“Cases in which an individual’s magic is sealed are exceedingly rare. Aside from being incredibly difficult, the procedure has a high chance of failure. It often leads to the death of its subjects. Nonetheless, the agency will seal the magics of particularly dangerous criminals. It is a job as delicate as any surgical procedure, and has been known to take up to three days.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

"Seijelar,” Silver said softly.

She stood in the drizzle, feeling the goosebumps rise along her skin. There was still snow on the ground, enough that she had retrieved her warmer Altian shirt from Elise to wear into the rain. Against the dark night, her breath was a white cloud of glimmering frost. So was the wolf’s.

“What did they do to you?” the dragon’s voice came to her just as its heat did, a rush of air against her upturned face. Even in the rain, the beast was invisible, nothing but a ghostly silhouette. Even so, Silver knew when it turned slightly so that one of its wings hovered overhead, blocking the rain.

“Elise figured out how my memories were sealed,” Silver said with a smile that was grateful, but also weary. She lifted her arm to stare at the ink-like marks encircling her wrists. They ran halfway up her arm, hauntingly beautiful. Scars. That was what Elise had called the cracks that had formed in those marks. Once, they must have been solid. No more. “She can’t fix it.”

“This magic causes you harm?”

Silver reached blindly into the rain. After a moment, her fingers found the dragon’s broad snout.

“I feel like I’ve forgotten something important, Seijelar,” she continued, her voice low. There was no comfort the great beast could give her, and she knew as much. So did Seijelar. So did the wolf. They simply stood like that for a long while, each reveling in the warmth of the other, until Silver finally pushed off of the dragon.

“We leave first thing in the morning, Seijelar. Follow us from above. Most likely, we’ll be meeting up with you just outside the city. Bek is trying to reach Jack Weiss…he’s the one we need to find first.”

Seijelar did not like to see her go, but Silver knew she needed to sleep to be ready for the day to come. In a little while, the marks on her body would fade. She was looking forward to it; there was a part of her that hated them already.

She was surprised, somehow, when she found Bek waiting for her to come inside. They spoke little as he led her up to the bedroom they would, apparently, be sharing. There were two beds there, one pressed up against the window. It was to that one she and the wolf went, settling on solid foam for the first time in months.

“The guest room,” he said in a hushed voice, closing the door. “My mom’s asleep already. This house isn’t really that big, and the walls are thin.”

“Sure,” Silver said, leaning back against the wall. “I’ll keep my voice down.” Watching him turn off the lights and sit on the other bed, she could not help but think how different it felt to share an ordinary room; the last time they had slept in the same place had been in the nightwings’ caverns. That felt so long ago.

“We shouldn’t be talking much, anyway. We have a long day ahead of us. I was able to contact Weiss; he’ll be expecting us tomorrow,” Bek observed.

“If we made it back to our own time period, this wasn’t what I expected we would be doing,” Silver said firmly, “So why are we chasing after someone from the MASO? What did you really come here for?”

She saw Bek’s gaze shift to her in the dark room.

“There’s something I need to know about the Castle of Divides. It’s the only link we have to Alti now.”

“You should leave it alone, Bek. We should go to Cara and Zien. I need to find the vampires,” Silver rationalized aloud.

“Trust me, Silver, you don’t want anything to do with the vampires,” Bek said, sounding disapproving.

“They didn’t seem so bad in Libertia,” she observed.

“Things change. Vampires today are different. There aren’t many new cases of vampirism anymore, so what’s left are a disproportionately large number of creatures with ancient grudges and complicated loyalties.”

“You tell me I don’t want anything to do with vampires. I don’t think you want anything to do with the castle,” Silver said after a short pause, changing the subject. He sighed.

“Why do you say that.”

“Gut feeling,” Silver said, turning her head slightly to look out the window. She knew the dragons were still out there, but they were impossible to see. Their magic was truly impressive. Bek did not say anything after that for long enough that she thought he might have fallen asleep. When Silver looked back at him, however, he was still upright, leaning against the headboard and staring in her direction.

“Wolf, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere,” Silver finally said, sliding under the sheets.

“Afraid I’m going to jump you?” Bek asked half-jokingly.

“I’d rip his throat out,” the wolf growled calmly.

“She says you have her blessing,” Silver muttered.

“Sure she does. Abusing the powers of the nerske already, I see,” he said dryly. “Don’t worry. You’re not my type.”

An uncomfortable silence passed between them before her curiosity got the better of her. “What is your type?” she asked softly.

“Someone who never gets into trouble,” he responded immediately.

“Seriously?”

