What if the keys are supposed to help whoever finds them become worthy of accessing the magic?
The keys showed me the vision of my mother so I would know there was more to magic than rulers transforming into their own conduits. So I would know to ask the bigger question and learn the way out thatIneeded.
Those keys held magic that bent specifically to me, because now I know that the only way to save everyone is to throw myself into the chasm—
And that Theron,Theron, all this time, has been a threat.
“I’m sorry, Meira,” he groans. “I’m so sorry.”
Panic slashes through me, bursting in the wake of all the emotion he shows me. I’ve only seen someone break once before. The exact, horrible moment back in Bithai when Mather decided he would rather sacrifice himself to Angra than let us continue to fight indefinitely. I stared into his eyes just as I stare into Theron’s now, watching as he worked through the reality before him and arrived at the only possible solution.
“Theron”—I reach for him and he extends his arm, reaching for me too—no, not reaching for me.
He swings his hand over my shoulder to grab my chakram.
“No!” I shout.
But he shoves me back as I try to grab it from his hand, and in the beat between me stumbling backward andlaunching at him again, he aims the chakram at his father and lets it fly.
The blade spins through the air, twisting for so long I think maybe we’ll all just stand here forever, poised between nothing and everything.
But it reaches Noam. It reaches him, and slides through his neck, a perfect blow.
Everyone moves. Mather scrambles for me but gets pinned back by Cordellan soldiers; Garrigan ducks around them, angling for me; Ventrallans shield Jesse and Raelyn, more Cordellans catch Noam as he falls, plummeting backward with unbelieving eyes. And I fly toward Theron still, my mind hooked around the need to stop him, but to stop him fromwhat? He already threw it.
My fingers connect with Theron’s arm and he whirls on me, rage tearing apart his features. He’s never been this angry before, this inhumanly livid, and he grabs my arms, shoving me back until I slam into the wall, paneled molding biting bruises along my shoulders.
The shock of Theron treating me like this makes me numb when movement behind him grabs my focus. Garrigan makes it out of the soldiers, sliding into the place Theron occupied before he forced me away.
This has to be a dream. A nightmare. Because as I look at Garrigan, his clear blue eyes pinch with urgency . . .
And my chakram returns.
The entire world dissolves and rebuilds in the secondsbetween Garrigan turning and noting the blade. He can’t catch it, not that fast.
The chakram sinks into his body with a solidthunk.
His eyes slip down, dragged by the weight of the weapon sticking out of his chest. Even when Sir fell during the battle for Abril, his wounds weren’t this deliberate. This certain.
Garrigan is dead before I can even think to use the magic to save him.
He drops to his knees, to his side, nothing but a body now.
The world speeds back up, a burst of noise and movement that jolts me into the present. Someone says words that don’t make sense, babbling incoherently.
“He’s dead. The king of Cordell is dead . . .”
I look at Theron, hands shaking, arms shaking, everything shaking in the earthquake of this moment.
Theron glares down at me, his eyes almost as lifeless as those of the people he killed.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Meira
