Page 280 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Her eyes flicked past me, to Max. Anger, then grief, then regret rippled in her emotions. I knew she was thinking of another version of herself—another version that destroyed needlessly out of twisted, misplaced anguish, and left five innocent children dead.

The world hurt her. She hurt the world. The cycle went on, and on, and on.

“I see you, Aefe.” My words slowed. My consciousness was fading. “You can do more than destroy. You can be more than death.”

This would be either the best or the worst decision I would ever make. I reached into my pocket and closed my fingers around those shards of alabaster.

Change.

People could change.

I pressed them into Aefe’s hands.

“End it,” I rasped. “Fix what has been broken. Make something more.”

Those enormous violet eyes flicked to me, first wide with confusion, then bright with anger. She snatched the shards from me and stood abruptly.

“Stupid child,” she hissed. “You have always been an innocent fool.”

She let me slump to the ground. Max was no longer moving. And no matter how desperately I tried, I could not crawl after her as Aefe turned away, joining her king beneath the canopy of death itself.

CHAPTERONE HUNDRED TWENTY

AEFE

She was wrong. She was wrong about everything. She was wrong that I could not save him.

She was wrong.

I held the shards so tight that blood pooled in my palm.

Caduan looked up at me as I approached him. In one hand was the glowing amber of creation. In the other was the withering branch of death. With every step I took towards this magic, my body recoiled. My eyes stung at the sight of him. The darkness had progressed so rapidly, black lines now extending up his throat, over his chin, at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

Tisaanah’s words echoed in the back of my mind.You cannot save him.

She is wrong,I told myself.

“You should leave,” Caduan said. His eyes were strange—bright like fire, and yet so far away. “I don’t want you here.”

You cannot lie to me.

I reached for him, and he jerked away.

“Let me help you,” I said.

“You can’t.”

I can. I must.

“You do not have to go,” I said, voice cracking. “We have all three, now. We can do anything. We cansaveyou.”

His expression changed. For the briefest moment, he looked like— like himself. “Save—?”

I showed him the shards.

But the broken Lejara was too unstable, too volatile. The moment I opened my fingers, I lost control of it. The power aligned with that of its siblings—creation, change, death, falling into step with each other. The river swept us away in a powerful rush.

I reached out and grabbed Caduan’s wrists, where the three Lejaras now hovered between us, only to gasp and resist the urge to yank my hands away.

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