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CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

“ H ere upon this fated shore, you’ll see the truth of your eternal war.” Mavus’s hand curled around my shoulder and he steered me toward the steps as they appeared between the golden gates at the far end of Wandershire.

The wandering town had docked upon a pebbled beach, the air still icily cold, but there was no snow here like there was at Never Keep.

“Where are we?” I asked curiously.

“The northern border of Pyros,” Mavus answered.

“Pyros?” I growled, rounding on him. “Why would you take me here when The Matriarch’s Fury plans to bring me to this land?”

“Well, it’s likely the last place he’d look for ya then, ain’t it lass?” Mavus boomed a laugh and descended the steps onto the beach. “Besides, you gotta pass Pyros to get to Cascada from Never Keep and you can’t have expected me not to make my stops along the way?”

I drew my dagger as I followed, growling curses under my breath at the unhinged Lion Shifter. Perhaps it had been na?ve of me to assume he’d take me directly to Cascada and make his first stop there, but I hadn’t given the alternative any thought.

I was far beyond the reaches of Kaiser’s possession at least, and I’d decided I could risk being untied for a couple of hours.

The Nightfire had been simmering in my veins, but it wasn’t a desperate urge yet, and I’d told Mavus he could use every Fae in his crew to tie me down if I tried to make a run for it.

I couldn’t deny I was curious to see what the trader’s work looked like. He was a crook riding the tides, sailing shore to shore, sneaking here and there to gather trinkets for his stores, but what did it really entail?

A host of Fae were already gathered on the beach, each of them with a piece of cloth tied around their necks, and as Mavus led the way up the beach, they all pulled them up over their mouths and noses. I chased after Mavus in the front, catching up to him just as he crested a bank beyond the beach.

The smell hit me in a flood.

I threw a hand to my face, wincing against the putrid scent as I took in the battlefield before me.

Bodies were strewn across churned up ground, lying in clayish mud, half picked clean by a flock of magpies that had come here to feed.

There were hundreds of them, their black and white feathers flashing as they took flight from one body to the next.

They were a sign of The Matriarch. She was known for these birds and the sight of them set me on edge.

They were linked to her through magic, but none of my people really knew their purpose, only that they amassed in the land of Pyros and followed her into battle like pious underlings. She had been here, that was for sure.

The battlefield stretched at least a mile, probably more, the ground turned into a wasteland, churned up and stricken with death.

“Strange, ain’t it?” Mavus mused as he paused to take in the massacre. “Seeing the battlefield after the battle. It’s real quiet.”

“It’s ominous,” I admitted.

“Ain’t nothin’ to fear here, lass. The dead don’t swing swords.”

“I’m not afraid,” I corrected his assumption. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies in my time.

“’Course ya not. Death don’t rattle bones like ours, does it?

Now come.” He took a couple of folded sacks from his pocket and passed one to me.

“Make yourself useful. If you find somethin’ of true value, place it in there.

I’ll pay ya ten karmas for the work. And here.

” He tossed me a piece of cloth before tying one around his own mouth and nose. “For the stench.”

I tied it in place, the smell a little stifled but it wasn’t entirely effective.

Mavus directed his workers out onto the battlefield and I followed him down to the nearest rows of bodies.

Some were stacked on top of one another, enemy upon enemy, while others lay alone, eyes pecked clean from their skulls where they’d once been looking up at the sky, perhaps hoping the stars might save them – or at least save their souls.

I gently checked their pockets, finding only letters from loved ones and small trinkets that held little value beyond whatever they had meant to the dead.

A cracking of bone made my head lift and I found Mavus wrenching a man’s finger clean off his hand then cutting the wedding ring from it with a sharp knife. I wrinkled my nose and he met my eye.

“Some of their fingers swell in death, there’s only one way to get ‘em off,” he said in explanation, then started whistling as he tossed the finger aside and walked over the dead, his boots kicking heads and crushing bones as he went.

The casual disregard for the Fae who lay on this battlefield left me with an uncomfortable feeling in my chest. It looked like a battalion of Flamebringers had clashed with an army of Stonebreakers, so it was my enemies here, not Fae I had to be concerned over. Still…

“Stone meets bone and the blood will go home.” Mavus crushed his boot into the blood-stained dirt between the bodies. “Can you feel the power of your enemies here?” he called to me.

