Page 56 of Song of Night

“Do you know what to do now?” The goddess asks me.

I nod.

“And you understand what you’ll be sacrificing?” she prompts.

Asher looks at me, and he nods. He understands somehow, too, even though he didn’t see the visions as I did. He looks at the goddess.

“I will give up everything I have. Everything except for the woman at my side.”

Another smile. “I brought the two of you together through the wild magic, but I did not make you fall in love. That was your own creation, a beautiful one indeed. I would never ask you to give that up.”

“Okay, then,” I say, taking Asher’s hand. “We’re ready.”

Another blinding flash of light, except this time, we are the source of it. We are the wild magic. All of it.

The temple beneath the earth returns, hard obsidian beneath our feet. The winged darkness is descending the obsidian steps toward us. Kieran lies fallen in the hall behind it, the torchlight flickering on his golden scales. One of the wolves lies dead beside him and the other is injured, trying to get up off the floor. It lets out a low whine.

Hands clasped, we stride for the creature. Magic as bright as the sun and moon together rises within us, all the excess magic that has been trapped in Night for over two centuries. In my mind, I picture the lines of magic across the earth, noting where the pattern got twisted.

Before, I always had to hold back, because to summon all of the magic meant sure death. Even Asher and I together could barely contain the force of it, could barely keep Night and ourselves from being ripped apart. But what we’re about to do will require all the magic we can summon, and since there’s been so much trapped here for so long, it’s enough to destroy—or create—anything. Moving as one—one magic, one mind—Asher and I do two things simultaneously.

We reach into the pattern of the magic and we correct the error, the trapped power.

And we thrust the resultant explosion caused by the magic being freed into the darkness looming before us.

The winged beast dissolves into a million particles of violet dust as it’s ripped apart by the force of the escaping magic. A pulse and a resounding tremor run through the temple and all the torches flicker. I can feel it rolling out away from us, magic rushing across the land as the balance is restored. Rushing far away, farther than I ever imagined the world could stretch. And I can feel a hum, a wholeness, like a perfect note of music in a song that hasn’t been sung for a very long time.

When the hum fades, so does our magic. All of it, our sacrifice to save Night. To save all of Aureon.

Asher bends and presses his lips to mine. When he pulls back, he says, “It is done. It is right now.”

I nod and pull him against me for a moment. Then we walk the long length of the temple. At the top of the stairs, Asher stops and stands over Kieran’s body for a long while in silence. His wolf, the pack leader, limps to his side and licks his free hand.

“I will send for his body so the Animus can give him a proper farewell,” he says at last.

It takes us a long while to find our way out of the tunnels and back to the surface. When we finally emerge, the first light of dawn streaks the horizon. The battle has ceased, and the fires are being put out one by one.

At first, I don’t realize what’s different. Why the horizon looks so strange.

And then I see.

I see the sun at the horizon, because the Waste is no longer blocking it. The swirling fog is gone, and I can see for miles and miles in all directions. A sigh of wonder escapes my throat.

“Soon, my love,” Asher says, pulling me against him. “Soon we will travel beyond this place, and then we will see the whole world.”

Chapter Forty-Four

ZARA

The sun sets as I climb the path up the side of the mountain, the last rays of it turning the horizon to pink and violet. Deep, dusky violet like magic. Or rather, like the magic that runs through Night. Because I’ve learned, over the last three moons as Asher and I traveled Aureon, that in other places the magic is a different color. A different smell, a different taste. Now that it’s been rebalanced and returned to the world, I’ve seen many, many different expressions of magic, each one wondrous and unique.

Seen, observed, but never used.

And even though there’s a part of me that feels sorrow for the loss of my magic, that connection to my home and the earth that runs beneath it, there’s a much bigger part of me that rejoices. Because the war is finally over, the war that waged centuries. There is peace and there is freedom and there is hope.

We’ve seen it everywhere we’ve gone, and where there is injustice, or people trying to misuse magic, we’ve addressed that, too. Jaylen sends us regular updates from Night, where she was elected to rule while the city rebuilds. Cyrena elected a new leader for themselves also and appears to have turned a new leaf in their sordid history. We’d visited there first, to reclaim the horses we’d had to leave when we fled, and to ensure that without Vyrin they would choose peace over war.

We’ll go back home one day, once we have seen our fill of the world that we were shut off from for so very long. I know I can’t stay away forever, because part of my soul still belongs there.

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