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“Spirits,” Tolek grumbled as he watched.

As I told them of every moment of the pit I could recall, Santorina crouched beside me and cleaned the dirt from my scrape, setting my shoulder in a makeshift sling. She assured me it was okay, but this would take the strain off. Ric asked a number of questions about the forces against me, and I answered as best as I could remember, unsure what the Mindshaper was making of it all. I’d find out later.

Relaxing back into Tolek’s arms when Rina finished, I surveyed my friends and realized only the Mindshapers and my core group were around me.

“Where are the others?” Leaning around them, I spotted Vale a way down the cavern, clutching her head.

“Preparing,” Malakai said. My body chilled. “We received a letter while you were down there.” He extended a piece of worn parchment. Behind him, Esmond and Gatrielle walked back into view, assisting a vacant Mila with her pack.

Unfolding the note, I recognized our Master of Weapon’s handwriting, and my stomach plummeted deeper than the pit with her vague but immediate command.

Get your asses back to camp NOW.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Damien

Thorn’s keening wails split the air. They bounced off craggy rock walls, each stalagmite and stalactite amplifying them. His shrieks shattered into a cackling laugh and murky silver light burst around him, wings inflating and diluting.

“She comes to play. She comes to play,” Thorn cheered. He released another chilling laugh, and a shining crown flared to life around his head.

On the edge of the chamber, the veil fluttered, ebbing with a life we could not touch. Thorn lunged toward it. Ptholenix and I gripped his arms, and he sank against us without a fight.

“Feed the fears, little child, kissed by Angels,” the Mindshaper guffawed. “Frights and horrors and dismays—they are so fun to play.”

His wails bit through me.

Vaguely, I remembered a time when his force ran deep and strong. When his frame was sturdy, not wracked by tremors. But my brother was no longer that mortal man. The light rimming his head only reinforced that. It pulsed with sharp, dark thorns, the silver melting into black.

Before my eyes, an inky substance dripped from one spike. Thorn cackled again.

A glance at Bant and the slight shake of his head confirmed what I already knew. This was not a result of shedding power as I had once seen, nor as Bant had conducted. This was different.

“Compose yourself,” our master commanded, as if Thorn could so easily regulate these matters. As if we had not longed to help him since before we had ascended.

Thorn only continued to laugh.

“Kissed by Angels,” he repeated.

And the veil continued to ripple through our chamber. Pushing. Stretching. But the shadow wavering behind it was gone.

Kissed by Angels—those words echoed through my mind. Could he mean the ones we mourned?

I read the question across our master’s storm-laced stare as well.

“Millennia,” he whispered, a softer sound than he usually bore, an unrecognizable tone to it. One of tangled fear and hope. Of star-bound, fate-kissed beings.

Chapter Fifty

Malakai

I breathed a surprising sigh of relief when we returned to the mountains, and I saw my tent. That small, unfurnished haven on the border of camp was comforting as I approached to deposit my pack. It was as untidy and empty as I’d left it, yet as I stepped across the threshold and tucked the tent flaps back to let in the fresh dawn air, the nerves I hadn’t realized I was carrying in my shoulders unknotted.

Well, a bit. There was still?—

“My long-lost brother returns.” Barrett formed a shadow in the open entrance to my living quarters, his lean frame outlined by the rising sun. Rebel bounced around his feet, seeming to triple in size in the weeks I was gone.

“I assume this is your doing?” I gestured to the burning mystlight and the wrapped parcel on the side table that smelled suspiciously of smoked meats. My stomach rumbled as I looked at it. Quickly splashing water on my face and hands, I unwrapped the package and dug in to the first fresh food I’d had in days.