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“If he dies…” I couldn’t finish my threat. The words clogged in my throat, like hands tightening around my airways.

Rafaela straightened. “Duncan wasbornfor this. Put trust in me, if anything, and I will uncover all the false truths you have been led to believe. He must now bemadeif we have hope in him saving the realms.”

Fuck the realms, in that moment I cared only for Duncan. Selfish or not, he was half of me. Thebesthalf of me.

“I will only do it if you agree,” Rafaela echoed, refusing to look anywhere else but into my soul.

She knew I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Only she presented an option to me, I was actually without them. It was let Duncan die or give him the chance to live.

“Do it,” I snarled.

Rafaela’s eyes fell on Erix next, and her question surprised me. “What about you, Erix. Do you consent?”

It was a quick moment, but profound. Rafaela understood the invisible ties between the three of us, and respected it enough to ask for his permission, and not only mine.

Erix was quicker to answer. “Save him. I beg you.”

Duncan lay in a pool of cobalt water, his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest. I refused to look away from him, dared not so much as blink for fear I’d lose him. So I fixated on the rise and fall of his chest, the slight rasp his breath made, not the fact that he was being handed over to the Creator for judgement.

Sunlight speared in through the glassless windows, dusting an unbearably warm breeze over my skin. The water rippled against it, spinning with motes of glitter. This was no mundane water – Rafaela had just explained as much.

I was jealous that the water and winds got to touch him, but I couldn’t. If it wasn’t for Erix holding me to his chest as we watched, I would’ve climbed the shallow steps into the pool and wrapped my arms around Duncan and refused to ever let go.

The pool was one of a kind. It was set into the mosaic flooring in the heart of a domed building. White stone walls offered shade from the overbearing heat. All across them, images in faded pale paints took up space, showing angels with wings, weapons of yellow gold, spilling from the hands of an unseen figure. I hadn’t focused on many details after Erix had told me of Duncan’s condition, but the few I did stuck to me like sap.

The Isles of Irobel were a collection of islands scattered across the ocean. Set beneath a blazing sun, the air curdled with heat, so much so that I was soaked in sweat the moment we disembarked from the ship. What greeted us on Irobel’s main island was silence. Strange, pillared buildings stood empty, stone-laid streets untouched. The only presence of life came in the form of the statues, countless bodies frozen in stone, watching on from hillsides in the distance.

Irobel was a graveyard. Rather fitting, considering Duncan’s life was in the balance the moment we stepped off the pier, as Rafaela ushered us toward our current destination.

“I will ask you both afinaltime for your consent,” Rafaela enquired from where she stood behind Duncan, waist deep in the bright pool. If she wasn’t holding Duncan by the back of his neck, his body would’ve sunk. “There are still risks. He may not be deemed worthy for the necessary alterations…”

He would. Whatever test or trial Duncan had to face, he would succeed.

I gritted my teeth, finding myself waiting for Duncan to wake up and speak for himself. But if he had, we wouldn’t be here. There was so much he deserved to know about his story, details he never had the chance to know. And wouldn’t if I didn’t accept that this was his only chance of survival.

There was no ignoring how weak Duncan was now. He’d not opened his eyes since last night. His breathing was shallow, and the faint beat of his heart barely enough to rival the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

He was fading – I could not only see it before my eyes but feel it in my soul.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do it,” Erix added.

We held Duncan’s life in our hands. Rafaela had made clear the dangers of this practice. Although the details were faint, my mind unable to hold onto any facts beside Duncan and how close he was to death.

Erix squeezed my hand, never letting go. “Duncan will be fine. He will come out of this, just as he has with all the trials that have been set out before this moment.”

I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat, forcing it deep down. “How can you be sure?”

“Because if I knew I was leaving you behind, I’d fight tooth and nail to get back to you.”

I warmed at his response, clinging to the feeling of hope it offered.

“Even if you had to go against agod?” My question echoed around the domed room, skipping between pillars and large block walls. Not to mention a god who inspired enough hate in the Nephilim to go against us.

“Even that, little bird.”

“The Creator is many things,” Rafaela reminded, chin jutted. “But his desires are not for us to decide. The assault on the fey is due to Cassial’s warped sentiments, not because the Creator wanted this future. What Cassial and his Fallen desire is not in line with the rest of us.”