Page 43 of Children of Fallen Gods

I was shaking. Control was wavering.

{Why? You are too powerful to be so weak.}

And you have seen too much to think so small. I am giving you the gift you want the most.

The soldiers now knew we were here. They were approaching.

“Tisaanah…” Eslyn muttered, uneasy.

I lifted my hands. Let the magic flow, and build, and build — harnessed from Reshaye’s rage.

If you wish to be remembered,I whispered,why would we destroy our audience? You say you want to be powerful. That is what I want, too. How does one gain power?

{By wielding it.}Magic flared as Reshaye threw itself against my thoughts, nearly shaking my control, but I held it back.

By becoming a god,I murmured.And letting them live to become believers.

Esmaris’s voice unfurled in my mind like smoke:Dead men don’t remember your name.

The soldiers were gaining on us.

Let us show them everything we can do, Reshaye. Let us write a story.

And I surged forward, with everything that I had, every scrap of magic, every piece of power. I poured all of it out, into the ground, into the stone, into the air. Crimson butterflies swelled around me.

At first, I thought it wouldn’t be enough. I needed Reshaye. It hesitated, angered by my defiance and confused by my goals. But then, it watched as the soldiers faltered.

Do you see?I whispered.See the way they look at us?

Not like a monster. Like a god.

And that was enough. Reshaye seized control, pouring its magic into mine with the kind of intensity that scrambled my insides. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Could barely even see, through the blinding light that now surrounded me.

With a powerful burst of wind, I forced the soldiers back, back, back through the ravine.

And then I pressed my palms to the earth and for the first time I could feel it speaking to me, too — could feel my magic flowing into it.

Magic surged. The stone cracked.

Bloody butterflies spilled into the sky, so thick they dyed the sun scarlet.

Now, Reshaye, I commanded, and Reshaye obeyed.

Just as Zeryth had ordered, I brought the cliffs down.

When the smoke cleared, the soldiers would have seen the remnants of what was once the bluffs now reduced to rubble, blocking them from their path.

And they would have seen me — standing there with Il’Sahaj raised and blood-red wings spilling from my back, shielding the city.

Chapter Thirteen

Aefe

It had been more than five hundred years, long before I was born, since the Sidnee and the Wyshraj met amicably. More than that since we had opened our doors and let any of them, even a single representative, within the Pales.

My family and the Blades all stood at one of the highest and largest balconies in the Pales, a wide lip edged with silver that opened from the cliff face. The view from up here was famously beautiful and expansive. There was the forest, then the swamps, and far, far in the distance — only on a clear day — the faintest outlines of the tallest peaks in the House of Stone. Now, all of it was doused in the bloody red of sunrise.

My father, mother, and sister were silhouetted against that sky, and I could not help but appreciate how beautiful the three of them looked. Perfect as a painting.

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