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When Maez opened her eyes again, they were an eerie, violent green. A wicked smile stretched across her lips, and I could see the dark magic churning beneath her skin.

Shewas the sorceress conjuring the dragon had made.

Sadie

The screams were cut off in a flash of blinding emerald light. I cowered, shielding my eyes from the brilliant green, and when I opened them, I was surrounded by a mountain of bodies. Wolves and humans alike lay stacked one atop the other all around me, their lifeless charred bodies still sizzling from the bolts of lightning. The smell of cooking flesh turned my stomach again as I took in the utter carnage and shocking silence. I’d seen this magic before, watched as Sawyn’s bolts of magic carved up Calla, but this... this was an unfathomable amount of slaughter and it all happened in a single flash.

I blinked, swatting away the smoke circling my head to take in more of the room, but Maez was nowhere to be seen.

Rising onto shaking feet, I stumbled forward across the piles of bodies. I slipped across the sticky, wet tiles, and when the smoke cleared enough to take in the whole room, I spotted Navin lying limp upon the dais.

I screamed his name, running toward him in the unsettling quiet. Hundreds of bodies and not a single sound except for the slap of my bare feet on the tiled ground. I slid the last few paces to him and dropped to my knees.

I searched his body for burn holes, my eyes roving over him, but he was completely unscarred. The cut at his temple was gone,the trail of blood down his nose was now dried, the nick of a dagger cut at his neck had disappeared. I pulled him up to my chest, sobbing as I cried out his name.

His arms twitched beside me, and then his hands lifted, circling around me and pulling me farther into him.

“I’m okay,” he groaned, pushing us up into a seated position. He cupped my cheeks, wiping my frantic tears with his thumbs as he leaned his forehead against my own. “I’m alive.”

“Wh-what happened?” My voice trembled as I held him tighter. “The vase?”

He shook his head, refusing to let me go as I tried to search the gory space. “It’s gone. She took it. I...” His voice cracked and tears misted his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sadie.”

“Stop,” I croaked. “You saved us. You saved my life.”

“It’s my fault she’s a sorceress.” More of my tears fell at his confirmation as if I could’ve denied what had truly happened a little longer, but now that he said it, I knew it was true. “It’s why I wanted to get the vase away—so that it couldn’t be used to do exactly what I did. It’s my fault that dark magic was conjured. It’s my fault. All of this. I didn’t know what else to do.” His words flew from his mouth. “I thought they were going to kill you and—”

I silenced him with a kiss, tasting the salt of my tears on his lips. I kissed him slowly and deeply, needing that anchor for myself from the shock as much as for Navin himself. I felt my pounding heart slow, my trembling hands steady, as my lips molded to his own. His fingertips pressed into my blood-slick bare skin. He pulled me flush against his chest, his whole body shaking so violently that his teeth chattered.

“Okay.” I took a steeling breath. “Okay. We need to...” My mind reeled as I pressed my forehead to his again. “Panic later. We need to get out of here. Now.”

Navin cleared his throat, swallowing back more tears as he rose on wobbling feet. “My injuries,” he said, looking down at his tattered clothes streaked in red. “They’re gone. H-how?”

“Panic and answers later,” I reminded him as I stooped and snatched the flowing black robes from Luo’s dead body and hastily wrapped them around myself. “Tadei will surely return with more soldiers,” I said. “You told me that there were Wolves who lived on all of the surrounding islands, too. The pack hasn’t been wholly destroyed, and the fact that we had a hand in their King’s demise means we’re enemy number one. We need to run before they come after us.”

Navin’s hands clenched into fists. “I’d like to see them try.” He let out a low resonant whistle, and the dragon reared up on its hind legs again.

My mouth dropped open as I sized up the creature. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. “Gods,” I breathed, staring as I laced the inner belt together until the obsidian fabric drowned my body. “How long will you be able to control it?”

“Long enough to get Galen den’ Mora out of this place,” Navin vowed. “Hopefully long enough to get us back to Olmdere. However long it takes.”

“You remember the song from the vase?” I asked.

“Only parts, only some,” he considered, wrapping his arm around my side and holding me to him as he descended the dais. “But enough for now. Let’s go.”

We stalked through the carnage of the room, Navin muttering ancient words under his breath, half song, half chant, and the dragon followed behind us, each stomp making the ground rattle. I shuddered at the sound of it settling its wings back against its body like the flap of a sail.

The halls were empty as we walked back down toward the courtyard. In the city far below, people were still screaming and fleeing. A fireball hovered in midair over the golden domes of the palace, its green flames licking high toward the sky and spreading out across the land like swirling emerald ink. People scattered in every direction, leaving a path of chaos in their wake, as we walked swiftly toward the wagon. No one paid us any notice as they ran. I looked back one last time, stealing a final glance atthe palace and thinking of all the bodies that lay inside. If a war had been brewing before, now it had well and truly begun. The massacre of Rikesh would never be forgotten as long as the Onyx Wolf pack lived. Nor, I thought, the birth of a new sorcerer. My eyes fell to the tiled murals along the palace wall, imagining the story fitting in amongst the tales of triumph.

A cloud of shimmering green ashes glittered through the sky, heading in the direction across the far river toward Damrienn. I prayed that trail of dark magic meant Maez was heading to Highwick to rescue her mate, but also worried she was only going to bring more death and destruction. Would she even care about Briar now that she’d given over her soul to that dark power?

As we navigated through the crowds, panicked tears slipped down my cheeks. I couldn’t reconcile what had just happened. In a flash, she was just simply gone. There was no coming back from such magic. As more tears fell, I knew I’d lost Maez to it. I’d lost my best friend forever.

We rolled through Eshik without a single follower. No one peeked out windows and no one watched us flee. Galen den’ Mora rolled onward like a lone carriage at a funeral procession. Even long after the dragon flew off ahead of us, roaming the skies out toward the Stoneater River, we were met with silence. Did the people know the driver of this wagon had the power to conjure monsters? Did they know a sorceress was on the loose? Either the news of the palace battle had preceded us, or the sight of the flying monster had everyone so afraid that they’d locked down their cities.

The creak of our wagon wheels sounded foreboding in the darkness of the night from one unwelcome island to another. Not a single candle flickered on a windowsill. No songs were sung from rooftops. No celebrations in the town square. Not even the seediest taverns had their doors open. The streets suddenly seemed too wide, the city too big.

As we hit the road to Sankai-ed, I began to feel so hollow; I wondered if any of it had been real. It felt like waking from a nightmare. As the adrenaline wore off, the haunting silence mocked me. No matter how I scrubbed in the waters of Galen den’ Mora’s bathing spigot, I couldn’t seem to wash off the blood. It lingered, as if I was limned in pink, and the smell...