“I don’t have a type, Silver. I don’t plan to date or fall in love with anyone. You should remain with the MASO after tomorrow,” Bek said, “Let the beasts believe you died. I’ll return to Zien with the Dawn. You should try to live as normally as possible, without using your magic. We’ll find some way to deal with the memory enchantment. And since you seem interested, I’m sure you could find someone there; there are more men than women in the research department at the MASO.”

Silver twisted her head to look at him. He was staring at the ceiling now, sandy blonde hair falling lightly over his bronze eyes, which were hardly visible in the darkness. Perhaps because she was lying in a real bed, or because she was sleeping in a house a block from where she had once lived a normal life, or simply because talking to Bek felt a little like talking to her sister had, once upon a time, in the moments before they both fell asleep, Silver felt closer to the self she had left behind months ago. Maybe that was why she answered a little too truthfully.

“No…” A knot had formed in her chest, and it made breathing difficult. “That’s not possible for me.”

“What? Staying at the MASO, or—” Bek started.

“Any of it, Bek. I don’t belong at the MASO,” she interrupted him.

“Then where do you belong? With the tree wolves?” His voice dripped sarcasm. But she did not have an answer for him. Most likely, Bek knew that. In that tiny little room, there was so much space between them. A ravine, its depths impassable. Maybe, she thought, that was what he intended. That was how he manipulated people. It was amazing it had taken her this long to realize it even though she did the same thing; find the cracks. All it took to keep that little distance between herself and everyone else – the distance Sara had warned her against before the war – was to find someone’s insecurities and dig at them, just a little. Just enough.

Even knowing his game, Silver found his question spinning through her mind as she drifted off…

And woke to lace. She really hated lace.

Silver plucked at the fabric against her chest, the lace coarse between her fingers. If it was not for her parents, she definitely would not wear it, but they had spent all morning telling her how beautiful she looked – at least before they went to tame her brother’s wild hair while he fought off their comb with a characteristic grimace. They had also explained that if they removed the lace it would ruin the dress, which Silver found unacceptable.

After a moment, she stopped picking at the lace and looked up into her reflection instead. She was facing a floor-length mirror, the glass as clear as the sky.

And she was just a girl. A girl with eyes her dad said glowed, with a dress as white as snow, embroidered in gold and crimson, with hair her mom had pulled back behind her head into a golden hair net that glimmered with its own light. There was a black gap where her front tooth had fallen out a week ago. Everyone loved that gap, and Silver smiled more because of it than she ever would have before.

Silver twirled once in front of the mirror so the dress spun and settled around her legs. Satisfied, she then turned and bounded out of the room, the corridors around her seeming to bend to accommodate her path towards the grand stairwell. Ahead of her, the hallway seemed to shorten. The doors slid past unnaturally fast. Ahead of her was a great foyer, its walls bright with the light of windows set high up the stone. She shot out into it, eyes fixed on the breathtaking vermilion chandelier that hung above the stairwell. There she stopped, staring at the ruby glass that dangled like rose petals from the ceiling. Her eyes angled around the room quickly when something shuffled at the bottom of the stairs.

There was the wolf, staring up at her.

“Elorian,” she called. Her voice rang clear in the vast hall, but it was not the wolf that answered it.

Silver stared, her face gone pale. The great chandelier had fallen, though she did not know when. It was shattered across the floor, petal-like glass scattered bloodily in the faint light that shone from between the open doors of the castle. There was a great black beast there, scales dark as jet, maw poised over the still form of what she knew was her mother.

The beast shifted until its crimson eyes gleamed up at her.

Then it spoke words that chilled her to her very soul.

“I’ll come for you again, princess. I’ll teach you your place in this world.”

Silver’s eyes snapped open to the dark walls of the very modern bedroom in Elise’s house. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her breath sharp and shallow. It was several seconds before she realized that she was also shaking uncontrollably, every part of her slick with a cold sweat. Slowly disentangling herself from the sheets, she pressed her spine up against the wall behind her and stared around the room.

It was empty.

Still shaking, she gritted her teeth and brought her knees up to her chin. It was just a dream. Surely it was just a dream. She had recognized the Castle of Divides, but it could easily incorporate itself into her sleeping world. Stranger things had shown up in the past. But she had also recognized the dragon…

Hess.

Fury coursed through her at the mere thought of his name. He was the cause of everything. He was the beginning of it all. First, he had killed Cevora’s mother. Then, the king. Then…

Then what? The dragon was an evil she had left behind in Alti, seven hundred years in the past. Even if she believed he was the same beast Zien had warned her of, in their present day, all the people she might have avenged him against were gone. And yet the dragon’s words rang again and again in the silent room, until she thought they were engraved into her mind. Her teeth were beginning to ache.

