Page 252 of Children of Fallen Gods

No.

None of this made any sense. How could I have been unconscious for so long? How could I have made it out, but Max didn’t? The last thing I remember, we were entangled. Even our minds were locked together.

How could I have escaped without him?

My gaze fell to the horizon, to the sea. The next thing I knew, I was running down the beach, my limbs only half-cooperating. I didn’t stop until the cold rush of the surf hit my feet, then ankles, then my shins, and then I fell down to my hands and knees in the water. I tasted nothing but salt.

“Tisaanah.”

I hated how gentle Sammerin’s voice was. How calm. How could he becalm?

“How could you have left him?” I whirled to him. The words wrenched through me like knives. I didn’t realize I was weeping until sobs contorted my words. “How could you have left him behind?”

Pain shuddered across Sammerin’s face. He said nothing.

“We have to go back for him.”

“We’ve tried, Tisaanah. Many times. Nura has him. She sentenced him to Ilyzath.”

I closed my eyes.

This pain put everything else to shame.

“No,” I choked out.

My love, trapped in a place that preyed upon his mind, that twisted all of his worst memories. The most precious soul imprisoned in the most horrific place. The thought of it made me want to tear out my own heart. The thought of it made me want to burn down the world.

“We will find a way to get him out, Tisaanah,” Sammerin murmured, but my rage was already bubbling over.

“We must go back now. Now, Sammerin.” My voice rose to a hysterical spike. I could barely breathe. “We cannot leave him there, not for a second longer. We cannot leave him. We can’t—”

Sobs unraveled my words. Sammerin’s arms wrapped around me, and without thinking, I clung to him, to his stability. I felt his grief, his anger, settle over mine.

“We are going to get him out,” Sammerin whispered, against my hair.

I pulled away from him and looked out across the sea. It was an endless expanse. Thousands of miles of ocean between here and Ara — thousands of miles between me and Max.

I thought of that goodbye kiss, right between my eyebrows.

I thought of everything I didn’t tell him. Of the life we could have built together.

And I thought of the person who had taken him from me.

I had no words for this. But I sank to my knees and looked out over the sea, as if, if I tried hard enough, I could reach out over those thousands and thousands of miles, reach out for him in Ilyzath.

And I let my grief becomerage.

Epilogue

Nura was tired.

She had attended several coronations. When she was very young, she attended the coronation of Sesri’s father. Then the spiritual coronation of Sesri’s advisors, and the official coronation of Sesri, after that. She had, thankfully, missed Zeryth’s — probably best for everyone — but she could imagine the sort of affair that had been.

This? This had been unlike any of them.

She had knelt, solemn, as the head advisor placed the crown on her brow, and what she had seen in the eyes of the crowd was not excited hope, but petrified fear. The celebration, if one could call it that, had been staid and quiet, heavy with hushed whispers. It had broken up early. That was fine with her. Nura had never been good at celebrating. And now, so much weighed upon her mind that it seemed like a poor use of time, anyway.

People were terrified. How could they not be? They had just found out their country was at war with a mythological race that they had all thought to be five-hundred-years extinct. There was nothing more terrifying than that, especially when they had all already seen the reality of the danger.

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