Page 41 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

We cling to each other as the world seems to come undone around us.

The quake lasts for nearly two minutes, an eternity during which I say every prayer I know to the dark goddess. I want to survive this. I want to get back my memories. I want Sarielle to know how I feel, even if I never regain that part of our life. When the earth finally quits shaking, we hold onto each other for another few minutes, relishing that we are alive.

When we finally pull apart, Sarielle’s eyes are wide. “There were a couple quakes like that back in Valaron, on the way to the Court of Memory.”

I cock my head to the side. “That’s odd…”

“It was Avonia, using dark magic to pull nightmares across the border of their territory. Breaking through the spell we wrought when we married, to keep them locked away from the rest of the realm.” She sucks in a deep breath. “There were other things, too. The rifts, of course. And night turning to day, and vice versa. The whole realm was starting to come apart.”

“So, if that’s happening here…”

“That means there must be a rift in this realm. A rift connecting to Valaron.”

My gaze locks onto Sarielle’s. “And if there’s a rift, that means we can get out of here.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sarielle

“The rift couldbe anywhere,” I say, chewing on my lower lip. “It could take days to find it. Longer. We don’t know how vast this realm is.”

The rifts are created by nightmare magic. You can sense them. Track them.

When the voice flits through my head, I honestly don’t know if it’s my nightmare’s thought, or mine. Or if it’s simply that we’re starting to think the same way, because sheisme.

Zyren is saying something, but I’m too lost in my own thoughts to listen. Instead, I fall within, reaching for my magic, calling out with my senses. I imagine Valaron, the Court of Nightmares,home. A place I still barely know, but that livesinside me, my place of belonging. I don’t know how I ever survived all those years without it, without the magic that is truly mine. It’s the reason Eldare always felt so strange to me, why I felt so very out of place. Because I was.

And then I feel it, a tug in my chest, deep in my core. A flux of energy to the northwest, or at least, what might be northwest if I knew where north was in this place. A feeling of familiar magic. A call from my home.

“Sarielle? Are you listening?”

I snap back into my body, focusing my eyes on Zyren. “No. I was trying to find the rift.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “Can you do that?”

“Apparently I can.” I point in the direction I’d felt the call. “It’s that way.”

“How far?”

I shake my head. “That I don’t know. I just know it doesn’t feel close. But how far exactly, I’m not sure.”

Zyren looks around the chasm. “I wish we had a way to take water with us.”

“Me, too. But I’m not going to wait here by the water when we could get out of here.”

He nods. “Agreed.”

I get up and climb out from under the overhang. Zyren follows. “How did you get us down here?” I ask, staring up at the steep banks.

“My wings,” he says.

A flux of power moves over us and shadows spin around him, forming into two dark wings. I shiver, remembering all too well the feeling of those wings wrapped around me in the forest. Zyren reaches for me, and I step into the curve of his arm so he can lift us out of this place.

He pauses and looks down at me. “Sarielle?”

“Yes?”

Emotion swims in his eyes, and he opens his mouth and closes it once before finally speaking. But all he says is, “hold on tightly.”

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