Page 67 of Children of Fallen Gods

My perfect sister should not be in a place like this.

“Put her to sleep,” a voice was saying. “She’s…she can’t stay like this.”

I blinked. The face looking into mine was not Orscheid’s. No, it was Siobhan’s, lined with concern.

And then I realized that the screaming was mine.

“She can’t,” another voice said. “That’s why she needs to be awake.”

Awake? No, I couldn’t be. Surely I was dying. I had to have smashed into the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Aefe. Aefe, look at me.”

Fingers turned my face. Ishqa was there, the waning sunlight spilling from behind him.

“You cannot stay this way. Do you understand? You need to shift back.”

I don’t know how, I tried to say.

“The wings are a part of you. Bring them back within, like you are drawing air into your lungs.”

“I can’t,” I choked out.

Warm fingers curled around mine. Caduan stared down at me. The touch of his hand felt like the touch I’d press against the Pales, now so far away — steadying connection.

“You can,” he said. “You must.”

He said it as if it were a truth, and I allowed myself to think that it could be.

The pain tore me in two. I heard cracking sounds. My fingers trembled around Caduan’s hand.

“I can’t,” I sobbed. “I can’t, I can’t…”

“You can,” he repeated, firmly.

It was going to kill me.

But one more time, I drew in breath, curled all of my limbs in on each other. Let out a ragged scream.

CRACK.

The pain dimmed my vision. I felt hands running over the bare, smooth skin of my back.

“There.” Siobhan gave me a shaky smile. “You are done, Aefe.”

I fell back into darkness.

Chapter Twenty

Tisaanah

It is strange to call war mundane. But that’s what it became, conflicts running together like blood between rain-soaked cobblestones.

When the Kazarans had retreated, they had taken with them breathless whispers of Zeryth’s foreign witch, who had brought down the cliffs and soaked the stone in blood. Overnight, my reputation caught fire.

I was grateful for it. Those whispers were my greatest weapon. Zeryth wanted to win, and he wanted to do it quickly. I had no choice in fighting for him — the only thing I could control washowI did it. I could wield death, or I could wield a powerful performance.

We were to conquer six districts, all of them relatively close to Korvius. The first time I rode out, I had to keep stopping to vomit in the bushes, careful to make sure no one saw me. It wasn’t Reshaye’s magic making me ill, just my own nerves.

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