Feeling suffocated, she loosened the gold chain of Bek’s necklace around her neck. Her hazel green eyes drifted up through the curtain of her hair to fix on the dim gray light beyond the window. It must have snowed again. Once, she would have rejoiced. Now…Silver’s only thought was that the snow would be cold, the ground slick and treacherous.

“Good morning, Silver.”

She jumped at the sound of Elise’s soft voice, looking in the direction of the doorway. Bek’s mom stood there, her expression concerned.

“Good morning,” Silver managed, after a long pause. The words seemed to surprise Elise as well. She smiled slowly, the expression not quite reaching her eyes.

“There’s food downstairs. Would you be ready to leave within an hour?”

“Sure,” Silver said simply, trying to stop herself from shivering as her sweat dried. Bek’s mom nodded.

“I hope you had a good rest. If you need to wash up, you can use the bathroom.”

Silver thanked her, and forced herself up when Elise left the room. She took longer than necessary in the bathroom, taking another steaming shower and closing her mind to the dragons. She greeted everyone downstairs in time to tell the dragons that no, they could not show themselves and ask Elise for whatever was left in the fridge just because the wolf was sitting near Bek’s chair, happily swallowing a bowl of pasta, eggs, and meatballs. The two of them – Elorian and Bek – it seemed, were finally starting to get along.

It was not long after that Silver added Izathral’s cold weight to her hip once more, swung her backpack up on one shoulder – now filled with two new changes of clothing, courtesy of Bek’s mother – and piled into Elise’s tiny silver car with everyone else. Apparently, Bek had helped pack it hours before, leaving every available space bursting with boxes. The wolf settled across Silver’s lap with a rumble of contentment, and proceeded to sleep while Silver stared out the window. She was listening to Elise and Bek, talking softly.

There was nothing remarkable about what they said. No mention of magic, no dragons or witches, no MASO or Zara or dragons. Elise did not even remark on the construction signs that they passed, gold letters flaring into life and warning of detours, flooded or broken roads, and the evacuation order she had mentioned the day before. In that little silver car, the world ceased to move and they with it. There was no evil and no time, and Silver settled into the peace with the longing of someone who feared they would never see it again.

They stopped near a bus stop in the heart of the city. Elise glanced at her as Silver held the door open for the wolf, then turned her gaze back to Bek.

“When you’ve finished your business, take the bus out of the city. I’ll be at your aunt’s house in Idaho. It’s not that far of a drive from here, so this should cover the fare.” Elise was holding out cash, Silver realized, and Bek stared at her a long moment before he took it and slipped it into his pocket. “Your aunt would love to see you, too, Bek.”

Silver felt Elise’s gaze shift to her after several minutes. “You, too, Silver. There’s always room for Bek’s friends at our house.” Silver felt herself blush.

Then the woman turned away and rolled up the windows, rejoining the stream of cars issuing from the crowded streets. The two of them and the wolf were left alone again, standing in the middle of a slowly dying city. It reminded Silver of Alti, somehow, despite the traffic lights. It was snowing again. The flakes were light, fluffy, like cotton that burned where it touched her skin. Looking up through the steel and glass of the buildings around them, the sky appeared tinier and more distant than ever before.

“Let’s get moving,” Bek said in a way that made it clear what he was saying was not a suggestion. Silver would not have questioned it anyway. If they were going to the MASO, they would also be closer to the territory of the tree wolf pack. So, she settled into their traipse through the heart of the city, eyes sliding along the shop windows as they passed. So much glass. So many reflections. It was strange to see herself in the city, clothed normally except for her Altian top shirt, which just looked like an unusual coat.

More than once, her eyes trailed to Bek. For some reason, what he had said the night before stuck with her. Half the time they were disagreeing about something, and yet…she was used to having him with her. She should be going her own way; there was nothing forcing her to go the MASO with him instead of going after Zien with the wolf. But she could not seriously think about doing that. It would be too hard. She was too accustomed to that striking, sandy blonde hair. Those intense bronze eyes. His captivating magic, cool, subtle, and purposeful. And he had saved her life too many times for her to leave him.

She watched his reflection in the buildings they passed, mulling over her thoughts. They were finally reaching the edge of the towering, multi-story buildings when suddenly, his reflection vanished. Startled, she stopped, turning slowly from the glass to see him just ahead of her. After a second, he stopped as well, staring back.

