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“Lark?”
I looked up. They each stared. “Yes?”
“I asked what happened.”
Concern pinched Arin’s eyebrows, and perhaps some anger too. At least he could feel anger. Had Razak’s grip held, he’d be lifeless—worse than dead.
I waved his query away. “Nothing. He tried to hurt me. You saw how I pretended I was his so I might get a crown away from him. We have to take it far away. The farther the crowns are from each other, the weaker his power becomes. That was why the shatterlands were always destined to war and rage and oppose each other. The crowns control it, so the crowns must never come together.” The wall art below Justice, with its four crowns and their soulless slaves, had made our potential fates very clear. “Dallin saw to it, until Razak learned of the truth.”
And now Justice had fallen.
I couldn’t stand to see the grief in Noemi’s eyes. If she didn’t yet blame me, she soon would. Razak couldn’t have doneanyof this without me. I was the eye of his storm.
Umair should have hungmefrom the tree that day.
“I don’t understand how he got to Soleil,” Noemi said softly.
I knew. Soleil had feared the seal had been broken, not by Razak, as she’d assumed would happen, but by me. She’d freed him in exchange for his help in stoppingme. Razak had likely been very persuasive.He’d keep her secret,he’d have said. Nobody needed to know about the power I’d discovered. They’d both stop me. They were the only ones who could. And they’d come, to do exactly that.
Until I’d given Razak everything he’d ever wanted.
“Do you know, Lark?” Draven asked. He’d been quiet since helping to build the fire. And he’d been watching me. Like Arin had. They all watched.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
“She did not deserve that.”
She’d killed Umair by locking him away. She’d kept an untapped source of chaotic power a secret beneath Justice’s foundations. Soleil and her predecessors had erased almost all mention of it from the shatterlands, leaving only War’s art and that tomb or temple buried beneath Justice’s ice. And she’d broken her own vows of Justice by releasing Razak. She was not without blame. But no, she hadn’t deserved to have her will torn from her. Nobody did. Except, perhaps, Razak himself.
“Let’s rest,” Arin suggested. “It’s late, and we’re cold. Tomorrow, things will be better.” I snorted, and Arin shot me a devastating glare. “You have something to add?”
I turned my face away. “Tomorrow will not be better. Razak cannot be stopped. Anyone who tries will be torn apart. He will come, and he will rule through fear. This has just begun. He’ll go back to Pain, he’ll take up Umair’s throne, and he will make sure every living soul in the shatterlands kneels to him. You saw what Pain was like. Now imagine that across War, across Love and what remains of Justice. By the next full moon, all of Pain will be his. A month later, he’ll claim Love and Justice. War will make a stand, but they will fall.”
“He’s just one man,” Draven said.
I scoffed. “To underestimate Razak is to lose.”
“Lark, we’ll discuss this in the morning,” Arin said, trying to placate me. But nothing was going to change, and the sooner they saw that, the sooner they could each go and try to find some peace somewhere far away where Razak might not find them.
“He’s not a man,” I said. “Not anymore. You know it, all of you know it. He’s a god. Exactly as he planned. Hope cannot save us; love cannot save us. It’s over.”
Arin shook his head. “I refuse to believe that.”
“Of course you do,” I snapped, and hated myself for it as soon as Arin’s glare failed to hide his hurt. I turned my back, found a shadowy corner in the old house, and tucked myself into it.
Snowfall dusted in through the broken roof while the campfire crackled and spat. We were alive; if we faced Razak again, we wouldn’t be.
It was over.
* * *
We movedon during the warmer daylight hours, but the damp and the cold were never far away and the forest I’d travelled through with Danyal by cart was harder going on foot. Draven and Noemi struck up some conversation, but Arin remained quiet, and I trailed behind, blowing into my cold hands while checking nothing tracked us in the snow.
After we came upon an abandoned longhouse, Draven managed to spark a fire in the old fireplace grate, and while he and Noemi discussed War’s ability to attack the Court of Pain, Arin and I stewed in silence. He sometimes looked over, but every glance grew colder.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said. Noemi and Draven were deep in conversation by the fireside. I’d hung back by an ivy-strewn, filthy window, watching outside for any sign of movement. The snow had stopped falling and a serene monochrome stillness bathed the overgrown gardens.
“What is that?” I asked.
