1
THE FALLING
TOWER
Prince Lucien d’Malvane looks at me with the steady gaze of a wolf across a meadow. Waiting. Waiting for the others of his pack to join him. For me to join him.
And I look back at him, with six eyes Weeping blood.
His sister, Varia d’Malvane, waits for me, too. They’re mirror images of each other—sheaves of midnight hair, skin like the summer sun when it sets. Profiles of marble, of hawk and owl. She stands poised and triumphant while her brother, the only boy I’ve ever loved, barely stands at all. He pants, haggard. He protected us from the Bone Tree’s explosion with all his fledgling magic, with witchfire that melted every bit of snow off this half-demolished mountain peak. He’s a witch.
But Varia’s one, too.
She’s so still, it’s as if she isn’t breathing. Perhaps she doesn’t need to any longer, what with the valkerax-tooth choker around her neck—and all the Bone Tree’s power it holds as hers to command.
To her, that choker means power. She’d faked her death, leaving behind her parents and brother. When she returned, she had me train Evlorasin—one of the massive valkerax—to suppress its hunger by Weeping. She bribed, killed, threatened for this moment. For her, that choker means everything. It means the culmination of five years of striving. Of blood. Of mercilessness and hope and everything in between. But to me, it looks like little more than a fancy shackle.
Malachite and Fione stare up at the Bone Tree swaying behind the crown princess. It’s the only noise that dares to break the air—the rattling of the strung valkerax bones that form its bleached branches, its white roots, and its smooth trunk.
And from behind the tree, they rise.
The massive, twisting pillar of alive things, of bright white gargantuan wyrms in the hundreds, sways beyond the mountain peak Varia stands on. Just behind her, like a throne. A support beam. A terrible spine reaching all the way from the depths of the Dark Below and into the sky.
They’re soundless. Or, at least, they’re so far away you can’t hear anything, not the scratch of scales I’m used to from Evlorasin, not the hungry shrieks and growls I know well. No, these valkerax are completely given over to the song. The hunger. The madness.
They’re frothing, screaming, their fanged maws snapping with rage as they scrabble over one another, desperate to obey the Bone Tree’s commands. Varia’s commands. But on the mountain, we hear nothing. There’s only the four of us, only one of us still human, all of us puffing exhausted clouds into the bitterly cold air as we watch the pillar extend. Grow. From raging hundreds to feverish thousands. Curling around one another, making a tower of their bodies through sheer frenzy. Utter silence.
None of us knows what to do, to say, in the face of thousands of starving valkerax clawing for the clouds. It’s the sort of silence that echoes, trilling bells of terror in my hollow chest.
Varia has what she wants. But where’s my heart? What I want?
I can feel it. I can feel her power surging through me like booze poured down a throat on a cold winter’s night, like a flame burning up a line of oil and snaking through dry grass. The emptiness in my chest burns with her magic, every inch of void set aflame. It’s beyond me. It’s beyond anything I’ve ever felt—and I’m Weeping. I’m supposed to be in the center of stillness, untouchable by my witch. By her. But she can touch me. She is, right now. Her magic, her influence…it’s reaching me. More than that—it’s lying on me with its full weight, making it hard to breathe, to move a muscle.
She could.
Those two words echo shrilly in my skull. A static shot of fear runs down my spine, and I realize she could. With the sheer brute power of the Bone Tree behind her, she might be able to command me through the Weeping. My one ace, gone.
My one scrap of control, of independence.
Gone.
As always, I’m the first to do the most foolish thing.
“Varia!” I step forward, the mud and slush from the melted snow seeping into my boots. “My heart! Give it to me!”
Every word rings out easily in the empty air. Varia’s onyx-shine eyes narrow imperceptibly, her smile eternal. She oozes around the Bone Tree’s trunk, sliding her hand along it as she goes. Like she has all the time in the world. Like the world can wait for her.
“We did have a deal, didn’t we?” She laughs softly. “And you’ve been so very loyal. Which is more than can be said for who you used to be. Or for most.”
Her eyes slide over to Fione, who flinches back violently, palms hitting mud to stabilize.
It’s selfish; I know it is. Fione’s hurt, inside and out, and Malachite’s bleeding from the claw wounds on his face. Wounds I gave him. Lucien’s exhausted—even now, he struggles to stand, boots squelching hopelessly as he tries to get purchase in the mud. But Varia’s fresh. Varia’s new. Her face practically glows, her raven hair sleeker and shinier than ever before, as if she’s eaten and slept well for a compounded million years. She cares for Fione and Lucien, I know that, but the hard glint in her eyes as she looks between her brother and her lover is new and strange and I don’t like it. A wildcat’s look. Every instinct in me screams of danger.
She may love them.
But the Bone Tree inside her—around her neck—might not.
The pillar of valkerax doesn’t stop moving—a tornado of wyrm flesh climbing ever higher. Why are they going so high up?
“Zera!” Lucien barks suddenly.
Heat. My Weeping senses feel a spot of heat behind me. My head snaps back just in time to see black hair and then an arm lacing around my neck from behind. Casually. Leisurely. Varia holding me, as if she’s embracing a friend.
I can’t move. Every inch of muscle is suddenly granite in tar. It’s her magic. It has to be.
“Zera.” Varia’s voice is calm, her breath on my ear. “You’ve done so well.”
“Get—” Lucien scrambles in the mud, managing to rise to his knees. “Get away from her!”
Who does he mean? She from me or me from her? I can’t turn my head, but I can feel it. I can feel her eyes burning out at him. Malachite gets it first. He always does—faster instincts than me. He moves for Lucien, pulling Fione along by the hand, the two of them sliding in front of the prince. Fione’s shaking too badly to hold her crossbow cane up, but Malachite raises his broadsword in front of him, in front of all of them. Defensive, waiting, even as his milk-white fingers tremble around the handle. I’ve seen him stare down a fully grown valkerax charging at him, but now is when his ruby-red eyes hint fear.
“Give me—” I move my numb lips. “My heart.”