Page 229 of Children of Fallen Gods

He shook his head, eyes to the ceiling, and a lump rose in my throat. I almost offered to back out — not that I could, of course, realistically.

“I’m sorry, Sammerin,” I said.

“Good. You should be. You make my life difficult.” But then he took a long sip of wine, and when he set the glass down again, his jaw was set. “But. If all this is true…” He waved his hands, as if to gesture to the whole ridiculous mess of it. “Then you are right. She cannot hold that power. And I suppose I’ll take this over the alternative, if the alternative is…”

His voice trailed off, and Tisaanah provided, quietly, “The end.”

We all looked at each other, the words hanging in the air.

“I won’t lose,” I said, more confidently than I felt.

“You are not allowed to,” Tisaanah muttered.

“Yes. Not losing is a good goal.” Sammerin leaned across the table, a wrinkle between his brows. “And Max, try to do it without using… that magic.” He nodded to my hands, and I knew he was talking about my deeper, mysterious magic — the “gift” that Reshaye had given me. “There’s something odd about it. I don’t know what, yet, but…”

He lapsed off into thought, and when he blinked and looked back to me, his gaze was harder. “Just don’t lose.”

Chapter Seventy-Six

Tisaanah

The Scar was set deep in the earth, so far down that it was partially beneath the Towers themselves. We had to journey down spiral after spiral of metal stairs, built into the rocky edges of the ravine, just to reach it. The sun was already disappearing behind the horizon by the time we embarked, but it was so dark down there that even if it had been broad daylight, it would have been near pitch black by the time we made it to the bottom. After the fourth set of stairs, I looked up to see the final sliver of a dusky sky disappearing between layers of rock.

There were Syrizen ahead of us and behind us as we descended. I peered across the expanse of stone and darkness. Somewhere over there, where the shadows made structures deteriorate into abstract, formless shapes, Nura was making the same journey down. She and Max would meet within the Scar. And the rest of us would stand at the edges and watch — helpless — while they fought for the title.

I knew Max was nervous, but he hid it carefully. He walked with long, confident strides, his chin raised and stare sharp. He wore a gold jacket embroidered with emerald trim, the sun emblem of the Order of Daybreak across his back.

He looked like a leader. He looked like a victor. He looked like an Arch Commandant.

But all I saw when I looked at him was a man who was willing to sacrifice everything that mattered to him for a chance, even a slim one, at a better world.

I refused to allow myself to think about the possibility of losing him here. It had been so much more comfortable at the Mikov estate, whenIwas the one throwing myself into the jaws of a monster. Self-sacrifice was easy. But watching Max journey so close to the fangs of a beast of his own was agonizing.

At last, the stairs stopped. I pressed my hands against the rusting metal railing. Of their own accord, my lips parted.

Before me was a massive crack in the earth. The rock was jagged and raw, like torn flesh, and strange, rippling light spilled from within it. It wasn’t bright, exactly — it barely cast a glow on the stone around us. But it seemed to bend the air itself in strange and unnatural ways, like an eerie parody of the way the heat rippled the air above the plains back in Nyzerene. During the walk here, a strange magic had prickled at the back of my neck. Now, goosebumps rose all over my flesh.

“You have to gointhat?” I whispered.

“I do indeed.”

Oh, gods. I didn’t like any of this.

Down on the other side of the crack, I saw a white figure standing completely still, face tilted towards us.

Nura.

She was so far away that her features were unintelligible, but I could still feel the razors in her stare, and my own rising to meet them.

If she hurt him, I would kill her. Gods, I would make the fates of Esmaris and Ahzeen Mikov lookpleasantcompared to what I would do to her.

“Are you ready?” Sammerin said, and Max gave him a wordless glance that replied,No, but does it matter?

“There is a path for you this way,” Ariadnea said, gesturing to a gap in the railing.

Max nodded, then turned to me.

I had been ready to be dignified. But the force of Max’s gaze made me forget all of that. I didn’t have time to second guess myself before his hands were on either side of my face and his mouth on mine, and I was struck speechless not only by the kiss itself — a tender, passionate, world-ending kiss that felt far too much like a goodbye — but also by the sudden palpable possibility that it could be the last.

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