There must have been a strange look on her face, because he cast a glance behind himself before asking, “What is it?”

Silver looked back to the glass, staring at the reflection of the young man just ahead of her as he shifted to avoid someone with a stroller. For a moment, she was certain, he had been gone. Or at least his reflection had been. He also turned to look at the shop window just as she noticed something dark showing above the collar of his shirt. That, too, was striking, a dark tattoo so familiar it made her stomach lurch.

“Bek, what is that on…?” she trailed off, looking at him. Of course, the marks were invisible when she looked at him normally. Beautiful, intricate, when she turned back to scrutinize them in the glass, she was not sure why they gave her the sense that they were nothing like Illian’s family markings. Maybe even nothing like her curse. There was a darkness in them, a magic that her subconscious recognized even if the rest of her did not.

And she would have been able to ask him why she felt that way if she had not, in that most inopportune of moments, felt a sudden jolt of fear.

“The earth is roaring.”

The dragon’s harried message came at the same time that the wolf growled a warning. Silver understood even without them saying anything. Above the sound of car horns and the chatter of the crowds, there was the sound of thunder – thunder that did not end, but grew in volume, approaching them rapidly through the narrow city streets.

“We have to get off the stre—,” she began, but the scream of metal silenced her. Dust laden smoke was beginning to darken the sky.

“The window!” someone shouted.

The world became a confused jumble of sound and motion. The earth beneath her feet roared and shifted, throwing her to the ground. The glass window buckled and shattered, the shards embedding themselves in what Silver thought must be a barrier that Bek had erected, because she certainly had not raised one herself. Long seconds passed in which she saw nothing. Her arms blocked her vision, her eyelids closed against the onslaught of the world.

Then Silver suddenly found herself staring skyward, eyes open to the destruction and arms half-raised. The earth was shaking, the buildings swaying like stacks of cards. Even the sky seemed to be writhing overhead. Clouds twisted into knots, grotesque monoliths that leaned down against the buildings and crushed them from above. More glass shattered down the street, and the concrete split and cracked in the roads. Around them, the dust thickened, blotting out the weak light from above. Someone was screaming something, and she heard a car horn wail protest as something heavy and metal smashed into the sidewalk. Silver covered her head again as bits of rubble cascaded from above.

How long it lasted, she did not know. All she knew was that at some point, the shaking stopped, and some interminable time afterward, her mind came to grips with the stillness of the world. Her body was bound into a tight huddle, her hands clasped to the back of her head and wrapped into her hair until it throbbed painfully against her scalp. When she tried to listen, it was through a persistent buzzing in her ears, like white noise. Dust had settled on her skin and clothes and hair, so when she moved it clouded around her and she coughed it from her lungs.

There was a voice close to her, the words a jumble of bass and coughing. She squinted up towards the sound, finding Bek standing on the cracked sidewalk. He stared at her just long enough to see that she was in one piece before looking away. Several seconds passed before Silver followed his gaze. Then her eyes widened.

The world was a place transformed. Or perhaps more accurately, it was a place destroyed. She stared, choking on another breath full of dust. Glass lay scattered around them, and she could see through the broken shop window where a mannequin lay half crushed beneath a fallen lighting unit. Something had set the sprinklers off within, and a fine rain of water poured down over the shop’s interior. But that was not what she had heard…

She turned her head as her fingers found the wolf’s fur, absently brushing the dust from its back. Elorian’s sides rumbled with sounds she could not hear. It was a long moment before she began to piece together the story of what had happened around them.

An earthquake had roared through the city. The steel girders rooting a fire escape to the shop’s nearby alley had given way, and the tons of metal had crashed down across the sidewalk just a few meters from her and Bek and a few other pedestrians. It had smashed into a small tree as it fell, which was lodged into the roof of a still-wailing car. Now the underbelly of the earth was exposed, asphalt and metal that rose as high as her waist. All around them, the buildings had begun to sink into their foundations. They listed dangerously, and the earth around them crumbled as if smashed from above. Everything was coated in a chalky fog. A street lined with shop fronts had become a lane of gaping voids glinting with the promise of death.

There were people as well, of course, stumbling from cars and ruined buildings, or unfolding themselves from the spots where they had tried to hide from the rain of debris. There were some who stood and limped to help others, some who sobbed in the streets or who held each other reassuringly. And there were things Silver would rather have not seen, things she saw without meaning to. They might as well have been on the battlefields of Alti again, but here people were crushed not by stone monoliths, impaled not by swords, but by the pieces of their world.

