“No, leave me here!”

Sabine snapped, “Not going to happen!”

As Lanthe clung to the edge of the invisible threshold, she screamed, “Thronos, leave this place!”

Though Morgana’s hold on him had eased—he could breathe once more—he continued to stare at the spot where she’d been standing.

“FLY AWAY!” Lanthe commanded.

But her persuasion had been drained from Morgana’s catastrophic use of it.

Sabine peeled her fingers away. “We’re running out of time, Lanthe!”

“Leave, Thronos!” With her grip loosened, Lanthe was sent careening into her room. “Please, GO!” she sobbed as the threshold closed behind them. . . .

The blaring alarm roused Thronos.

He blinked again and again. Why was he standing on the steps of Skye Hall, staring at nothing? He shook his head hard.

Vrekeners had surged upward from the islands, flying in the direction of the outpost. Why was he not moving with them? He wondered if this was another drill, until he heard explosions coming from the outer islands.

One blast after another detonated along the lines of the monoliths. Fires erupted, overrunning the islands in blue and white flames—an unnatural fire.

An immortal killer.

Burning rock shot upward—and downward, cascading toward the gulf far below them.

The warded and protected Territories were being annihilated by some unseen force.

Act, Talos. Move! He tensed to fly—

A white flash fire roared from the Hall itself, engulfing him just as his wings reflexively shielded his body. The mystical flames consumed both wings; the explosive percussion hurtled him down to the vale.

Which had disappeared.

The island had . . . disintegrated.

Thronos plummeted amid the fiery rubble. Blood poured from his ringing ears. Wind snapped what was left of his still-burning wings. They were useless.

My lands, my people. He was helpless to do anything for them.

He couldn’t fly. Could only fall.

He knew he had fallen as a boy. Though he didn’t remember why, he hadn’t used his wings all the way down.

As now.

Once more I fall.

His back was turned to the world below—so he could keep his eyes on the sky. Time seemed to slow.

Traces of malevolent sorcery eddied around crimson and purple clouds. Lightning fractured those clouds, illuminating all the debris raining down around him.

Scorched plaster. Burning books. A charred cradle.

For mere days, he’d been king. Now his realm had died.

You’ve lost something else, something even dearer. His heart twisted. What could possibly be more treasured than a kingdom?

What was it he’d lost?

He finally dragged his eyes from the heavens and gazed below him. The water rushed ever closer. Blue and white flames soared from the gulf. Thronos had no shield from the heat. When he hit, he would be incinerated.

His life had been long and unfulfilling, his dream of finding his mate unrealized. Perhaps he was meant to have died after his first fall. Perhaps fate sought to right that misguided mercy now.

He turned to the nearby mountainside and spotted . . . Vrekeners. Thousands of them. They’d gathered on a plateau above the gulf to watch their home perish.

Thronos had never named a successor. His people were more vulnerable than they’d ever been. For them, he had to survive.

Wasn’t there a way? He couldn’t remember it!

What couldn’t he remember?

Once more I fall. . . .

FIFTY-FOUR

On a mountaintop far across the gulf from the gathered Vrekeners, Nïx the Ever-Knowing and Morgana, the Queen of Sorceri, watched the Skye fall.

One female had allowed it; one had caused it.

Nïx’s lightning crackled all around her—and the bat she carried. Morgana’s usurped powers were so volatile that the color streams of her sorcery had morphed to a permanent black.

As the two immortals bore witness, they sparked off each other like negatively charged ions.

“I foresaw the Queen of Persuasion desperate to stay with King Thronos,” Nïx said, never looking away. The water was already aflame with soaring plumes of otherworldly fire.

Morgana too kept her gaze trained. “As soon as I left her and Sabine in Rothkalina, Melanthe probably created a portal back. To nothing.” Black swirls danced from her lips, as if a contagion was trying to escape her body. “If the Vrekener survives, the memory of his wife will not—”

The giant monoliths crashed into the flames, displacing miles of water, generating towering tsunamis.

“I suppose the mortals will know of this now,” Morgana said, tone inscrutable. “Of us.”

“Not quite yet. . . .”

From the gulf, the sea god Nereus rose up like a mountain himself, visible only to the immortal pair. With a monstrous inhalation, he sucked all the flames into his lungs.

Then he brandished his divine triton, raising it over his head to subdue the waves. The tsunamis paused, their terrible surge arrested in midswell—

Yielding to his command, they gradually subsided, slipping to acquiescence.

The surface was still, the fire defeated. Before Nereus sank to the depths once more, his smoldering gaze lingered on Morgana.

She frowned, but that was the least extraordinary thing she’d seen this day.

A reviled realm—the bane of her entire life—had perished by fire and been entombed in the sea. Her heart was glad.

The Valkyrie soothsayer turned to the sorceress queen. “For better or worse, it’s begun. . . .”