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CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

I was pinned to the rocks, held there by five Skyforgers who were fighting back a tide of my people. The battle raged around me, heavy footfalls and blasts of magic making the earth shudder, but I couldn’t see past the clamour of bodies holding me down.

Every time one of the Skyforgers tried to launch into the air with me, they were met with a dome of ice or blast of water that stopped them from making it far and we were knocked back to the earth.

I could no longer feel Kaiser’s possession, but every now and then fire bloomed from the direction of the ridge and I felt sure he was still fighting.

Harlon’s voice called to me too, but there was no way he could reach me while so many Skyforgers kept me bound and guarded.

A tremendous roar echoed across the battlefield, accompanied by a blaze of fire so bright it illuminated the entire sky until it seemed the heavens themselves were burning but I couldn’t see through the throng of bodies to discern what had caused it.

My eyes clenched shut, my breaths becoming shallow as I fell into the darkness of my mind. The din of the fight roared in my ears, a constant drone of carnage that sang a lullaby of dread to my soul. I was the symbol of what they had all been raised to fight for.

I was victory to them. I was their lands’ hope of peace.

I could cease the war for good. The stars had decided that path for me and every Fae here had been told through prophecy that I, the Void, was their salvation.

Yet here on the brink of it, they chose only more violence to claim it.

And I would soon be made a prisoner again.

Hands tore at me more desperately and my eyes flew open to find the Cascadians salivating to get hold of me, striking at the Skyforgers pinning me down. From the ferocious look in their eyes, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be claimed by them either.

A sword cleaved a Skyforger’s head from his shoulders directly above me and blood splashed over my face to reveal the warrior standing beyond. I exhaled in shock at the familiar eyes staring down at me, the tang of blood on my lips sharpening the moment of our reunion.

My father was caked in gore from head to toe, his brown hair sticking to his brow and his breaths coming in low, rough exhales as he reached down to seize me.

The other Skyforgers were torn away from me and one look to my right showed Ransom plunging his sword into the chest of a nearly dead Manticore who had been mauled by some vicious creature among the Cascadians.

My half-brother looked to me, ragged from battle, but light entered his eyes as our gazes met.

My father hauled me to my feet and I realised the air magic was no longer binding me, the Skyforgers who had cast it now lying dead on the rocks around us. The scratches across my body stung in the cold air, but warmth found me when my father laid his palm against my cheek.

“Everest,” he sighed, so much relief in his voice that I could almost be fooled into thinking he loved me. But I knew better.

Hollow, I looked around me, finding another battalion of Skyforgers arriving to clash with the Cascadians and my people turned to hold them off.

Kaiser and Harlon were fighting each other on the ridge, Skyforger bodies strewn around them as magic clashed in the air.

Harlon missed a step as flames plumed toward his head and the stumble cost him everything.

Kaiser caught hold of him with his possession, using the second of distraction to break through Harlon’s mental shields.

My breath hitched in my lungs as the Fury forced my best friend to raise a dagger to his own throat.

I saw his death coming like an unstoppable wave. And a shuddering, violent tremor broke through my mind, snapping the remnants of my sanity.

I had been bound and battered and fought over. Now I was going to be forced to watch as my best friend died. I refuted that fate, denying the stars of it, because I would rip the sky apart if that was what it took to protect him.

The Void rose in a potent swell, more powerful than it had ever been before.

I screamed as it poured from me, that power unleashing itself, unhinged and entirely awake.

Never once had it felt like this, completely consuming, making me a goddess among Fae.

It crashed from me in a formidable surge, slamming into Kaiser and Harlon, guttering Kaiser’s possession over him and the dagger which had been poised to slit my best friend’s throat clattered to the ground.

But my power didn’t stop there. It swept out into my father.

Then it raced beyond him, delving into the Cascadian army and the Skyforgers above.

The warriors of Stormfell fell from the air as their magic was halted by the Void, slamming into the ground with hard cracks and screams of agony, their bodies falling like missiles without them even knowing what had happened and I was left stunned by the Void’s strength. My strength.

Movement higher in the sky drew my gaze to Ironwraith out over the volcanic plain and shock gripped me as the sky island began to fall, the Void ripping through the magic holding it aloft and making it groan as it slowly tilted into an undeniable descent.

Echo Fort had tumbled from its edge already and debris plumed up from the wreckage on the battlefield and I didn’t know if the Void had somehow caused that or not.

The unimaginable power I possessed left me speechless and more of it was still tearing from me, cutting through every scrap of magic it found.

Order forms shivered out of existence, leaving Fae naked and confused before their enemies. The Void silenced the magic in the atmosphere, the shock of it quieting the raging barrage of death until finally, I could think clearly again. Because I was in control.

I turned my gaze upon Kaiser as the red armour on his chest receded and his horns vanished before my eyes.

I stepped away from my father who was staring at his own body as the scales of his Merrow Order form vanished and he was left powerless.

