They were going to lose.
A horrible popping sound, a sickening tear. Val’s arm came off in the grip of one of the dead, spurting blood, the bone of her shoulder an ivory island in a sea of raw meat.
And finally, at the same time as her visceral, throat-tearing scream, the god in the sky moved.
Not just moved—roared, a sound to break an eardrum, to end a world. The stark shadows on the ground cut sideways as those wings folded inward, then thrust out, and the god dove downward, back to the Fount.
Gabe must have arrived.
At the moment Apollius dove, all the dead collapsed, as if they were puppets and He’d been holding their strings. The gaping mouths closed, the whispers stopped; they were nothing but bone and meat and rot again, shuddering to the burnt forest floor. Some of them oozed apart, the magic that had held them together gone.
When the god moved, He took the light with him. Never mind burning like a second sun; it seemed Hewasthe sun, likeHe’d swallowed its light and kept it to Himself, and when He wasn’t in the sky the world couldn’t have it. The island plunged into darkness, amplifying the sounds of Val’s blood hitting the ground, her pained breaths hissing through her teeth.
“We have to cauterize it.” Mari, her voice dazed. She held her dagger in her hand, searched around on the ground as if she might find a ready-made fire. “We have to right now.”
Michal nodded, pulling a flint from his pocket with shaking hands. He gathered up a small pile of deadfall and sparked the starter, the dry twigs smoking as he blew on them to fan the flames. Mari handed over her dagger, her eyes flat as some hunted thing.
“I’ll do it,” Malcolm said quietly. “I know some doctoring.”
Val’s chest shuddered.
Alie looked away, wincing at all the blood, glancing toward the trees instead.
The way to the Mount was clear.
“Go.” Malcolm, still heating the knife, his form nebulous in the sudden dark. “I have to stay and take care of Val. But if you want to go, you should.”
Val was alive, for now. Mari wouldn’t leave her, pressing an already-soaked cloth to the stump of her shoulder, lips white and thin. Michal knelt beside them, giving whispered instructions, as Malcolm twisted the orange-glowing knife in his hand and approached with his jaw clenched.
That only left Lilia.
Alie turned in a wide circle, searching. But Lore’s mother was gone.
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
His 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 Loreand 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?”