I looked around the desolate place, meeting the unseeing eyes of the dead and sensing the absence of their souls. A shiver rolled down my spine. This place felt cursed, as if the soil was tainted and no more grass would ever grow here.

“I feel nothing,” I lied to Mavus.

“I feel ‘em.” Mavus lowered to one knee, sifting his fingers through the soil while his gaze remained on the stars. “I can always feel ‘em.”

“Do you think their souls rest among the stars like some believe?” I asked, lifting a dagger from the belt of a fallen warrior, her hands clasping an amulet at her throat.

“No.” Mavus’s gaze fell from the sky, finding me instead. “I think the stars stopped collecting our accursed souls long ago, lass.”

I nodded, believing that too, only wishing it wasn’t true for the sake of my mama. “Perhaps the purest ones are still taken.”

Mavus crowed a laugh. “Pure? I ain’t met one of those, have you?”

“I have,” I said firmly and Mavus shook his head, his brow creasing and eyes darkening above the cloth that covered the lower half of his face.

“Those who appear the purest possess the darkest sins. Don’t be fooled by clean hands. The cleaner they are, the deeper the blood stains ‘em.”

I studied the blade I’d taken from the warrior, my thumb circling a yellow citrine gemstone in its hilt, likely placed there for luck. For all the good it had done her. The blade was well made, and it was beautiful too, etched with the lines of the Elysium Prophecy.

War of the four, divided and torn asunder.

Flame, sky, rock and sea collide,

While the stars bless the valiant souls of battle.

Seek the void, for it shall guide the victor to their glorious path,

A weapon of purity, and the gift of null.

In a web of lies and cruelty, fate will favour the swinging steel of destiny,

And a bountiful empire shall be reborn under one all-powerful rule,

Garnering the fortune and favour of the almighty sky.

I frowned at the incorrect line which claimed fate would favour the ‘swinging steel’ of destiny.

It should have read ‘cresting wave.’ Was that some Stonebreaker fabrication?

A way they’d tried to twist the lines of the prophecy to make it appear as though the stars might favour them in the end?

If so, this woman’s final resting place was proof enough that her belief in that had been wrongly placed.

My mind latched on the prophecy Vesper and I had seen down in the chambers beneath the Keep, and my gut twisted as I thought of the way that line had been different there too.

That version had hailed ‘the peacemakers of destiny.’ Maybe the truth wasn’t as straight-cut as I wanted it to be.

I traced the word Void with my thumb along with the two crescent moons that decorated it and my heart rate elevated. The secret I held was unfathomably important to this war. It was difficult to accept the true magnitude of it.

As if reading that word had called it to existence, I felt the darkness in me rising, my breath fluttering the cloth in front of my lips as I exhaled at the feeling of power humming through my blood.

The energy in my chest slithered away from me, invisible yet I could practically see its path as it snaked across the battlefield and slipped into the ground. My magic latched onto something within the very earth, a magic so terrible, so violent, so destructive that I lost all sight of everything.

Blackness washed over me. The dark was thick, unending, suffocating. A screaming, wailing, roaring sound raked through my ears and the dreadful hum of that awful power wracked through my bones, carving me apart from the inside out.

“Everest!”

My eyes flew open and I found Mavus kneeling over me, his hands gripping my arms as he shook me.

But I couldn’t stay, the blackness pulled me down, sucking me into that unholy chasm of power that wanted to tear me apart.

I was tethered to it by the Void, unable to break the bind, and all I could do was watch myself fall into an abyss so endless that I would never return from it.

But then, among all that potent dark power was something undeniably pure. A river of silver glimmered like starlight spilling through the ground in a straight line. The magic of it was immeasurably raw, unsullied by all.

A sharp sting in my arm brought my attention back from that distant beyond.

It felt like butterflies were dancing and skipping along my skin, spiralling up and away into my veins, singing and laughing and calling my name.

A pink glow ignited beneath my eyelids and the keen flutter of wings brushed against my soul .

Hello, friend. Let us play, it seemed to call.

With a wrenching, splintering feeling in my chest, somehow the Void magic untethered itself from the chaotic power it had found and my eyes flew open.