Confusion mixed with fear around me because now they all saw my true might.

They saw the weapon for what it was and many were afraid, eyes scorching against my flesh, feasting on the truth of my power.

I prowled toward Kaiser with one task in mind, my jaw set and the Void tearing from me even more potently than before. The Fury looked perplexed, true emotion rising in his eyes as he turned his gaze on me.

“You have harnessed it,” he said, stepping toward me, but he should have been stepping away. I was a creature of vengeance and not a single Fae in this world could hold me back now.

I turned the entirety of the Void upon him and my lip curled back as he cried out and staggered another step toward me, reaching for me as if I might offer him sanctuary instead of death. But he should have had the sense to run.

A cry of purest hatred left me as I slammed a hand to his bare chest and let the Void cut through him, tearing apart any magic it found.

I gasped when I felt the strength of the soul-tie resisting, rising to meet the Void and bucking against its vigor.

The magic of the Fearsire was rooted deep and I groaned as it writhed inside me, thrashing against the Void as it worked to undo it.

Kaiser didn’t pull away, only moving closer as his possession flared and tried to take hold of me. But he couldn’t. Not anymore.

The Void poured from me into him so fiercely that it made tears pool in my eyes, sliding down my cheeks to carve through the ash and blood marking my skin.

“You are not my master,” I told him venomously. “You will never control me again.”

Kaiser gripped my arm, his eyes blazing, burning with want.

“ More ,” he rasped.

I let him have more, whether it was what he meant or not, I gave him every scrap of the Void and he groaned as if with relief, stumbling into me and pulling me to him. My ear pressed to his heart, the wild, erratic thumping of it nothing like the steady, even pace it usually beat to.

The Fearsire power rose up, screaming and roaring but the Void ripped into it again, devouring it, tearing and tearing until it finally fractured.

And that was all it took to break it apart completely, one crack turning into two then countless more until the magic shattered and I felt my soul part from this foul creature’s in a shuddering tremor.

Impossibly, that unbreakable magic had broken. And I was free.

“It’s gone,” Kaiser exhaled and he held me tighter. Tight enough that I could slip my hand to his waist and free my dagger from where it hung at his belt.

My tears came thicker, because it hurt to do this when it shouldn’t have. It should have been the most joyous moment of my life, but it was one of the most painful, and I couldn’t comprehend why.

I drove the dagger up between us, hard and fast and punishing as it sank into his skin, under his ribs and heading for the beating muscle of his heart.

Kaiser gasped, his muscles bunching around me, our embrace like one of lovers instead of enemies. He staggered back, his fingers skimming my face as he reached for me, but he was already falling toward the sheer edge of the ridge.

“Silka la vin,” he croaked a laugh, a beautifully tragic freedom in his eyes. “ Killer of mine.”

He fell, there one moment then tumbling into the great crevasse of Cinder Vale the next.

I rushed to the edge, finding my hand reaching for him and my tears coming thicker as I spotted him falling, hitting a ledge of black rocks halfway down the cliff.

He didn’t move.

Broken.

Dead.

Instead of relief, I felt some twisted, voracious creature devouring everything inside me until I was just left…empty.

“Ever,” Harlon’s voice forced me to turn from Kaiser’s body and I blinked through the tears to find him reaching for me. “Come with me.”

“No, Everest,” Father called. “Join Cascada. I’ll take you home, my child.”

I looked to the sea of confused warriors beyond him, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the fight broke out again, magic or not. My Void was still subduing everyone’s power and I didn’t know how long it would last.

I turned my gaze to the hulking form of Ironwraith which was still falling, but it was shuddering now, something slowing its descent, some power resisting the pull to the ground and saving it from being shattered on the battlefield below.

“You belong in Cascada,” Ransom said, drawing my attention to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before. I’m sorry for being the worst brother, Everest. I’ll be better. Just come home.”

Home .

I looked to Harlon again. He had always been home to me.

“You belong with me,” he said earnestly. “Not them.”

My heart tugged me toward him with a painful urgency, but now that he was under the Cardinal Reaper’s control how could I trust him? He had made his loyalty clear. He’d placed the Reapers above our love for one another. So there was only one place I could go.

“Not anymore, Harl,” I whispered, my voice a broken rasp and I saw the agony he felt at those words.

I walked numbly to my father, each footstep heavier than the last and the weight of the stars’ eyes falling upon my skin.

As I stepped into Rake’s open arms, a shudder raced through me, uncertainty cloaking my thoughts.

But as he held me tight, drawing me to his chest and claiming me for our land, I felt my old desires rise.

To finally receive the love of this man.

“You will not regret this, daughter.”

I nodded stiffly, wondering if I was good enough for him at last. Perhaps one day he could love me as much as he loved Ransom. I was a powerful warrior worthy of Commander Rake’s legacy after all, so maybe I would find a new home at my father’s side.