Maez wheezed as her collar crashed to the floor and, without a pause, she rushed down the dais to Briar. Her muddy hands brushed Briar’s hair out of her eyes. She bent down so tenderly, clutching Briar’s lifeless face, and whispered, “Please work.”
Tears slipped down her cheek as she kissed Briar, tracing clean trails through the grime. I held my breath, waiting, hoping. Maez’s arms shook as she kept her lips planted on Briar’s, a desperate cry coming from their joined lips. My heart punched into my ribs, watching for signs of life.
“Wake up, wake up.” She chanted it like a prayer. “Please,” she sobbed.
Briar’s finger twitched and a howl escaped my lips as she lifted her hand to Maez’s cheek. The room seemed to pause, a collective gasp rising up as Briar’s eyes fluttered open. In another blink, they returned to the melee. Performers mobbed the Rooks, overtaking them three to one—far more musicians, jugglers, bards, and acrobats than the feathered obsidian guards. It hadn’t seemed like that even moments before, my focus naturally drifting to the formidable guards, but now that I surveyed them all individually, there were hundreds of human performers entering the fray.
They were a whorl of colorful costumes and detailing and . . . My eyes widened when I spotted them.
Badges.
A sea of badges, every color of the rainbow, filled the hall. The same ones I’d seen hanging above the kitchen table in Galen den’ Mora. The ones I’d noticed missing before. There was the blue songbird and there was the crescent moon. In the corner was the red candle and at the back door was the white rose. My hands trembled and my chest heaved. They’d come. The humans had come to defeat Sawyn. They’d come to help Ora, to help me.
Rooks began tearing off their uniforms, dropping to their knees and raising their hands in surrender. Their hand scythes clattered to the ground; their loyalties so easily turned.
I took a step forward toward my sister, and a hand grabbed my ankle. I scowled down at the bloodied fingers and then up at Sawyn’s pale face. Blood dripped from her mouth as she coughed. With the wound in her gut and the poison coursing through her veins, no magic would cure her. Even shifting was beyond her now. Hers was the face of someone in their final moments, but there was no fear in her eyes, only pure wrath.
Standing before the throne of my ancestors, I crouched down to Sawyn.
“Do you know who won this battle?” I whispered, my lips curving up at the anger and hate in her eyes. “The humans. If you’d only seen their true power, you could’ve been here to lead this better world.”
“You fool.” She panted ragged wet breaths, blood trailing from her mouth and nose. “You’re turning your back on your own kind. You’re giving away your power to those sheep.”
“I’m gaining so much more than you could ever know. You feared losing power so much that you cut off everyone who would’ve helped you attain it.” Sawyn reached for her sword, but I stepped on the blade and slid it out of her pawing grasp. “You were a one-Wolf kingdom, Sa-wyn, so consumed with being above everyone that you ended up with no one but yourself. That’s why all this felt so hollow, like something was missing.” I waved my arms around the grand hall. “The things that separate us and the humans are so much smaller than you would choose to believe.”
“People.” Sawyn’s eyelids began to flutter, the poison flooding her veins as blood pooled around her. She screwed her eyes shut as if summoning the strength to take her last breath. “Let’s see your powerful humans save you from this.”
She threw out her hand and a loud crack shook the ground, pulsing through the air. A flash of bright green light made me shield my eyes . . . and then silence.
Sawyn’s hand dropped and I stared at her lifeless body, her flash of dark magic draining the last of her life force. Her lifeless eyes looked to the ceiling, her hateful smile going slack.
The sounds warped around me, the air bending and twisting before my eyes, and I heard distant muffled screams. My brow dropped heavy over my eyes as I tried to take a deep breath. My legs went out from under me and my knees cracked onto the stone, and that’s when I smelled it—burning flesh. I stared down at the singed hole in my tunic, my mind trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t feel anything, not my fingers, nor the hole in my chest where Sawyn’s lighting struck.
Someone screamed my name and suddenly Grae was in front of me, his eyes wide with horror. I couldn’t feel his hands as they clutched my cheeks. His panicked gaze roved my body. My name was on his lips, but I couldn’t hear it.