Page 183 of Brimstone

The odds had never been in her favor back in Zilvaren. Madra was a monster. Her officials were corrupt. The people of Saeris’s ward were dirt poor and barely making it from one day to the next, but Saeris had never abandonedthem. Perhaps the way she clung to hope made her a fool in some people’s eyes, but it was just one of the things that made her extraordinary in mine.

The way she looked at me made me want to do better. Tobebetter. Every day of my life, I was going to have to work my absolute fucking hardest to deserve her love and respect. I wasn’t afraid of the challenge.

Saeris’s smile made something profound inside methrum. The echoes of fate and all the universe vibrated behind my breastbone, promising . . .what?I wasn’t like my mother. I hadn’t been blessed with visions of the future. I was just going to have to live my life and find out.

Saeris’s eyes drifted over my shoulder, focusing on the estate, and the moment was lost. “They’re coming,” she said.

The last of us.

They came down the slope from the house together: Te Léna and her mate, Maynir, who carried a bundled-up Everlayne in his arms; Iseabail, walking ahead of the group, her skirts pinned up with one hand, her crimson hair stark and bright against the white of the snow; Lorreth, helping a weary-looking Tal, who was up, dressed, and walking (though rather shakily) on his own two feet. Carrion, Foley, and Hayden brought up the rear, each carrying a towering stack of books.

Relief stabbed through me at the sight. In an estate full of valuables and riches, it was thebooksthey were saving. The information inside some of those tomes couldn’t be found anywhere else in Yvelia. It had been Belikon’s first priority when he’d assumed the throne of the Winter Palace to seek out anddestroy anything that might threaten his reign. For as evil as he was, he was also smart.

He knew that, to control his people, he had to control the information they had access to. Hide the truth from people, and you kept them in the dark. Burn the books, and you got to rewrite historyandthe future.

Those books would be replicated. They’d be shared among the masses. If I had to copy every single fucking one of them out by hand myself, I would see it done.

The last of the warriors were gone now. Our small group was all that remained, standing on the brink of something that none of us understood or knew how to fix.

Everlayne looked so tiny in Maynir’s arms. She’d always been small. Butstrong, too. Full of fire and passion. I’d always wondered how such a small vessel could contain so much energy. She was diminished like this—an echo of her true self. Purple shadows rimmed her eyes, her skin wan and pasty. Her hair had lost its luster, the normally bright blond strands dull and stringy in her thick, single braid. Her eyes shuttled quickly left, right, left, right beneath eyelids that looked so paper thin they were almost translucent.

“She’s burning up,” Te Léna said. “We need to get her back indoors as quickly as possible. I have a friend in Inishtar. Someone I trust. I’ll take her to them and make her comfortable, Fisher. I’ll send Maynir to let you know if there are any updates.”

“Thank you.” Everlayne had only ever had Belikon as a parent, and yet she had still turned out to be as kind and sweet as her mother. The blood we shared had bound us, even when the king had determined to keep us apart. She was my sister, and Iknewshe was in there somewhere, fighting to get back to us. I couldfeelher.

Te Léna and Maynir disappeared through the shadow gate, taking her with them. Iseabail was next to go. The witch hugged Saeris briefly, offered me a stiff nod, then was gone.

“If these satyrs don’t have anything stronger than ale, I’m holding you personally accountable,” Lorreth said as he passed us. “Just ’cause they can’t hold their liquor doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.”

“I’ll find you in a tavern, then?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I think we could all use a drink after this. I have the headache from hell, thanks to those sprites.”

He was referring to thefiresprites in particular. The other household creatures had already gone through the shadow gate, but the fire sprites were still below ground. Lorreth had gone into the bowels of Cahlish, as deep into the pyre as he could tolerate, and he’d tried to convince Archer and his friends to leave with us, but they had refused. They couldn’t survive very long without the heat of the pyre to sustain them—a day or two, at most—and anyway, they believed their brimstone would protect them from the rot.

They were likely right, but it still didn’t feel good leaving friends behind.

Tal was even paler than normal as he dipped his head to me. “I won’t be a burden on the camp,” he said in a raspy voice. “As soon as you’re through, I want you to send me back to Bayland’s End.”

Bayland’s End. I hadn’t heard that name spoken out loud in centuries. Hearing it now brought a wave of nostalgia crashing down on me. Taladaius’s ancestral seat had been a well-loved, if a little run-down, haunt of mine in my youth. We had gotten up to all kinds of mischief there together—two young Faelings discovering their magic and learning the lessons their realmhad to teach them the hard way. Taladaius wanted to go back. Whether his mother wouldhavehim back was another matter.

“Bayland’s End is less than a hundred leagues from Cahlish,” I said. “The rot won’t stop once it’s finished with Cahlish. It will keep spreading in all directions and be on your doorstep again in a matter of days.”

Tal shrugged half-heartedly. “Only if you don’t stop it first.” He wore an amused smile. “I get the feeling that the two of you will have found a way to put a stop to all of this by tomorrow night, anyway. You’re each as stubborn as the other when it comes to getting your way.”

He wasn’t wrong there. The outlines of a planwereforming in my mind. It was a long shot, and by all the gods was it dangerous, but if it worked . . .

Saeris would besafe.

The realm would be safe, at least for a little while.

The mess I would have to create would be catastrophic. Sometimes, the cure was more dangerous than the affliction, but at least it would buy us some time . . .

“Do you guys mind if I skip ahead in line? These books are really heavy.” Carrion grimaced awkwardly as he leaned around Tal’s shoulder. The smuggler was wearing three coats layered one on top of the other. His hands were encased in mittens.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Saeris asked.

“Because I always end up sitting in a snowbank, waiting around for hours while everyone else disappears off to do something dangerous. I don’tlovebeing cold, Saeris.”