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Shadowkind wings.
Yarrow is at my side. He sees what I have seen and he lets out an almighty cry that rattles the trees on either side of the water. “Who did this? Eldrion? He did this?”
I look towards the castle. “This was water magic,” I mutter. “This was her.”
“Who?”
I meet Yarrow’s eyes. “Alana.”
Yarrow’s voice rises in volume as he draws up in front of me. “Your empath did this? She slaughtered our kind?”
My thoughts are tumbling over one another. They make no sense. None of it makes sense. She wouldn’t do that. Yes, she has darkness inside her, but it has not yet been coaxed free, and when it was... this was not supposed to happen.
She was supposed to be by my side, not opposite me in battle.
I jump into the water. It rages around my thighs, almost knocking me over, and claws at my wings with its strength. I start to drag the Shadowkind fae from the river.
Yarrow stares down at me.
The others have gathered on the bank, their eyes glowing in the dim evening light.
The Gloomweavers stare, almost bored, completely unaffected. But as I continue to rescue the dead bodies of our kin from the racing water, Yarrow jumps down to help me.
The others do too.
We stand there, as the debris of the city slams into us, trying to knock us from our feet, trying to drag us away with it, and we haul them from their murky fates.
The last body I throw over my shoulder and carry to dry land feels lighter than most of the others. A female.
I lower her to the ground. She has dark hair. It has fallen over her face. I push it free, my heart hammering because I already know who I will see in front of me.
“Briony . . .”
Her eyes are wide and glassy, staring up at the sky. Unblinking.
Her clothes are sodden. Her skin pale.
I lower myself to my knees and try to listen for any signs of breath, even though I know it is futile. Beneath her, her pale wings look almost invisible now they are drenched with river water.
“She’s dead, Finn. They are all dead.” Yarrow puts a firm hand on my shoulder. I stand up and pace away from the body of my dead friend. I roar and jump up into the sky. Shadows swirl around me. Storm clouds gather. Like the ones over the castle, only darker and more menacing now.
When I return to the ground, I instruct the Gloomweavers to make a funeral pyre and lift the dead Shadowkind onto it. “All except her.” I lift Briony into my arms.
Yarrow frowns at me.
“She is a gift. For Alana Leafborne.”
THIRTY-ONE
Alana
My eyes are fixed on the horizon. The wind whips around me, tugging at my hair and clothes, but I barely notice. My attention is entirely focused on the approaching storm. It is gathering just beyond the city, except the city no longer looks like a city. It is almost completely flooded. Spires and rooftops are just visible, some trees, and the remains of the bridge beyond the Shadowkind Quarter.
I sigh with relief as I look at it.
Barely a soul can have survived.
Finn is approaching, but there is nothing here for him to take or twist.
