Cain only smiles, a vestige of his old conceit.
“The jinn will be freed,” he says. “The balance between worlds restored. But the humans are ready for you, Nightbringer. They will prevail.”
“You poor fool.” I seize him, and when he unleashes his power to throw me off, the air shimmers briefly before I shake the attack away like a human would a mosquito.
“Look into my eyes, you wretch of a man,” I whisper. “See the darkest moments of your future. Witness the devastation I will unleash.”
Cain stiffens as he looks, as he sees in my gaze field upon field of the dead. Villages, towns, cities aflame. His people, his precious Scholars obliterated at the hands of my brethren, ground down until even their name is no longer remembered. The Mariners, the Tribes, the Martials all under the bloody, iron-fisted rule of Keris Veturia.
And his champions, those three flames in which he placed all his hopes—Laia of Serra, Helene Aquilla, and Elias Veturius—I smother those flames. For I have taken the Blood Shrike’s soul. The Waiting Place has taken the Soul Catcher’s humanity. And I will crush Laia of Serra’s heart.
The Augur tries to turn away from the nightmare images. I do not let him.
“Still so arrogant,” I say. “So assured that you knew what was best. Your foretellings showed you a way to free yourselves and release the jinn while protecting humanity. But you never understood the magic. Above all else, it is changeable. Your dreams of the future only bloom if they have a firm hand to nurture them to life. Otherwise, they wither before they ever take root.”
I turn to the jinn grove, dragging the struggling Augurs with me. They push at me with their stolen magic, desperate to escape now that they know what is to come. I wrap them tighter. They will be free soon enough.
When I arrive among the haunted trees, the suffering of my brethren washes over me. I want to scream.
I drive the Star into the ground. Now complete, it bears no sign of its splintering and stands as tall as I do, the four-pointed diamond harkening to the symbol of Blackcliff. The Augurs adopted the shape to remind themselves of their sins. A pathetic, human notion—that by drowning in guilt and regret, one can atone for any crime, no matter how despicable.
When I place my hands on the Star, the earth stills. I close my eyes. A thousand years of loneliness. A thousand years of deceit. A thousand years of plotting and planning and atonement. All for this moment.
Dozens of faces flood my mind, all those who possessed the Star. All those I loved. Father-mother-brother-daughter-friend-lover.
Release the jinn. The Star groans in response to my command, the magic within its metal twisting, warping, pouring into me and drawing from me, both at once. It is alive, its consciousness simple but thrumming with power. I seize that power, and make it mine.
The Augurs shudder, and I bind them tighter—all but Cain. I weave a shield from my magic, protecting him from what is to come.
Though he will not thank me for it.
Release the jinn. The trees moan awake, and the Star fights me, its ancient sorcery sluggish and unwilling to bend. You have held them long enough. Release them.
A crack echoes through the grove, loud as summer thunder. Deep in the Waiting Place, the soughs of the spirits transform into screams as one of the trees splits, then another. Flames pour from those great gouges, bursting forth as if the gates to all of the hells have been breached. My flames. My family. My jinn.
The trees explode into cinders, their glow painting the firmament an infernal red. Moss and shrubs curdle to soot, leaving an acres-wide black ring. The earth shudders, a tremor that will shatter glass from Marinn to Navium.
I taste fear on the air: from the Augurs and the ghosts, from the humans that infest this world. Visions flash across my mind: a scarred soldier cries out, reaching for daggers that will not help her. A newborn babe awakes, howling. A girl I once loved gasps, wheeling her horse about to gaze with gold eyes at the crimson sky over the Forest of Dusk.
For an instant, every human within a thousand leagues is united in a moment of ineffable dread. They know. Their hopes, their loves, their joy—all will soon be naught but ash.
My people stagger toward me, their flames coalescing into arms, legs, faces. First a dozen, then two score, then hundreds. One by one, they tumble from their prisons and gather near me.
At the edge of the clearing, thirteen of the fourteen Augurs silently collapse into heaps of ash. The power that they siphoned from the jinn flows back to its rightful owners. The Star crumbles, dusty remnants swirling restlessly before disappearing on a swift wind.
I turn to my family. “Bisham,” I say. My children.
I gather the flames close, hundreds and hundreds of them. Their heat is a balm on the soul I thought I had long since lost. “Forgive me,” I beg them. “Forgive me for failing you.”
They surround me, touch my face, pull away my cloak, and release me into my true form, the form of flame, which I have repressed for ten centuries.
“You freed us,” they murmur. “Our king. Our father. Our Meherya. You did not forget us.”
The humans were wrong. I had a name, once. A beautiful name. A name spoken by the great dark that came before all else. A name whose meaning brought me into existence and defined all I would ever be.
My queen spoke my name long ago. Now my people whisper it.
“Meherya.”
Their long-banked flames blaze brighter. From red to incandescent white, too bright for human eyes, but glorious to mine. I see their power and magic, their pain and rage.
I see their soul-deep need for vengeance. I see the bloody reaping to come.
“Meherya.” My children say my name again, and the sound of it drops me to my knees. “Meherya.”
Beloved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my incredible readers all over the world: Thank you for laughing at my talking vegetables and hooting owls, and for all the love. I am lucky to have you.
Ben Schrank and Marissa Grossman: You helped me transform this strange fever dream into an actual book. I’ve run out of words to say thanks, so I’ll keep sending you weaponry and socks, and hope that suffices.
Kashi, thank you for teaching me how to vanish into the attack, for cheering the loudest when I did so. Your patience with my flinty-eyed, gunslinger ways is saintly. God only knows what I’d do without you.
Thank you to my boys, my falcon and my sword, for knowing I need coffee in the morning. I hope you read this book one day, and I hope you are proud.
My family is my scim and my shield, my own little fellowship. Mama, thank you for your love and grace. Daddy, bless you for assuming that I am more awesome than I actually am. Boon, you are one tough brother and I am proud of you. Also, you owe me dinner. Mer, next time I won’t call you quite as much, ha-ha, lying, I’ll probably call you more. Heelah, Auntie Mahboob, Maani, and Armo—thank you for the hugs and duas. Aftab and Sahib Tahir, I am so blessed to have you.
Alexandra Machinist—here’s to bullet journals, philosophizing on the phone, and flailing over the things we cannot control. I adore you and I am forever grateful for you.
Cathy Yardley—I would not have survived writing this book without your calm wisdom. You’re a badass.