With this thought, foreign images embedded themselves into her mind, memories of Alti or other things, she was not sure which. Silver tried to shake them away, checking that the wolf was uninjured instead. Elorian was merely eyeing the listing buildings with distaste, nose twitching.

“Bek,” she croaked, choking again on the dust. She pushed herself to her feet to look at him. He was surveying the wreckage much as she had done, but, she realized after several seconds, there was something different; his gaze was fixated, motionless ahead of him. It was several more long seconds before Bek seemed to notice her attention, and when he turned to look at her, she thought it was still longer before his gaze focused.

“We need to help,” she said finally, tottering several steps away to help a man up from the asphalt. After a short, mumbled exchange, she watched him stumble away down the sidewalk.

“Hold on a second,” Bek said as he approached behind her. Silver was glad what he was saying was obvious from the way his lips moved, especially when she began to sway with the earth once more. Aftershock. She nearly fell on the wolf before she finally sank to her knees to wait it out. Meanwhile, Seijelar was in her head, telling her about a fire that had taken root several blocks away. The sound of sirens filled the city as the buzzing in her ears subsided.

“Let us come,” Seijelar demanded. Silver looked in Bek’s direction. By the way he met her gaze, she knew he had also heard.

“Come,” she said before he could indicate otherwise. Bek did not say anything. He was staring intently down the street opposite them.

“I don’t think they’ll be fast enough,” he said suddenly, “Gather the injured. We need to get them off the street as soon as we can. Leave people in their cars. If their conscious, tell them to stay there.”

He did not need to say more. Silver had already begun to sense it – the soul gripping terror that could only portend the arrival of the Zara. It clawed at her throat, which was raw from the dust, sending shivers like ice water down her spine. It lay leaden weights to rest in her stomach and heart. Her fingers closed around the invisible hilt of the sword at her waist. This fear was worse than before. In the past, when she had encountered the Zara, she had struggled against a more primal fear of death. Now she felt the hole open in her heart, deep and yawning, where that fear gave way to something more terrible – what that something was, Silver did not know.

“There is more than one,” the wolf growled as it nudged her warily, “we may not be able to protect these humans.”

“We have to,” Silver growled, rushing to the nearest conscious person and trying to explain quickly what was happening. They stared at her in bewilderment, but she was not so out of it as to try to explain the Zara to them. She told them the buildings might collapse into the street instead. It was only moments before people were moving all around them, trying to pull the injured into a parking garage across the street. There was no time for her to try to heal anyone. Silver bodily carried an unconscious woman instead, breathing heavily as she ducked the woman into a nearby car and slammed the door closed.

“Get ready,” Bek shouted after only a few moments. He raised a hand behind him, and Silver could see a barrier appear over the entrance to the garage. It might not be enough to stop the Zara, she realized, but it would be enough to keep anyone from coming outside. Everyone else in the streets would have to find safety themselves.

Drawing Izathral from her side, Silver peered down the broken streets, waiting. Her heart was hammering, and a bead of sweat trickled slowly down the side of her face. This fear, this anticipation, was not what she remembered. She was not afraid of the Zara…

She was afraid of her magic.

She was afraid of the monstrous feelings that had driven her through the king’s army in Alti. Afraid of the man who had killed her, even knowing he was dead. Afraid of that dark place far beneath the surface of the world, where the light shining down from above was just barely enough to keep her sane. Afraid of the vile hatred that she was only just beginning to recognize. There was a hole that yawned in her soul, a space where that rage had moved in to sit, like a leaden thing, at the bottom of her heart. No…she was not afraid of the Zara…

She was afraid that their magic felt familiar to her. As the Zara neared, she could feel the hatred clawing itself from within her. It drew her to them. It drew her down and down, into the black shadows, until they were all she saw, and her magic burned red hot through her veins and filled her with endless agony.

Goosebumps rose across Silver’s skin. Her ears suddenly clamored with a cacophony of sounds that may or may not actually exist. When the metal of the fire escape settled, she heard the clash of metal weaponry, and the clank of armor. The rasp of stone against stone became the scrape of dragon scales and leather. Water frothing from a hydrant became the roar of a magical mist, and the scream of silenced arrows. And the hiss of crumbling rock became the grind of a stone monolith’s motion.

“Remember, Silver, the only way to kill them is most likely to get your sword through their heart and send a surge of magic through them. My dagger is too short, so we have to work together on this,” Bek’s voice drew her back to reality, “It should be easier to trap them than kill them, since we have no idea how many there are. You remember what Olrier taught us about earth-shaping, right? No matter what, if it comes down to it, you’ll have to deliver the finishing blow.”

