Page 444 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Energy twisted and swelled, and then I was sure-footed, staring up at⁠—

“Dark,” Aren said on a harsh exhale. A million emotions rode that one word, that rush of air as our hopes crumbled. My stomach sank so violently, I feared I’d be sick.

Because Grayshell had gone dark.

Not a single window glimmered inside the looming stone castle—at least thrice as imposing as Hazelharbor. Bellpost could live in one wing of this monstrosity. And not a soul stirred on the grounds.

No sound came from within.

Only… deafening, crushing silence.

“Mags,” he said, the edges of my name so jagged they sawed at the broken pieces of my heart—the pieces he’d so steadily been putting back together. Aren pressed his palms to his forehead, like he could shove this reality away. I rushed to wrap my arms around his waist as my eyes burned with unshed tears.

All of that. All that research, all that work to get the book, every soul lost crossing The Middle, and his reward—our reward—was an empty castle.

“Mags,” he whispered again, his voice broken with an unspeakable kind of agony. To lose a sister was brutal—sisters nearly robbed my will to live, made breathing feel criminal—but an entire hierarchy…

“I know.” A sob bubbled through my lips unbidden, wetness coating my cheeks as I buried my face against his chest.

“Fuck,” Brody said from beside us; his voice riddled with the same agony slicing through my own ribcage like a thousand jagged needles.

“We don’t know what happened yet, brother,” Jason insisted. Rika stayed silent, her presence steady but small, her soul no doubt reeling inside a cage that felt ill-equipped for this scale of grief.

“They’re not here,” Aren rasped. “We know what happened.” I held him tighter as he blew out a ragged exhale that only came from the most acute agony. Silent sobs shook his massive frame, and all I could do was squeeze him harder, like I could keep him from shattering.

It wasn’t enough. But at least this time as our knees sank into the earth, we did it together. I leaned away, searching his eyes for answers to questions my mind didn’t dare ask. But he saw them, based on the forlorn way he shook his head, brows pinched, mouth parted and eyes distraught.

“We need to go in, Ar,” Jason said solemnly. “They deserve proper burials. We still have the gate to contend with.”

“The others deserve closure,” Brody agreed hollowly. Neither seemed to see the way the words gutted him. I watched the light flicker out of those blue eyes in real time as I looked between them. My chest was cracking. Cleaving in two as his heart broke.

Aren once told me that my pain was his pain, my problems his problems.

I hadn’t understood.

Hadn’t understood how he could take on the burden of The Six or the Heredis, how he’d want to carry those for a woman he barely knew.

But as I knelt on the cool ground of Grayshell proper, watching him shatter, watching his hands lace behind his head like that alone could keep him upright as he swayed, I wanted to take it all from him. Scoop my hands through his ribs and pull away this grief. The reality that I couldn’t fix this was as agonizing as anything I’d experienced. Mom. The assault. Zehra and Sorin. Jaycee and Aideen. I’d thought nothing would ever rob the air from my lungs as violently as losing them did. Losing that piece of myself.

Up until I held Aren as he died.

This pain—my inability to do anything to ease it from his shoulders—was second only to that.

I shifted into the shadows, mouth agape as I took in the stretching realm my mate called home—the spiraling towers, the wings that seemed to reach infinitely into the gray.

In a rush, I slipped between the cracks of the front door, bracing for the horrors promised by Balaskas invasions and… hesitating.

Empty.

Where I’d expected a macabre disaster of decaying souls, I found stone walls and hollow rooms, my chest swirling with equal parts dread that I’d find something worse—a sick mockery of their deaths—and hope that maybe, just maybe, the man I thought I knew wasn’t a complete monster after all.

Confusion spun my mind in circles as I drifted through the gray, quickly finding their grand hall, with tables long enough to seat a hundred each, and a lifted platform not unlike Hazelharbor. Plates still littered the rustic wood tables—the food gone, no doubt thanks to the magic of The Middle. Cups had been overturned in evident haste, one of the long benches toppled as if many souls had risen at once.

And in the corner… the gate sat as vacant and heartbreaking as a headstone, marking the life that was no more. Only… there was almost a sensation of static around it. Energy displaced, unwilling to leave. That had to be a good sign, right?

“How did you do this?” I whispered into the darkness, my mind grappling with everything the man had ever said in a futile attempt to dig up some kernel of information—a bit of insight into how he could’ve rendered something so magnificent idle.

There was no response.