Alex was gone.
A sob surged from her depths. She wanted to stay weeping over him. To lie down beside him until death came for her, too.
It was the promise she’d made him that stopped her. She couldn’t break it.
The world spun like she’d stepped into the eye of a hurricane. The air smelled of blood and smoke, magic and gunshots. As Rune recalled the pages of her grandmother’s spell books, the shouting soldiers and cracking pistols seemed to go quiet and still.
She’d skimmed through so many spells over the years, most of which she couldn’t cast because she didn’t have the blood required.
Now she did.
She needed to make the most of it.
Save yourself, Alex’s voice echoed in her mind.
As his body grew cold beneath her hand, Rune let his words guide her. She recalled the last spell book she’d opened, remembering a spell too powerful for a witch like her to cast.
Earth Sunderer.
The seven golden marks flared to life inside her mind.
With Alex still in her arms, she lifted her hand from his blood and started to draw on the stone slabs around them. It shouldn’t have been possible to remember them so clearly, but she did. She traced each mark into the ground, her hand guided by something nameless. Ancient. That familiar roar crashed in her ears. Brine bloomed on her tongue. That powerful wave was swelling, only this time, Rune was swelling with it. Her fingers moved as if possessed, the magic itself guiding her.
The moment she finished one mark, she started on the next.
Is this what being a witch is supposed to feel like?
Good. Easy. Right.
With an immense amount of fresh blood, nothing held her back. That ocean inside Rune wasn’t happening to her; it was her. She and the magic were one.
When she finished the last line of the final mark, encasing both her and Alex in a circle of glowing white symbols, her bloody fingers lifted from the earth. As they did, that thunderous wave crashed, shuddering through her, bursting out of her as the ground shook and an earsplitting roar tore the world in two.
SIXTY-TWO
GIDEON
GIDEON WATCHED HIS BROTHER collapse. Watched Rune catch him and sink to the ground beneath his weight. Watched Alex cradle Rune’s face in his hands, and Rune lean down to kiss him.
And that’s when Gideon’s steps faltered.
Because Alex didn’t want Gideon at his side. He wanted her there.
When he heard Rune’s heart-shattering sob, he knew his brother was gone.
His throat constricted. No …
Alex was dead. Killed by a bullet meant for Gideon.
All the color seemed to drain from the world.
I didn’t get to say goodbye.
He fell to his knees, hands fisting in the stones. He pressed his forehead to his fists, his whole body shaking at the loss of the last person he had left. A ragged cry ripped through him, tearing out of his throat.
Is this my lot? To fail everyone I love?
A sudden BOOM! resounded through the square. Gideon lifted his head to find the world gone dark. As if someone had swallowed the sun. He heard the cracking before he felt it: the earth quaking. Rising and falling beneath his feet. Like an unruly sea.
The metallic tang of blood magic spread through the air, mingling with another scent. Salt. Like the sea.
Gideon tried to rise, but kept losing his balance.
When the sunlight returned, he found a black chasm widening in front of him, separating him from his brother’s body, and into the void poured the ocean. Protecting the witches from those coming to kill them. Tearing the town square in half.
The ground continued to shake, forcing Gideon to step away from the edge, lest the shuddering earth thrust him over. As white waves churned, rushing to fill the gap, the dust from the earthquake rose into the air, turning it gray. His brother disappeared behind it.
Gideon turned to the surrounding chaos. Looking for Laila or Harrow—whose voice he now heard, barking orders. Hoping neither of them were near that widening chasm. If they were, they’d be swallowed.
When he glanced back, he found Cressida staring at him from the other side. Through the gray. Seraphine stood at her left. Rune, at her right.
Cressida’s pale eyes narrowed on Gideon, and he knew this was far from over.
The witch queen retreated. Her movement caused the dust to swirl, concealing her behind it. Seraphine followed, leaving only Rune, whose sorrowful gaze locked with Gideon’s until the dust cloud swallowed her, too.
His hands curled into fists.
“I will never stop hunting you, Rune Winters. No matter where you go, I will come for you.”
In her absence, Gideon saw something flutter in the air above the chasm. Small and red and delicate, its wings shimmering in the gloom.
A crimson moth.
Gideon’s heart hardened at the sight of it.
ENTR’ACTE
RUNE
RUNE STARED OUT OVER the sparkling sea, watching the broken island in the distance grow smaller and smaller. She felt like a stranger in her own body. Everything that made her Rune Winters was on that island—or had been—and she was sailing away from it.
As the gulls cawed overhead and the sails snapped in the wind, she listed off all the things she’d lost:
Wintersea, her home.
Lady, her loyal horse.
Alex, her beloved friend.
Rune swallowed, remembering him in those last moments. Gazing up at her, full of love and trust.
He would never finish his studies now, nor write another song. His music would no longer fill any halls, luring Rune to him. She would never again step into his arms and know she was safe. Never sit beside him at the opera, or the symphony. Never stroll the streets of Caelis at his side.
He was gone.
Rune felt broken beneath the weight of his absence. Their dreams of a new life were scattered to the corners of the earth, never to be put back together.
A sound from behind made her glance away from the porthole.
Across the cabin of Rune’s cargo ship, Cressida sat at a table with several other witches, planning their next move. Rune watched Cressida stand up and lean over the map spread across the table, pressing her fingertip to some point Rune couldn’t see. As she moved, the botanical scars snaking down her arms shimmered silver in the candlelight.
It was painful to look at her.
For two years, Rune had trusted the girl across the cabin with her life, believing she was Verity de Wilde. It made her dizzy to think that the entire time, her best friend hadn’t been a scholarship student, but a murderess.
What are we to each other now?
And what would Cressida expect from Rune when they landed on the Continent?
This whole time, Rune had been unwittingly saving witches for Cressida’s army. And now that they knew the heir to the Roseblood line was alive, more witches were flocking to her. Rune’s cargo ship was sailing to Caelis, where the witch queen would bolster her army and prepare to take back what was stolen from them all—ushering in a new Reign of Witches.
Rune was no fan of the New Republic, where her life was now forfeit. But neither did she want to return to what had come before the regime. She knew what Cressida was capable of and had no interest in swapping one evil for another.
But she had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t return home, where the Blood Guard waited to kill her. And with Alex gone, there was nothing waiting for her ahead.
Someone cleared their throat beside Rune, yanking her out of her thoughts. She turned away from the porthole and found Seraphine, her thin hands cupped around a mug of steaming tea.
“If you can tear a city in half,” said Seraphine, “she’ll want to know what else you’re capable of. In case you can be of use to her.”
Rune recoiled at the thought. “I have no intention of being useful to her.”
Seraphine shot her a look. “It’s better to be useful than to be dead.”
Rune considered the young woman beside her, sipping her tea. Peeking up from Seraphine’s lace collar was the hint of a silver casting scar carved into her umber skin. But Rune couldn’t make out the pattern. Feathers, maybe.