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The mark was gone.

Grief tore through me. I pounded my fists into the ground, throwing curses at the sky, at the fucking Gods who were mocking me. Now I had my freedom? Now? Fucking NOW?

“I DON’T WANT IT!” I roared. “I DON’T FUCKING WANT IT.” Hot tears poured down my cheeks, and I clutched my head in my hands. “It’s meaningless. It’s fucking meaningless without her.”

I crawled across the sand, back to her side, and took her in my arms. Her body was already losing warmth, and I buried my face against her neck. But she didn’t smell of roses anymore. She smelled of blood and sand. I stroked the hair out of her face, nudging her cheek with my nose.

“You were supposed to learn to swim, remember? I was going to teach you. We were going to swim under the twin moons together.” I kissed her again, and again. “I was going to take you home. I was going to marry you. And now you’ve left me here alone. You cannot do this to me, Elara. You cannot die for me.”

“Rook.”

I looked up to see an old woman walking towards me. I knew her, I had seen her before. Yes, she was the healer who had seen me in my chambers. She hurried across the sand towards me.

“What do you want?” I asked as she knelt beside Elara.

Her eyes were mournful as she gazed at the dead princess in my arms. “Oh no.”

“Who are you?”

She pulled down the collar of her brown robes, to reveal a small tattoo at the base of her neck. A tattoo of the sun. “We’ve failed you both. I am so sorry.”

“You’re with the Guild?”

She nodded. “I am Hipatia. I am a priestess of the Order, and leader of the Guild.”

“Well,” I said cynically, sniffling, “it won’t do us much good now.”

“Tannis has returned.” Her eyes were wide as I met them. “Tannis has returned, and you must go, now.”

I shook my head. “Tannis was destroyed, years ago.”

“No, he was merely weakened. Theron believed he had claimed power completely, as power-hungry fools often do. But Tannis was merely biding his time, until he could return. He still hoped to claim his prize.” Her gaze wandered down to Elara. “But now she is beyond all of them. Even you.”

An explosion sounded nearby and flames shot up into the gray sky. Hipatia clasped my hand, the wrinkles in her ancient face becoming even deeper.

“You must go, now. Tannis will show no mercy.”

I shook my head, holding Elara close. “I don’t care. Let them come.”

“Don’t be a fool!” She jerked in on herself as another explosion sounded, closer still. “There is still much to be done, Rook. Youmust do it. You must go back to Isambard. You have to warn them that Tannis has returned. Take the princess, and go. Fly."

“Why?” I asked, a scoff dropping from my lips. “What for? She’s dead. It’s too late.”

“A life for a life.”

“What?” I shook my head. “What do you mean? Whose life?”

An explosion rocked the remaining wall of the Pit, and debris flew through the air around us. Hipatia rose to her feet, her hands glowing with a strange yellow light.

“Take her, and fly. The Umbra Furorem is rising again, and you must go.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“A life for a life.” She said it again, but this time in Malakh, a language I’d learned as a child and had not heard spoken since. “You will know, when the time comes, you will know what to do.”

Suddenly, guards were flooding the pit, running at us, wearing a uniform I did not recognise. They were Seraph, their golden wings drawn to their backs as they stormed towards us.

“What the fuck do they want?” I asked.