Page 178 of Children of Fallen Gods

“We can win this, Caduan,” I choked out. “We cansave them.”

He leaned close to me. So close our noses brushed, so close that our shared magic burned in the breath we now shared.

“There is more than this,” he murmured. “And I want you to live to see it, Aefe. Don’t throw it away here. This is just a battle. Not the war.”

Just a battle? I was so tired of battles. Maybe I would be willing to die to end this one.

“Then where does it stop?” Tears were hot on my cheeks, and a wrinkle deepened between Caduan’s eyebrows as he leaned closer still—

And then blood spattered over me.

All at once, the warmth where Caduan’s body had been was now replaced with a spray of violet. He staggered back against the railing of the balcony. The magic linking us was violently severed.

Caduan stumbled towards me, his hand outstretched, doubled over. A bolt protruded from his chest, black smoke collecting around it.

I reached for him, our fingertips brushing—

Another shot.

One moment he was there. And the next, he was gone, tumbling from the balcony.

A cry tore from my throat, stifled by a vicious impact that flung me against the railing. Pain bloomed through my insides. I barely felt it. All I could think about was the emptiness where Caduan had once been.

I realized slowly that the pain was a bolt stuck in my back, digging straight through my barely-healed wounds from Yithara. On my hands and knees, I turned around.

Standing there was Athalena, her face twisted in rage, tears streaming down her cheeks. Light and shadow surrounded her, like her magic spilled from her every pore, directionless.

“I trusted you,” she screamed. “You swore to me! Yousworeto me that this would not happen!”

She limped closer. She was badly wounded. Maybe I could have taken her, even with this magic bolt sticking out of me. But suddenly I found it hard to care.

She loomed over me, her crossbow readied, magic bleeding from it.

“My children aredead,” she spat, and her voice cracked like shattered glass and broken bone, and I knew she would kill me.

Could I blame her?

I closed my eyes.

But instead of the impact, I felt the floor suddenly drop beneath me, and the sensation of falling.

I opened my eyes to see the world smearing around me, and the flash of golden wings. A bolt whizzed past my left ear. I looked down to see Athalena, shrinking into the distance, sinking to her knees.

I was being carried. I was flying.

“I have you.” Ishqa’s voice was steady and smooth in my ear.

I choked out, “We have to go back for him.”

Ishqa said, quietly, “He did not survive.”

“We have to go back.”

“Aefe… there is nothing to find.” Ishqa’s voice was pained. “Trust me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to argue, wanted to force him to turn around, tear apart the world to search for Caduan. But I had felt that connection between us sever. I watched him fall.

And so, I was traitorously silent.

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