“I don’t want to kill them if we can help it,” Silver said abruptly. She felt Bek look at her in disbelief, but refused to face him.

“What? Are you kidding?” he demanded.

“There must be a way to bring them back. Illian’ dragon is one of these Zara, Bek. I couldn’t forgive myself if I killed Zarius. There’s no reason—”

“They’ll kill us and all the people who can’t run fast enough. Isn’t that reason enough for you?” he growled acidly.

As it turned out, there was no opportunity for her to answer. The Zara had come, and there were more of them than Silver had ever seen but for a brief second as the Zara fell upon the nightwings’ caverns months before. The darkness pooled like ink on the earth, beneath fallen stone and twisted metal, shards of glass and crushed car hoods. She saw their eyes first, crimson, gleaming like blood among the darkness. Watching them, she took a deep breath, closing her fingers about Izathral’s cold hilt. The sword felt grim against her fingers.

Then one of the beasts moved towards her, and she was in motion. Her arms snapped out before her, and Izathral cleaved the beast’s tail from its body easily. Silver felt its attention stir, its hazy head whipping through the air. Her blade sang, snapping down and through. It hit nothingness. Black smoke billowed around her, noxious and frigid, and then the beast was at her back.

Too slow.

Silver turned, seeing the towering buildings craning in overhead and the gray skies pouring down over them. It had been a long time since she had fought a Zara within the confines of the Castle of Divides – a very long time. Then, she had nearly lost her life. Now, she had changed.

The blood roared in her ears as she crouched to avoid a blow to her head, simultaneously slapping her hand flat to the asphalt. Half of her wanted to recoil from the tingle of magic in her fingers, but the effects of her power were nearly instantaneous. The earth ran like liquid, congealing into bars that sliced heavenward, through the beast and all around it, forming a flaming, luminous cage from which it could not escape. Zara could travel only within the shadows, after all - if there were no shadows, they were trapped. As she straightened, the beast writhed and hissed, caught within the flaming, rocky frames of its cage.

But she had no time to glory in the moment. Silver whirled and stumbled over the uncertain ground. The moment of clumsiness left her off balance just long enough to see that, if she had not slipped, she might be dead; two more of the beasts stood over her, great ebony talons mere inches from her throat.

“Down!”

Her body reacted to the command before she fully comprehended it. Silver ducked as one of Bek’s blades hissed past her head, slicing through Zara flesh. In an instant, she followed the blade’s path with her sword, feeling metal touch home before the beast vanished again. Then she was left leaping out of the path of the second Zara, her gaze flying across the ruins of the city. Its claws met her sword, and she wished desperately that she had thought to take Cara’s rope out of her backpack. At close range, she was tied into a battle of constant defense.

Ice and then fire seared across Silver’s spine as something caught her from behind, and the city rang with the wolf’s snarl as she was pushed out of the way. There were shouts as well, she realized. People running. Chaos had erupted around them. How many Zara were there? She could not possibly count. It was possible no one could. But there were lights coming down one of the distant streets, sirens wailing above the sound of peoples’ screams. And a helicopter…she looked up just in time to see it slow above them, great blades beating against the cold air.

An uncomfortable tightness gripped her throat as she whirled into the turmoil, desperately looking for the wolf and Bek. Elorian was injured, but not down, and the Zara was lashing out, again and again. The wolf was like a silver shadow, darting between its hazy limbs. Bek had managed to cage one of the Zara in front of a woman who was desperately trying to crawl away, but Silver could sense something amiss in his magic. There was something unstable about it, some undercurrent she had never noticed before.

Thoughts for another time. For now, it was the best she could do to lash out with a stream of fire at a Zara two inches from decapitating some random stranger. It was the best she could do to silently thank Bek when he drove gleaming stakes of iron shrouded in electricity into the earth in front of the wolf, two of them embedding into the Zara’s spine. The shadow beast vanished instantly, not dead but retreated into the darkness beneath a car.

The helicopter was sliding slowly back towards the oncoming lights. Maybe they were communicating. Maybe, she thought desperately, the MASO was coming, because she was only now beginning to understand what Illian had said to her: it took a strong person to slay the enemy in front of them, but an infinitely stronger person to offer mercy. She had always believed he meant it was difficult to hold back, difficult to incapacitate a person without killing them when the weapon in her hand had a blade the length of her arm. Now, she knew otherwise. It was almost impossible to protect everyone at once. If she were not strong enough and yet failed to realize her own weakness, then she would lose Elorian, Seijelar…

Just like she had lost Illian.

