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She opens her eyes to the pool’s enduring glow, and it speaks to her. It whispers promises of peace in death. It sings to her of rivers that will deliver her to soft endings. It lies and schemes and lures her toward it.

But she has long since stopped listening to bodiless voices.

The iskra within her stirs restlessly and she finally allows it passage through her extremities, into her palms. It waits obediently for her direction. It waits to serve its last.

Farra shuts out the world she should have left long ago and has rarely felt as still, as restful.

“Vey ty sosud yerd iskra!”she calls, and the walls ring with the strength of her voice.

The substance in the pool spills over its edges, seeping into creases of stone. Its silvery glow trails over the floor of the Glacian palace in small streams, diverting and then intersecting at the soles of Farra’s feet.

She feels it as it seeps inside her, filling her quickly. Like the ocean, it is a current she cannot fight against. It gathers on all sides and thrusts her one way and then the other, until the pool runs dry, and she contains every inch of magic within.

Farra screams.

Every inch of her is stretching, splitting. She is nothing but dark matter in a vessel too small to contain it, but she cannot break apart.

Not here.

She turns toward the great oak doors, but topples. Her body does not obey her. It belongs to the iskra now. And she cannot make it to the tunnels, she cannot make it to the lip of the Chasm. The iskra tears her at the seams from within and there is little she can do but roar in agony, beg for mercy.

She sees Phineas kneel before her, though her sight is darkening, the iskra clouding it. He says nothing as he lifts her from the floor, despite the way she thrashes. Despite the ear-splitting cries she emits.

“I’ve got you,” he tells her, over and over. “I have you, Farra. Hold on.”

He carries her out of the palace, onto the ice. He stumbles beneath her weight as they near the lip of the Chasm, and just as Farra’s sight blackens altogether, she sees the Ledge.

She sees the tops of the pine trees, ordered in their lines. She sees the gleaming face in the distance, black as night.

And then she sees nothing at all.

“I’ve got you,” Phineas says, one last time.

And then they are weightless. They are falling.

Phineas’ arms remain wrapped around her as Farra splits apart.

CHAPTERFIFTY-SEVEN

The valley quakes.

It splinters in places, disrupting the ruins of the Fallen Village. But the tremors are nothing compared to the blast.

Dawsyn lets Alvira’s limp body fall to ground as the quaking begins. She steps over her and collects her ax, looking around for Ryon, Tasheem, Rivdan and Ruby, the ground concussing.

But the air suddenly turns scolding and in the next moment a force knocks her from her feet.

She is thrown through the air and as she lands, her head collides with rock. She slumps down the side of a crumbling stone wall, her ax flying from her hand.

Her ears ring. She feels the warm trickle of blood spilling down her neck, slipping over her shoulder. And her vision blurs, turning to distorted shapes she cannot quite discern.

Ryon,she thinks.Where is Ryon?

But it is Rivdan that crawls to her side, shaking the ring of the blast from his own head.

Dawsyn can only think of one thing immense enough, one thing that could shake the earth like that…

Rivdan’s blue eyes widen as his hand goes to the back of Dawsyn’s head and comes away brilliant red. He reaches for her and though she cannot hear him, she sees his mouth moving.