Page 128 of Children of Fallen Gods

Sammerin dropped his hold as his hand went up to shield his face from the light or the heat or both. Nura staggered back, her eyes wide, so shocked she lost her grip on her magic. Not that it mattered. The prisoner no longer needed manufactured fear.

“Ascended, Max,” she gasped. It was the first time she had seen me this way.

“Tell me where she is,” I demanded, and I could barely hear my own voice over the rush in my ears.

And I must have looked terrifying, because words now fell from the prisoner’s lips like loosened bowels.

“The Palace. The Palace. The Palace. Aviness took her, he wanted her in the Palace. She’s there. She’s there. But she’s already dead. He’s going to kill her, she’s already—”

My eyelids snapped closed, thrusting me back into a body of flesh and blood.

“She’s already dead,” the prisoner was weeping. “She’s already gone. She’s already—”

And I was already out the door.

* * *

I was halfwaydown the hallway, reaching into my pockets for Stratagram ink. Distantly, I heard the dungeon door slam shut, and footsteps behind me.

“Max— what did you just—”

Nura’s voice was fractured, and then she let out a breath through her teeth and composed herself. Maybe in another scenario it might have been satisfying to see Nura shaken.

Not now. Not when I had far more urgent things to worry about.

I withdrew a crumpled piece of parchment from my pocket and unfolded it with shaking hands.

She’s already dead. She’s already gone.

Sammerin’s footsteps joined us, and Tare’s, following silently.

“I’ll gather the troops,” Nura said.

“No time,” I ground out.

“If we take only the Wielders, we can use Stratagrams. We’ll move fast.”

My pen was out, ink dripping, but I paused. I struggled to force my thoughts into coherence.

Sammerin voiced what I was too panicked to put into words. “That cuts down our forces by what, half? Less? We were already too outmatched to take the Capital. That’s exactly what Aviness wants us to do.”

He was right. And somewhere beneath it all, I realized it was odd that Nura, of all people, was overlooking that.

“We need Tisaanah back,” she said. “If we recover her, we’ll have Reshaye. And we have—”

Her gaze flicked to me, and her voice trailed off — as if, at the same time, we both realized the echo in her words.We have you,she had said to me in Sarlazai.We haveyou.

And look at how that had ended.

“No,” I said. “I’m not about to throw my soldiers at Aviness’s feet.”

“Then what exactly do you expect—”

“I’ll go alone. I can get her back.”

“It’s not enough to get her back, Max. We need toendthis. And it doesn’t matter how good either of you are, you can’t do that alone.”

Can’t, she said, but I wondered if she meantwon’t.

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