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“We’re not gonna hurt you.” I stretched a hand into the hole. “We just want to help.”

“You’re the king.”

And yet I stood on the ashes of my kingdom.

“I used to be.” I forced a smile for her. “C’mon. Let’s get you somewhere safe, eh?”

Sanvi bent past me, stretching her arm far enough into the pit to reach the child’s face. She still gaped up at us, however.

That was when Sanvi jumped into the unstable rubble, lifted the baby from the girl’s arms, and passed him to me. All the while, the child looked between us with adoration.

I’d never penalize her for that, but we didn’t deserve it. Not after this.

I’d taken the throne of Matriaza because I wanted it to become a better world than it was when I was born into it. In some ways, I agreed that we’d accomplished that much. Matriaza had strengthened when Véa and I rose to power. But with that power came the expectation of safety. Our duty was protecting these people and protecting the ones we’d created.

By extension, that made this our fault.

We still wore the crowns. We were still king and queen of Matriaza. And this had happened on our watch, at my brother’s hand, no less.

No, we didn’t cause the lightning. No, we didn’t know about the deal with the maalaichte cnihme. Yes, we were the ones who’d been betrayed.

But millions were dead because we hadn’t figured it out sooner, and my brother threw a temper tantrum.

This child’s parents were two of them.

As I lifted the baby to my arms, I looked him over for signs of distress, and I saw none. The child had just been lifted several feet through the air, greeted by the smell and embrace of a stranger, and his eyes didn’t so much as flutter.

Sanvi hoisted the little girl over the ledge of the rubble, and Anise helped her to the ground, speaking softly to her as she did.

And I stared at the baby in my arms as his chest stopped rising and falling.

CHAPTEREIGHT

VÉA

Once I repeated to Nix what Hana told me, he opened an egress home. He shoved as many survivors as he’d found—roughly a hundred in the capital—through it to our home.

Although, notourhome. A secluded island somewhere he didn’t specify to me, but he gave me an image to pass along to Hana. She opened the egress to the same island for those we found.

By the time we were done with the capital, searching every nook and cranny, we had fifteen. Fifteen survivors.

Matriaza’s population was far lower than Morduaine’s, and yet, they had almost ten times the survivors we did. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was right and Lux’s “accident” had been a bit more purposeful than he’d led on, or if it was because once he absorbed all those souls on Matriaza, he was stronger than he’d been. So strong that his lightning was drastically more dangerous.

One way or the other, I wasn’t sure how many times the sun rose and fell before we’d searched every crevice of both worlds. Nix and Hana’s jobs were the most grueling, flying over every bit of the land, searching for the aura of a soul. The rest of us were only following them around, swooping down from the clouds to aid anyone we found.

Perhaps two days? Maybe three? I couldn’t be sure, but we didn’t stop until Nix and Hana sensed no remaining life on either world.

The survivor count by then? 12,478 from Morduaine, and 34,593 from Matriaza. In the coming days, battling the sickness from the poisoned lands, we’d lose 9,053 more lives.

Grand survivor count: 38,018.

Perhaps that seemed like a lot, but considering it was out of nearly ten billion? All we had left from an ocean of people was a pond.

* * *

I made it home before Nix after a bath in the river. The sun had set; I wasn’t sure how long ago. But I walked through the door, and I fell onto the sofa. At first, I didn’t even realize anyone was seated there.

They spoke, and I heard them, but it didn’t register. Not until my nephew, Heylel, put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Are you alright, esiasch?”