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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

BASTIAN

There comes a point when hope is lost, but you can’t acknowledge it. You have to keep pretending hope is there.

—A letter from the Rouskan front lines, pre-Kirythean-takeover, author unknown

H is head throbbed like someone had kicked it in. Bastian put a hand to his temple, half expecting it to come away bloody. But he was whole, apparently, no worse for wear other than scratches down his arms from the burnt brambles he lay under.

Burnt brambles Gabe had pushed him under.

With a curse, he sat up, mindless of the new scratches scoring his skin as he fought free of the underbrush. He expected screams, the sounds of battle from the ships they’d all known would land here eventually, the war finally come to pass.

But he heard no screaming. More worrisome: Everything was dark.

He craned his neck, peering upward. The winged being in the sky was gone; it seemed Apollius had taken all the light with Him. The island was dark, and he was alone, and somewhere Lore and Gabe were fighting against the God of Everything without him.

“Fuck that,” Bastian sneered.

A hand on his arm; his muscles still remembered the boxing ring. Feint left, slip his arm from that grip, slide out a foot to catch an ankle. Whoever it was hit the ground before he realized that the hand was familiar, that the body was much smaller than his own.

“Dammit, Bastian!” Alie’s voice, indignant, but shaking leaf-light. Something had scared her, and she still wasn’t over it. Probably the hordes of the dead. “It’s me!”

“Sorry.” He offered her his hand, pulled her up. His eyes had adjusted to the dark quickly; he took in her ripped gown, clotted with rot, her wild eyes and mussed hair. “How bad was it?”

Her lip wobbled. “Bad. Val lost her arm. Malcolm is tending to her now; before I came to find you, they were about to cauterize the wound with Mari’s dagger. I think she’ll live.”

“Is that the only one of ours hurt?”

“I think so,” Alie answered. “Lilia is gone, but I don’t think she’s dead. I think she followed Gabe up the mountain.”

“Then I guess I’ll see her up there,” Bastian said, turning away, already tensing to run.

“I’m coming with you.”

He stopped, glanced back at his sister. “No, you’re not.”

“You might be the King, but we’re way past this—”

“Alienor, you’ve done enough.” He put both his hands on her shoulders, like he could hold her in place.

“You found the piece. You navigated a court completely under Apollius’s thumb, helped plot a resistance against a god.

You gave Gabe your power. You killed your betrothed because he was still a tyrant, and don’t pretend that didn’t hurt, because I know you, and I know you aren’t built for killing. ”

Her lip wobbled again, the movement harder to hide this time. She clamped down on it, took a staccato breath that sawed through her teeth.

“I think I could have loved him,” she said, like some shameful confession. “If I’d let myself forget what he was. If I let myself only see the face he showed me, and didn’t think about what he was to the rest of the world. That’s why I did it. Not because I didn’t care. Because I did.”

“Because you are better than I could ever dream of being,” Bastian said.

“Oh, hush.” A tear broke from her lash line. She scrubbed it away, then put her hand on top of Bastian’s. “That has nothing to do with it.”

It did, but he didn’t argue. Bastian knew about loving monsters. About sacrificing the world on the altar of those who held his heart.

Her hand tensed on his. “I can’t let you do this alone.”

This. Neither one of them knew what waited up at the Fount, but they both knew that the possibility of it being good was next to none.

“You’ll have to,” Bastian said, almost apologetically. “Please, Alienor, one of us has to survive.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t talk like that.”

Bastian shrugged. “Just being pragmatic.”

Alie swung her gaze from him to the path, winding up through the burnt forest, the ruins of long-ago settlements of faithful.

“Someone has to be here to take the crown,” Bastian said. “Just in case.”

“I don’t want it,” Alie murmured.

“Neither did I, and yet.” He let his hands fall from her shoulders.

“If something happens to me, there should be an Arceneaux to give it away. Or burn it, whatever. Make one of those democracies Caldien is always banging on about. But you and I both know that if neither of us make it back, it will be chaos.”

It was deliberate, this shift into logistics.

And Alie’s eyes said she knew exactly what he was doing, but she let herself be led anyway.

“You’re right.” She sighed. “I can think of at least three people who would say the throne is rightfully theirs, and four more who would try to make their own principalities.”

“Can’t have that,” Bastian said. “Or maybe we can. But either way, one of us has to be there to help.” He snorted. “To usher in whatever world comes next, because this one might be ending.”

“Changing, at least,” Alie said, looking up at the darkened sky again. When she spoke again, she kept her eyes there. “Go on. Don’t make me watch you run.”

And he did, taking off with a rush; he couldn’t phase into light and flame, but he could do this, run so hard he left everything else behind. His heart thrummed, pulling him toward Gabe and Lore, toward whatever waited for the three of them, here at the end.

Bastian fled into the dark, and hoped with everything he had left that he wasn’t too late. For what, he wasn’t sure.