But something changes. A subtle shift. With growing horror, I realize the power of the zafira is no longer being channeled by me. It’s being channeled through me. “Lucero, what are you doing?”
The power becomes a torrent. My belly turns to fire.
They must die. All of them.
Our essences collide, Lucero’s and mine. He weaves them together until they are a single entity, a power so massive that we could crack open the world. Which is exactly what he plans to do. Now that we are one, I see his vision: the Eyes of God, exploding in fiery fury, burying Umbra de Deus in lava and ash.
“No!” I shriek.
I fight, but it’s no use. Lucero forces the scalding power through my veins, and I am helpless against it, laid bare and burning. I open my mouth to sob from pain and rage, but even that release is denied me. This is what it means to be an unwilling sacrifice.
Lucero drags me into the depths of the earth, where lava pulses like lifeblood. He reaches as if with giant, invisible fingers into cracks and fissures, prying them open, relentless. The world groans.
Please, Lucero. Don’t do this.
They deserve it!
The ground heaves, and I drop to my knees.
“Elisa, what’s happening?” Mara’s voice, as if from far away. I see her in blurred relief against the distant mountain. Her bow is drawn.
“He’s done something to her!” Hector yells. “Shoot him.”
A massive boom rocks the balcony, and I snap back to myself, gasping with relief. For a moment I imagine I am light as air and soaring, for I am free, and my power is my own.
I glance around, not quite taking everything in because all I can think is: How did I not understand, all these years, how precious and glorious it is to belong to myself?
Then I notice the arrow protruding from Lucero’s chest. Blood snakes from the corner of his mouth. His chest rises and falls with short, shallow breaths.
Beyond him are the twin mountains. One has exploded, its top blown clean off. A pillar of bilious gray the diameter of a city rises into the sky. The glowing fingers of lava clutching the mountainside have thickened. Steam sizzles from the river below, and I choke on air tinged with ash and a scent like that of rotten eggs.
Even so, it seems as though wind has carried most of the blast away, and I dare to hope that we might be safe. But the ground beneath my feet quakes again, and I realize the other mountain, the nearer one, is about to follow its brother.
Hector swears. Belén mutters a prayer.
“There is no escaping that,” Storm says softly, gazing at the mountain about to devour us all. Mula steps up beside him, and he drapes an arm across her slight shoulders. “I guess it ends here, after all,” he says.
No. I plunge my awareness back into the guts of the earth, and I drag the remaining spark of Lucero’s life with me.
This time, I’m the one in control. I brutally yank the zafira through both my stone and his, weaving our power together, until it feels just as thick and unremitting as the pillar of ash spewing into the sky. Such power, with two living conduits working in tandem. Too much. I could do anything with it.
I feel twisted and dark and wrong as I shove it down, down, down the gullet of the mountain, bringing rock and debris with it, choking it dead.
The earth stills to a gentle rumble. I wipe ash from my eyes even as I release Lucero back to himself.
The farthest mountain still sends clouds billowing into the sky. It is bald of forest and snow. The horizon beyond darkens with ash. Night will come early today.
But the nearest mountain has caved in on itself and is now half its former height. Boulders tumble down the side as it continues to settle.
The creature on the altar moans.
“Lucero?” The fletching of the arrow in his chest flutters in the breeze. Blood seeps from the wound. I wait for a reaction, some indication that his life leaves him. But the line between death and living death is too fine. One moment, he is staring up into the sky, and the next he is still staring, but with a little less light in his eyes. Or maybe I imagine it.
The difference is in me. For the first time since arriving in Umbra de Deus, my Godstone quiets. It flashes neither hot nor cold but resumes its usual mild pulsing. In spite of everything, I am calmer than I’ve been in days. I place my fingertips to my navel and send up a quick prayer of guilty thanks.
“What just happened?” Mara demands.
“He tricked me,” I say. “Drew me in so he could channel my power and destroy the whole city.”
Storm’s face has a sickly pallor. He can’t look away from Lucero’s limp body. “How long has he been plotting his revenge?”
“Probably a century.”
We stare aghast as Lucero’s corpse shrivels and grays, then deflates into dust before our eyes. The wind whisks away the top layer, revealing a sparkling Godstone winking at us from the ashy pile.
Storm and I exchange a look. We saw the same thing happen on Isla Oscura to the strange sorcerer there. Storm looks down at his feet, and I wonder if he’s thinking of the manacles around his ankles, hidden by his boots, formed when the zafira tried to claim him as its gatekeeper when the first one turned to dust.
At the sound of footsteps we whirl, drawing weapons as Invierno guards pour onto the balcony.
Mula stands closest to the altar. I whisper to her. “Grab that stone!”
Her tiny arm darts out, plucks Lucero’s Godstone from his dusty remains, and shoves it in a pocket just as Hawk and Pine follow the guards onto the balcony.
“I can’t outrun them right now,” I mutter to Hector.
“Then we fight. We can handle three-to-one odds. Just stay clear of that pit.”
They won’t capture me again, for fear that even a Deciregis is no match for a living bearer. The hidden pit was what gave them the advantage.
Pine looks at the dead boy on the altar, then focuses his oily black gaze on me. Fury flows from him in waves. “You have killed us all,” he says. “Without a source of power—”
“I have saved you all, you colossal idiot.” I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. Not the best way to bargain for peace.
“What are you talking about?” Pine demands, but the earth still rumbles, and even before he finishes the sentence his gaze drifts up toward the smoking mountains. “Oh,” he breathes. “I felt the earth move, felt an explosion of power, but I thought it was the zafira being ripped away from us.”
“Your unwilling sacrifice triggered the volcanoes,” Storm says. “Her Majesty stopped the eruption.”
Pine whirls on his son. “You! You are ash in my mouth. A dung heap that steams in winter winds. The oily scum that covers—”
“Enough!” I yell as the earth continues to rumble and ash drifts down around us like sickly snow. “He is a prince of the realm,” I remind him. And then, coldly, “If you want to know the location of the gate that leads to life, you will reinstate him as your heir.” My limbs buzz with excitement, with power, and it has nothing to do with magic. This could work after all—if they would just see beyond their rage to what I’m offering.
“He lied to us,” Hawk says. “He said his first loyalty was to Crooked Sequoia House.”
Storm lied for me? I’m careful to keep the smile from my face. “I’m sure Storm is doing what he thinks is best for the house.”
“For all of Invierne,” Storm says. “Take us before the Deciregi. Her Majesty will repeat her offer to everyone. Even though the sacrifice is dead, our nation need not perish.”
Pine seems to coil in on himself, while Hawk gazes sadly toward the broken, ash-choked mountains. After a long moment of silence, Pine says, “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”