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CHAPTER SEVENTY

AMARI

B Y THE TIME WE make it to the shorelines, the dark sands are bare. Skulls lie impaled on black vines. Their blood still leaks into the sand. Jagged glass fragments line the beach, each shaped like a brilliant lightning bolt. Only the dead line the coast.

Zélie and Mae’e are gone.

This can’t be happening.

Panic threatens to shut my body down. Every time I picture Mae’e or Zélie in King Baldyr’s hands, my throat constricts. I still can’t believe the words Mae’e shared. I feel the ghost of her lips against my own, the warm sensation that sent a shiver up my spine.

The way she kissed me… I don’t know if anything has ever felt so right.

Now I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that kiss again.

For all I know, Mae’e could already be dead.

No. I remove my obsidian blade. I knock the treacherous thought from my head. There has to be a way.

I won’t lose her and Zélie to Baldyr’s plans.

“Where are they?” Tzain growls. It’s all he can do to keep his head. He clutches his bone axe with shaking hands, ready to cut straight through the enemy’s chest.

Inan pulls out the map of Baldeírik and lays it across the sands.

His forehead creases as he searches the wrinkled parchment, not knowing which direction to go.

I look over the small villages, the Skulls’ camps, the capital city of Iarlaith.

King Baldyr’s commune sits at the nation’s center, marked with gated walls.

Think, Amari. I shut my eyes, running through everything Mae’e’s ever shared. I remember the connection she has with all of New Gaīa, the way the vines move to greet her.

I rise from the ground, returning to the black vines the sacred hierophant called forth on enemy lands. I run my fingers across the bloodstained stems. The vines are still warm. I call to the Green Maidens along the beach, forcing myself to speak their tongue.

“ Mae’e created these. ” I look between their terrified faces. “ Can we use them to find her? ”

I step back as the maidens close in. They press their palms to the thick trunk. I brace myself as they focus, channeling their Mother Root.

One by one, pain etches through their faces. One maiden falls to her knees. She clutches the left side of her body, touching her skin as if it bleeds.

“ There. ” The maiden points up the main trail. A collection of flickering lights illuminates the long path inland, traveling all the way up a mountain bluff.

The Old Stone. Yéva’s prophecy comes back to me. Dread crawls up my spine as I take in Baldyr’s sacrificial site. The Blood Moon looms above.

We’re running out of time.

Tzain whistles for Nailah, and the lionaire leaps from the ship, bounding across the sands. Tzain hops on and extends me his hand. Inan stops me before I can latch on.

“Wait!” He throws up his arms. “We rush in that way, we become captives, too.”

“We don’t have time!” Tzain pushes back.

“There’s a better way.” Inan studies the map once more, and runs his finger around the coast. “Can they use their vines to scale the statue on the mountain’s side?”

I do my best to translate Inan’s plan to the vineweavers. When they nod, we reboard the videira. The vines spin as we take off.

I lift up a silent prayer as we race to save the girls.