Page 453 of Of Empires and Dust

“And The Maiden guide your mind.” Dann inclined his head to Calen.

“May The Smith keep your blade sharp.” Anya’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“And The Sailor see you to safe shores.” It was Lyrei who added the last line, her hand wrapping around Dann’s, their fingers interlocking.

One by one they all stepped away, leaving Calen and Haem standing over the ground beneath which their parents had been laid to rest.

After a while, Haem squeezed Calen’s shoulder and left him alone by the saplings. Calen had no idea how long he stood there. The sun had moved across the sky but still burned bright when he heard Kaygan’s voice.

“He really was something with a blade.”

Calen snapped his head around to find the kat god standing beside him, staring down at the saplings. A portal closed behind him as Una stepped through.

“Why are you here?”

“The paths we walk are ever winding.” Kaygan tilted his head to the side, his pupils narrowing to black slits. “The gods are waking, Calen Bryer. Efialtír stirs them from their slumber.”

Calen said nothing, turning his gaze back to the saplings. He would not play Kaygan’s games. He had done that enough already.

“Sometimes, Calen, you have to burn something down to build something better in its place. Sometimes you have to burn a whole world to create space for a new one. Our people have hidden for so long, and yet, even if we hadn’t, we are so bent on killing one another we would have wiped ourselves out eventually.”

Calen looked at Kaygan for a moment, then over at Valerys, who stared at the god with those lavender eyes.

“I have spent millennia carefully cultivating this path, meticulously pruning every weed that grew, filling every crack. Valerys was meant to be our first. A new dawn for our people, wielding the power that brought us to our knees. The souls of Cealtaí and the Evalien and all the mortal bloods are so easily steered. If you offer them what they want, what theyneed, they will ignore the cost, ignore any dangers that lie right before their eyes. But those born of Danuan blood are not the same. You are stubborn beyond measure. And sometimes what will not move mustbemoved. And let’s not forget those damn Enkara. No path is clear when they meddle.”

“This is not the time,” Calen snapped, attempting to hold down the rage that burned within him, fed by Valerys. This moment was not his. It belonged to Vars and Freis.

Kaygan only smiled, a fang pinching his bottom lip. “Do you know the one truth I have learned in all these years, Calen Bryer?”

Calen pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, holding that anger down. He didn’t answer.

The kat god let out a long, mournful sigh. “All great things require sacrifice. That is an immutable truth. You altered the path, Calen. Not I. You. For what little it matters, I did not want this. I wanted you to be the tip of our spear. I wanted you to be our future. But you chose to be the leaf that fought the wind. You forced my hand.”

Calen turned to speak when a burning pain seared through his chest. His breath caught in his lungs, his body shaking.

He looked down to see Kaygan’s claws buried in his chest, bloodstains forming in the tunic around them.

Pure fury and fear consumed everything within him as Valerys roared, and Calen felt pieces of himself begin to break.

“You strayed from the path, Wolfchild. That life you could have saved was your own… if only you had just listened.”

“Valerys…” Calen’s voice trembled, and he could feel Valerys screaming in his mind as the dragon leapt towards Kaygan. “Valerys…”

Something cracked, and the world went dark and cold.

Haem’s entire world stopped.

He heard Valerys roar, saw the man pull his hand from Calen’s chest, saw Calen fall.

Valerys lunged at the man, Varthear with him, but he moved like a ghost, slipping past the dragons as talons raked earth. Dann and Therin ran to Calen, screaming. Tarmon and Vaeril charged the strange man, swords drawn.

The man raked his claws across Tarmon’s chest, gouging the steel, then spun and slipped past Vaeril.

Valerys unleashed a pillar of fire, bright as the sun. The flames washed over the ruined homes but parted around the strange man.

A white portal opened like a tear in the world and the man slipped through, a woman with him. And then they were gone.

Screams sounded all around, and Haem could barely move. His heart felt as though it were going to split open his chest.

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