Page 249 of Children of Fallen Gods

Salty ocean sprayed my face. I was standing on a stone walkway. My arms burned. I looked down. More Stratagrams had been tattooed on my skin. My hands were bound. So were my ankles.

The guards on either side of me pushed me forward. The woman with braided hair stood beside us. The air felt wrong, putrid. I looked up. A smooth ivory tower loomed, rising into grey mist. The ocean thrashed against it so violently that salt sprayed over me, as if nature itself was trying to topple it.

Tall black doors opened before me like loving arms or parting jaws.

Welcome home,it whispered.

I didn’t move.

Something still lingered behind curtains in my mind that I couldn’t part — something so important. But my mind was a collection of broken pieces that didn’t fit together. Something escaped me. Something was missing.

I peered over my shoulder. I could have sworn I saw a figure there, shrouded in fog and the mist of the sea. A woman with mismatched eyes and spotted skin, reaching out for me.

Come back, Max.

“Come on,” one of the guards muttered, and pushed me forward. The cold shadow of the prison enveloped me. It seemed to slither, a serpent of shadows, and it wrapped around me like a lover’s embrace.

I told you, Ilyzath crooned,this is where you belong.

I did not belong here.

I stopped short, just before the doors.

“Move—” the guard growled, but I whirled around.

All at once, the broken pieces snapped together. I remembered all of it, every moment rendered in perfect, fleeting clarity.

Nura stood still, watching me.

“Does this feel good, Nura?” I ground out. “Does this feel right?”

She said nothing.

One of the guards tried to grab me, but I held my ground.

I thought of Tisaanah. I thought of Sammerin. I thought of Moth, and the people who had relied on me to lead them, to protect them.

I had let them down.

Tisaanah would keep fighting. The thought came to me with an equal measure of pride and sadness. All I’d wanted was for this world to be good enough to let her rest. Now she would be fighting forever.

I resisted the guards’ grips for one more second, meeting Nura’s stare.

I pitied her.

“You have made such a massive mistake,” I said.

“Comeon—” the guard growled. I pushed his grip away and turned around. I didn’t hesitate as I walked into Ilyzath’s open maw. It was only after the shadows enveloped me that the fear took hold. My memories withered. I was seized by sudden desperate desire to turn back one last time, to see if there was someone there reaching for me — a girl with spotted skin and mismatched eyes.

Max, come back—

Too late. The door had closed.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

Tisaanah

The garden was especially lovely today. When I looked outside the window, I saw nothing but a sun-drenched expanse of color, like paint spattered upon a canvas. It was overgrown and feral. The way I loved it most.

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