Despite the utterbliss making my limbs weak, I couldn’t sleep. My heart raced uncomfortably, but I didn’t want to wake Tolek, so I dragged on my leathers, strapped the Vincienzo dagger to my thigh, and crept out of the guest house and down the long drive leading to Meridat’s manor. The night was so dark, a near-starless sky above, only orbs of mystlight set in bronze lamp posts illuminating the way.
There were still celebrations carrying on in the city, their gentle hum seeping through the night. I turned down the nearest path from Meridat’s home, nearly jumping to find a shadowed figure wandering ahead of me. She passed under a lantern hanging above a door, her brown hair gleaming.
“Ezalia?” I asked.
The Seawatcher Chancellor turned. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
I sped up to match her stride. “No. I think it’s all the excitement from the day mixed with the anticipation of…whatever’s coming.”
The air prickled as I said it, rippling over my skin, and my heart pounded harder. My fingers brushed the Vincienzo dagger as if seeking a gentle reassurance that it was there.
“I’ve had plenty of sleepless nights for the same reason,” Ezalia admitted.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She raised a perfectly arched brow. “For?”
“That you’re here—that we all are. The gods’ wars only surfaced because I freed Echnid.” Guilt wrapped around my throat, threatening to suffocate me. “If I hadn’t done it, no one would be suffering this threat.”
“But wewouldbe suffering,” Ezalia reminded me. “The Balance was unraveling in other ways, we just didn’t realize it. Alpheous attacks on the coasts were growing worse by the day. My warriors could barely complete one expedition without their ships being wrecked. So, I don’t think not acting would have equaled no suffering. It would have only been a quieter kind. Sometimes we have to be loud and face conflict head on in order to reach solutions.”
That’s what we’d been doing for months now, wasn’t it? Starting with the day Damien first appeared in my room. I hadn’t once run from the threats; I’d charged into them with my head held high and my heart prepared to scream and bleed forour cause. And while I dreamed of a day where that wouldn’t be necessary, not fighting now wouldn’t derive peace.
“I hope I can be a fraction of the ruler you are one day, Ezalia.”
She patted my shoulder, squeezing gently. “You already are.”
Mystlight haloed her features as we turned another corner onto an open square. The gems lining her ears shimmered in their pale blues and greens and corals, and a tattoo down her spine peeked over her leathers.
A cluster of warriors of various clans gathered around the fountain in the center, more spilling out of a tavern where music slipped over the night. I inclined my head toward the benches rimming the space, but we’d barely taken a few steps when the air shifted. A ripple shivered along my skin again, and seraph magic pressed to the surface. Everyone in the square seemed to slow, to pause.
“Do you feel that?” I whispered, placing a hand on Ezalia’s arm.
“I do?—”
But her words choked off, and she stumbled forward.
“Ezalia?” I gasped as I caught her.
She fell heavily, warmth pouring over my skin. Heart pounding, I rolled her over.
“No.” Nausea swept through me, a cold and piercing numbness dulling all sound around us.
Crimson spread across Ezalia’s chest, a fast-blooming bud beginning where an arrow jutted directly through her heart.
“Ezalia!” I shrieked again, crashing to my knees with her in my arms.
I cupped her cheek, turning her to me. “Ophelia,” she wheezed. Blood stained her lips.
“Ezalia, hang on.” I looked around, voice tearing as I screamed, “HELP!”
But even as Bodymelders rushed up and I tried to force Angellight into her wound, life slipped from the Seawatcher Chancellor’s sea glass eyes. The same ones her young daughter had, her son. The ones that would never look at the man she loved again.
“Oh-phelia,” she sputtered.
“I’m here, Ezalia,” I choked. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She took a ragged breath, her eyes flaring wide as a shadow swooped over us. And my attention snapped up right as Gaveny dropped to the street before me.