In that instant, the roar of an explosion shattered the night. Heat billowed into the street as she looked up at the place where the helicopter had been, and where now there was a ball of fire, plummeting earthward.

And her world went pitch black. The ground beneath her was all shadow, and the sky above a curtain of nothingness. Silver knew the form of the thing plummeting towards her from above; a dragon. But not Seijelar.

“Run!” she shouted at the wolf, at anyone near her. She started to run, too, but something caught her up short before she had even made it ten yards. Her body came to a jerking halt, slamming her to her knees. Silver tilted her head in surprise as the shadows rose up and materialized behind her, black talons wrapping in a chokehold around her sword arm. The cold burned through her clothing, a thousand times colder than anything she could remember; it seared through to her skin as the Zara crushed the bones in her arm. Silver gasped, breath freezing in her lungs, eyes closing instinctively. Izathral fell from her hand as her hand went slack.

Then some tremendous pressure forced her earthward onto her side, and the ground rose up to meet her so hard that she knew it would have hurt if her lungs had not already been bursting with a scream that never escaped. Scrabbling at the earth with her free hand, Silver forced her eyes open. There was the asphalt, cold and gray beneath her head. Out of the peripheries of her vision, she saw the black-on-black darkness coiled around her motionless arm, pressing her to the earth. There was a dragon above her, but she was too dazed to turn towards it.

Another aftershock.

The thought came unbidden to her mind as the earth began to buck beneath her. The great buildings were swaying once more, moaning and settling deeper into the earth. More glass and metal rained down from overhead, and then a great metal filing cabinet crashed to the earth, evidently having slid from a dangerously tilted upper floor. Paper roared down around it, fluttering everywhere.

Here we are again.

The thought struck her as alien. The rock and roar of the earth cradled her as her consciousness faded – a lullaby that drove her straight into the world of her dreams. The rumble died to her ears, the motion to her body. Her eyes were for a snow-laden world, viewed through a window from the bench of a windowsill. It was very quiet. Strangely hushed.

Silver’s eyes narrowed.

Snow drifted slowly past her window. Her only view was of the trees in the distance, and the mountains beyond them. Burning mountains. Her mouth dropped open ever so slightly.

Above her roiled the crimson sky, lit by the red flames from beneath, and the blazing sunrise from above. Yet – or perhaps because – it was sunrise, the moon remained, ever watchful and strangely brilliant. She felt herself leaning out the window until the cold stone dug into her arms and stomach, and the snowy air froze her hands and face.

The city was gone. Silver stared at the wasteland that remained, fire blazing to the heavens, buildings crumbling to dust, sending showers of sparks into the sky. Their ashen frames leaned inward within the fire, creaking and hissing. No. The hiss was imagined, she realized. She could hear nothing of the city’s destruction from where she was. She could not hear the screams if there were any, or the final, settling moan of the buildings that crumbled into the earth. She could not hear the roar of the fountains that had loosed their water into the city so that it spread like blood through the streets and plains, engulfing the flaming houses. That fire continued to burn on the water’s surface. Ghost fire. Dragonfire. Or both.

“We are the same.”

Silver’s eyes snapped open.

The weight against her shifted, dragging her onto her back until she was staring up, and up, and up, into the abysmal darkness of a dragon with scales like jet and eyes like crimson fire. Those eyes held her, hypnotic, mesmerizing. She stared, and the beast stared back, its great jaws parting in a beastly grin, its nostrils flared and great black wings held erect behind it, billowing like a black cape in the wind. Its talons pierced her clothing and dug into her skin, until she felt hot liquid against her shoulder and abdomen.

“Hess.”

Silver spit the word, and the beast’s great head cocked in the manner of a cat regarding something of mild interest and little import. His grin spread. Without lifting the pressure from her chest, he snagged one claw into the fabric of her backpack and promptly ripped it open, spilling out the glowing form of the Dawn Stone. Then, before her eyes, he set it on the broken asphalt and placed his great paw on top of it, Selurian’s manacles, which were powerful enough to seal even most of a dragon’s magic, tinkling around his wrist. She was riveted when the first hair’s width cracks appeared on its surface. The Stone could not stand against the great dragon any more than she could, of course. Its magic pulsed like a heartbeat and then, all at once, it was crushed beneath his mighty paw. All that remained was a pile of glittering dust, glowing softly like the embers of a dead fire.

