“You must save yourself,” Tairn demands. “I chose you not as my next, but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.”
“No.” Steam rises from my skin.
“Let go,” Andarna pleads, and the rush of air in the chamber paired with the slight tremble of the ground tells me she’s landed.
“I won’t do it!” Sloane’s shout echoes off the walls and breaks through the haze.
Inch by painful inch, I force myself to raise my head, just in time to see Brennan’s eyes widen and Mom’s boot rising toward my shoulder. She makes impact softly, and before I can open my mouth, she kicks with her full strength, sending me sprawling across the chamber floor and breaking my hold on the wardstone.
Power flies into the air with the crack of lightning as I hit my back, and a scream tears from my throat, the sound echoed by Brennan as his face fills my vision and he grasps my hand. Cool relief streaks up my arm, the burn fading, my muscles mending from the strain and releasing.
If I don’t cut the power, he’ll die. He can’t mend me that fast over and over, and the next wave of heat pushes forward—
I shove the Archives door closed with the last of my mental strength, and the power cuts off. The relief from Tairn and Andarna is instant, but all I taste is the sour bite of defeat as I lie there, my brother kneeling next to me as he mends the body I’ve been so reckless with.
And above me, I see a flash of green before the swarm comes into view, the sky darkening with beating gray wings.
“It’s the only way,” Mom yells, and I turn my head as my muscles knit and my skin cools. “You can’t imbue something this big in an instant. Not without hundreds of riders, which we don’t have. If you want to save your friends, you’ll do this!” she shouts at Sloane, her fingers wrapped around the first-year’s wrist as she drags her to the wardstone.
“Mom?” I croak, but she doesn’t answer.
“You’re a Mairi,” Mom says to Sloane.
“Yes.” Her bright blue eyes meet mine, wide with uncertainty.
“I killed your mother.” Mom taps on her chest.
“Mom!” I shout.
Brennan collapses next to me, pale and sweating, and I haul myself to my knees.
“I tracked her down and hauled her to her own execution, remember?” Mom says to Sloane, pushing her against the stone. “You were there. I made you watch. You and your brother.”
“Liam,” Sloane whispers.
Mom nods, picking up Sloane’s left hand and putting it on the lowest circle of the massive rune carved into the stone. “I could have stopped his death, too, if I’d just paid a little more attention last year to what my own aide was doing.”
“No!” I shout, lunging forward. Aaric runs in from the side of the ward chamber, not only catching me but stopping me. “Let me go!”
“I can’t,” he says apologetically. “She’s right. And if I have to choose between her life and yours, I choose yours.”
My life or…hers?
“Andarna!” I scream.
“I’m so sorry. I choose your life, too. You are mine. I can’t let you die.”
Andarna shifts around my side, moving forward so she’s poised to step between my mother and me.
Oh gods. No. Sloane is a siphon.
“Can you hear them up there dying? That’s what’s happening,” Mom says, her tone softer than she’s ever used with me. “Your friends are dying, Cadet Mairi. Tyrrendor’s heir is fighting for his life, and you can stop it. You can save them all.” She picks up her free hand, and to my dread, Sloane doesn’t drop the other from the stone.
“Don’t do it!” I cry. “Sloane, that’s my mother.” This isn’t happening. Maybe Sloane won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to Xaden. I throw down my shields—
Pain. Agonizing, blistering pain roars down the pathway. Hopelessness and… helplessness? It hits me from every angle, stealing my breath, overwhelming my senses and my strength. My body sags—my full weight in Aaric’s arms—as my mind fights to separate Xaden’s emotions from mine.
He’s… I can’t think around the pain, can’t breathe for the tightness in my chest, can’t feel the ground beneath my feet.
“Xaden’s dying,” I whisper.
Sloane’s gaze snaps to mine, and that’s all it takes.
“You don’t have to do anything but stand there,” my mother promises somewhere in the distance. “Your signet will take over for you. Think of yourself as nothing more than a conduit for power. You’re simply facilitating mine flowing into the stone.”
“Violet?” Sloane whispers.
I drag my gaze to hers, but I’m not here. Not really. I’m dying on the battlefield, the last of my strength fading, burning, consuming my body. But it will be worth it to save the one I love. Violet.
“Fight!” I scream down the bond at all three of them, shouting past blood and vengeance. Wrath and fire. The sour taste of wyvern flesh between her teeth.
“You can do this,” Mom says, her voice soothing.
“Mom!” My voice cracks as she laces her fingers with Sloane’s.
“It’s all right,” Mom says to me, her eyes softening as Sloane’s body goes rigid. “As soon as my power—Aimsir’s power—lives within the stone, fire it. Raise the wards. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. Do you understand? Everything was to get you to this moment, when you’d be strong enough—” She falls to her knees but doesn’t let go of Sloane.
“No, no, no.” I fight Aaric’s arms as my chest threatens to collapse, to crumple in on my heart. Mom blinks in and out of my vision, blurry one second, then clear.
“I’m so sorry,” Aaric whispers.
“You’re everything we dreamed you would be,” Mom says quietly, her skin paling even as Sloane’s flushes scarlet. “All three of you.” She looks down at Brennan. “And I’ll get to see him soon.”
Our father. My eyes flare as I struggle to break free from Aaric.
“Don’t,” Brennan begs, shaking his head. “Don’t do this.” He staggers to his feet, stumbling her direction, but doesn’t get far before falling.
“Live well.” Her head bobs and her eyes roll as her skin takes on a waxy pallor that’s an obscene contrast to her flight leathers as her chest rises and falls slower, in a stuttered, incomplete breath.
Brennan crawls toward her.
Footsteps sound from behind me, coming at us at a run.
“No!” I scream, tearing my throat, ripping into my soul.
A distinct, hair-raising hum emanates from the wardstone as Mom falls forward into Brennan’s arms.
Sloane staggers backward, staring at her palms like they belong to someone else, and Aaric finally lets me go.
I fly forward, hitting my knees in front of where Brennan sits with Mom’s body draped across his lap, his hand trembling as he reaches for her face. My fingers find her neck, but there’s no pulse. No heat. No life.
The only beat I hear are bootsteps racing into the chamber.
She’s gone.
“Mom,” Brennan whispers, his face crumpling as he looks down at her.