunately, he used the wordif, making me assume the White Widow hadn’t obtained the stone yet. Or so I hoped.
Skyler continued his story, speaking faster like it was suddenly urgent that I knew everything. “With the White Widow still alive, there was no time to return to Stormrail for reinforcements. The five of us flew from village to village, asking if anyone had seen a creature with wings of flame. But there were no sightings, nothing we could use to track it. By then, we had no choice but to split up. We each chose a corner of Eastlandra to search, deciding to reconvene at the Market of End in seven days. I flew west—which is how I ended up befriending Queen B’kara and the Bramble tribe. You flew south. Barrd and Sora went east, and your brother traveled north. But when we all arrived back at the marketplace seven days later, you never showed up,” he said, keeping his eyes on me.
I had to force myself to keep breathing as he brought my past out of the darkness and into the light.
