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.