Page 215 of Children of Fallen Gods

Needed Threllians the way she had needed Tisaanah.

And Tisaanah understood just after I did, her whole face crumbling with the realization. “This?Thisis what you need them for?’

“No. I— I would never… Only volunteers—”

“Volunteers? Volunteers likeIvolunteered?” Tears of rage filled Tisaanah’s eyes.

“I never claimed it was good. I never claimed it was right. It’s terrible. I know it is, and I know I’ll be damned for it in this life or the next one. But we have a choice, Tisaanah. We can end it all, right now. If we don’t win, millions will die. And you will never free your people. You told me you would do anything. So would I.”

Her eyes flicked to me, wild and desperate. “But I need both of you. No one can Wield this magic but you. They know who you are, and they want you, and they’re going to keep coming for you. So help me. Help me build a better world. Or at the very least keep this one from being destroyed.”

I was so angry that everything went numb — numb, until I looked at Tisaanah and saw the gutting heartbreak written across her face.

That expression devastated me.

I had given up on so much. I couldn’t even remember the moment it happened, the moment I realized you could dream and fight and bleed with the purest of intentions, and it would still end up rotten and maggot-infested. But Tisaanah — Tisaanah, from the minute she showed up at my doorstep,believed. Even in the worst times, she truly had faith it could all be better.

And now, I was watching that belief shatter. An irreplaceable treasure destroyed.

“This is the only way.” Nura approached Tisaanah slowly, hand outstretched, only for Tisaanah to lurch away.

“Don’t touch me.”

And then the door was open, and Tisaanah was setting off down the hall. But I lingered for a moment longer.

I felt exhausted.

“After a while, it becomes my own damn fault,” I muttered. “Expecting more. Expecting better.”

Nura lifted her head and looked at me. Suddenly she looked so much like she had ten years ago. And it was the voice of my friend, not my enemy, that said, “I always wanted all of it to be better.”

The worst thing was, I believed her.

“This isn’t how it happens, Nura.”

“Not without you.” She moved towards me, one tentative attempt at bridging the gap between us. “I need you, Max. Please. We’re the only ones left.”

The only ones left.Yes. Maybe that was why there was a part of me who could never abandon the version of Nura that I had known, once. Because she was the last thing I had of a more innocent life.

Even if the core of that had been infested, too. None of it looked the same as it had back then.

“Not anymore,” I said, and left her there.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Tisaanah

Ihad to get out of the Towers. Everything about this place revolted me, all the way down to my bones. I was halfway down the hall by the time that Max caught up with me. I could feel his rage vibrating off of him, our anger surrounding us both like smoke. We didn’t speak. When we made it to the front steps, I cast one last glance over my shoulder at the two white columns looming over us.

The day I had seen Vos, or what had become of him, I had staggered out of these doors and stood in these shadows and struggled not to fall apart. That was the first time I had looked up at the Towers and thought they looked foreboding rather than comforting.

Now, they disgusted me.

Max drew the final line of his Stratagram, and they unraveled.

The first part of the world to return was the smell — a scent of ash so strong it burned my nostrils. And when everything else followed, I made a small, wordless sound of horror.

The cottage was gone.

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