“Give me the ring!” My voice cut through the roar of the audience.
Ina behaved as if I hadn’t spoken. She cast a nervous glance at Nismae, who still lay in the sand, unmoving. Hal wasn’t far from Nismae, but I could still sense the brightness of his life force in spite of what the king had drained.
“I just helped you win the crown,” I said. “Give me that ring.”
“You did that?” Ina hesitated. She had to have sensed the transference of power. It was too big to ignore if she had the Sight activated at all, and I knew she had.
I was out of patience, and power still coursed through me. “I did it to him and I’ll do it to you if you don’t give me that ring right now.” I let my magic slip into hers and tugged just enough to be a warning.
She fell to her knees. The audience gasped to see their new queen on the ground.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I must,” I said. She undoubtedly knew how priceless the Fatestone was, but not necessarily what it would allow me to do or how badly I needed it.
Her gaze flickered to Nismae. Worry creased her brow.
“Only if you agree to help Nismae,” Ina said, raising her chin. Her eyes flashed in a way that once would have frightened me.
“You’re in no position to bargain with a daughter of the shadow god,” I said.
Ina’s eyes widened. She only knew the version of my story that had long since been proven untrue.
“Demigod or not, I’m still your queen.” She didn’t back down, even on her knees.
I crouched beside her. “Queen or not, I can tear you apart.”
Our eyes locked.
“I’d like to see you try,” she said, but her voice faltered. She was tired from the battle, and maybe she could see the truth in my eyes—that I no longer loved her like I had back home.
“Give me the ring and you’ll have your crown.” I held out my hand.
She pulled off the ring and threw it into the dirt, then scrambled to her feet and fled toward Nismae.
I snatched the ring and put it back on my finger.
Hal.
I hurried to where he lay.
“Hal,” I cried, checking for a heartbeat. It was faint, but it was there. Without hesitation I threw most of the king’s magic that I’d stolen into him. Power flooded through him, pulsing and twisting wildly until the glow of his energy brightened in my Sight.
His eyes flew open and he sat up, gasping for breath.
I threw my arms around him, so grateful that he was all right.
“Nismae doesn’t have the Fatestone,” he said.
“It’s all right,” I murmured, burying my face in his neck. “I got it.”
He kissed me softly and then looked to where his sister lay.
“Oh no,” he said, scrambling through the sand to her side.
Ina fixed him with a look fierce enough to melt rock, but he paid her no mind.
Hal checked Nismae’s pulse and listened for breath.
“She’s barely breathing,” he said. “She’s going to die all because she saved me. Oh gods . . .”
His pain cut through me as Ina’s once might have. I wanted to help Hal. But Nismae had never done me a single kindness, unless not killing me counted. But she’d saved someone I loved.
“Do something!” Ina looked at me. “You fixed him. Now fix her!”
On the far side of the coliseum, a palace attendant was approaching with the crown in his hands.
“I can’t do this without you,” Ina whispered to Nismae.
Hal hung his head.
Their combined suffering was too much. I poured the last of the king’s magic into Nismae.
A few moments later she coughed weakly.
“Nis!” Ina said, hugging Nismae as she sat up. “Oh, thank the gods.”
“My blade is yours, Invasya. So are my scrolls. Now and always,” she said, her voice gravelly.
Ina’s eyes softened and a shaky smile came over her face as she looked at Nismae in a way she’d never looked at me. Nismae gazed back with equal intensity in spite of her weakened state. What passed between them in that moment—I couldn’t help but notice it looked a little bit like love.
“We need to go right now,” I said to Hal.
He nodded. “Good luck,” he said to Nismae.
“Don’t be stupid out there,” she said. They embraced, fiercely, with the tightness of two people who know they are unlikely to see each other ever again.
Then we turned and fled.
I looked back only once, just in time to see the intricate silver wreath of the Zumordan crown placed on Ina’s head. As we passed beneath the arches leading out of the coliseum, the flags around the edges of the building changed from red to white in a burst of magic.
In my Sight, something cracked. Or perhaps it was the sound of the Grand Temple breaking under the pressure of the magic rushing toward it. The ground trembled as the Great Temple began to slide off the side of the mountain. Chunks of rock and shards of stained glass tumbled down, sending up clouds of dust.
The king hadn’t lied about one thing—the gods were leaving Zumorda with him. They wouldn’t tolerate a ruler who had a manifest outside their gifts, who didn’t need them in order to be strong. Magic sank slowly into the ground in my Sight. Though the collapse of the kingdom had barely begun, I could already feel how it wanted to take me with it. It was like sinking into deep and paralyzing mud. None of the demigods would last long under Ina’s rule. Not with the bond between the monarch and the gods severed.
“We have to go. Now. My Sight is already fading, and I don’t know how long we have. Can you spread word on the wind to all your siblings? Tell them to gather everyone like us. Tell them to flee,” I said. We had to get to Havemont, where my power would still be reliable, for there to be any hope of changing the past. I needed time to sit, to think, to figure out how to unravel the series of disasters since Ina and I had left Amalska.
Hal nodded. He whispered to the wind, to the ears of all who were listening. He whispered of the change about to come, of how magic would leave the land under Ina’s rule now that the bond between the gods and the crown was broken. I hoped they could feel it already, the way power was draining out of us, crackling out across the landscape like untethered threads whipping and sparking in the wind.
I hoped they had the sense to go and the speed to outrun the death that awaited them if they didn’t.
CHAPTER 39
WE MET ZALLIE AND THE CHILDREN AT THE Switchback Inn and headed north for Havemont that same day. There was no time to waste. Hal’s Farhearing and my Sight had already faded to almost nothing before we even reached the outskirts of Corovja. I had my satchel and my herbs, but without my gifts I felt much less sure of my ability to protect our group. Hal’s worries were just as clearly written on his face, and almost everything startled him because he was so unused to being without his Farhearing. We had to get to Havemont, where the gods would still be in power—somewhere our gifts would work, the children would be safe, and I could rewrite the past.
As for the Fatestone, I kept it on a strip of leather tied around my neck, tucked under my clothing where no one would see it.
We were hardly the only travelers on the road. Many mortals chose to flee Zumorda, hoping they could escape before losing their manifests. Others chose to stay in spite of the risks. Word of the ancient blood rite Ina had used to take her manifest had spread, and some had successfully rebonded with their animal forms by using it.