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“What’s happening?” I asked, not sure if I was referring to me or the arena. “Rhyan?”

The wind picked up speed, the sky seemed to blacken, and the aura of the crowd took on a fiery, violent feel.

A black, shimmering seraphim appeared in the sky, and screams filled the stadium as every torchlight went out.

I clutched at Rhyan, only able to see his outline from the flames that still torched the remains of Haleika’s akadim body. Screams sounded from every side of the stadium. Feet shuffled, bodies pushed against each other as curses were flung, and starfire blades sang out as they were unsheathed.

“Rhyan? What’s…?”

He’d lifted me into his arms, still hauling me back, searching for a door.

“Lyr,” he said, panic in his voice.

Screams erupted from everywhere, but one rose above all the others. It was a cry of horror, of pain, and in response came two more voices. Voices I’d know anywhere. Voices I’d always pick out, even in a crowd, even in a mob.

Meera. Morgana.

“Shekar arkasva!Emartis!” The cry was spelled to amplify, the chant made up of hundreds of voices.

There was a crack of thunder. A scream. A loud thud in the center of the arena as Meera and Morgana’s voices rose to an alarming pitch of horror.

“Lyr, we have to go. Right now!” Rhyan said.

“What—” I clutched my arms around his neck, my eyes starting to close. My energy was nearly gone, and I could barely keep my eyes open.

A cold yell pierced through the arena, “Victory!”

All at once, the torchlights returned, flaming back to life in one burst of power.

I blinked, barely able to keep my eyes open. They took a moment to readjust to the light, but then they did.

Lying in the center of the arena, his body only a few feet from Haleika’s burning remains, was my father.

His limbs were unnaturally twisted, his body broken, his eyes open in horror, focusing on me as he exhaled his final breath.

His eyelids closed, and his chest stilled.

“NO! NO!” I screamed, trying to race forward, to go to him, to save his life, but Rhyan gripped me harder, taking me away.

“Father!” I yelled. “FATHER!”

My strength, my power, all the energy I’d summoned in the arena had been vanquished. I knew nothing more but that Haleika was gone. My father was gone. Screams sounded. Inside me. In my heart. In the arena.

Rhyan’s arms tightened around me.

My eyes shut.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Goldenlightflashedbeforemy closed eyes. Everything ached. My head. My body. My mouth was dry, and it hurt to swallow. Slowly, I began to blink my eyes open. Light streamed in through a window beside a Cresthaven bed. But it wasn’t mine. My window was on the other side.

Fuck. What time is it? What room am I in? What just happened?

“You’re in Meera’s room,” Morgana said dully. “Thank fuck you’re awake.”

I turned my head, finding a ghostly pale Morgana, her black hair wild in her face, sitting at the foot of Meera’s bed. Behind her was Meera’s mural of visions. A painting of myself with my hair red and my body transforming into a black seraphim stared back. The Emartis.

The Emartis had….