She moved her eyes as inconspicuously as she could to look to Izathral, where it had fallen nearly a foot from her. The Stone at its heart pulsated an angry red. The dragon was eyeing it with interest. He leaned in closer, breathing air that seared her lungs with the scents of copper and iron, great nostrils dilating. His talons dug deeper into her skin until she gasped and resisted the urge to attempt to twist away. The pain was terrible. Sweat began to dampen her neck and arms as her breathing sped up.

“The dragons’ blade, a treasure beyond your measure. It defines you. Neither of you have a place in this world.” Silver’s eyes widened, holding the dragon within their graying gaze. “But it still has some use for you, unlike the Stone whose power you drained to leap through time.”

He regarded her piercingly, and finally Silver managed the great effort it took to twist her head away. Now she could clearly see Bek and the wolf, fending off the Zara in the distance. Seijelar would come soon. She felt the warm brush of the hatchling’s presence against her mind. Pins and needles licked the skin below her neck, dulling her pain. Fainting would be the end of her, though she doubted there was much she could do about it.

“I see the fear of death in you, abominable human. How amusing. Even knowing I need you alive, after all these years, you are still so pitiably desperate. The sword will remain with you, as it must, princess” Hess continued.

Only the dragon’s words kept Silver from falling over the precipice into unconsciousness. Desperate, she reached inward, clawing towards the magic she needed to heal herself. Choking a curse that came out as a spluttering cough, Silver glared upwards once more. The breath was being crushed from her lungs, yet hatred broiled up in her. It had always been there, since the beginning of their ill-fated adventure. Her hatred for this beast was all consuming, even if she had no idea why.

As if he knew her thoughts, the great dragon huffed a sound of amusement. “You really know nothing? These humans have destroyed you.” The great beast leaned in closer. “It was not the Stones of Alti that I sought these twelve years; those I could have destroyed at any time. There was only one thing worth my time, and that was you. Be it fate or coincidence that the Zara who found you would have some connection to you…he led you on, on to the past…and there I found you.” Hess bared his ivory fangs in a snarl. “Now comes the beginning of the end. Mankind seeks ways to return magic to this land, and for that they have returned my kin to the world. Magic heaves its final breaths, and like all beasts, it fights to live. The world wakes for us, princess.”

“What did I ever do to you?” she barely managed to cough.

“To be born into this world is sometimes sin enough…” the dragon rumbled, cocking his head so his horns glinted in the chalky air. “Yes. There is a task that you alone can complete for me.”

She felt her eyes narrow. More of that raw rage, eating away at her. All she needed was the magic that had saved her from the Ruveris Plague, the power that had picked her up after Cifa killed her, and she could stand up and run this dragon through…but Silver did not know how to call on it. Like the dragon above her, it tore through her only when it pleased.

“I’ll never…help you,” she managed to snarl. The dragon snarled back.

“What choice do you have? You are a monster, princess, the very same kind as I am. And now you bloody your hands with the justice of strangers, suffering beneath the weight of your sins…a mere reflection of their will. Dark humor. What justice do you seek? You, and not them. Not the humans. You, princess.”

His jaws snapped.

“Yes. We are the same. Kings mired in mistakes. Betrayed by our kind. You believe the humans will accept you one day, but it is the very world that turns against you, and you against it. You have only me. So free me – free me from Selurian’s manacles.”

She half-laughed, vision swimming as she turned her head to stare into the eyes of the Zara that held her crushed arm down. Hess had not only freed the Stone when he broke open her backpack, but also Cara’s rope. She felt it coiled in the curve of her back, the metal just visible near her shoulder.

“Let go,” Silver warned, reaching for the rope. It reacted, uncoiling like a serpent to shoot in the direction of the shadow beast. The Zara recoiled from its bite as she raked her gaze back to the dragon and imagined the broken earth near her hand shooting up through his chest. “You’re the only monster here,” she hissed, “and I will not help you.”

The dragon huffed a great, throaty growl as pavement slammed into his ribs, but in the end it was a glancing blow…and it forced more of his weight onto her. Pain lanced through Silver’s chest. He had crushed the right side of her rib cage. She felt her breath catch and then become frantic as her body cried out for air. Salty blood flooded her mouth. Magic flooded through her as her consciousness faded. She only saw his eyes as the blackness engulfed her, moving towards the sword. A weak sound of frustration bubbled from her lips.

Powerless. She was absolutely powerless. She was dying, and the dragon knew it. His eyes cried the words, his very silence whispered of it. He knew that she sat there in his grasp, lying so close to death that she could see it hovering over him, haunting. In that moment, she hated Hess more than she had hated anything in her life. What had she even been working towards until now, she did not know. He had swept it all away before she could even catch her breath. She hated him, and she wanted him to disappear. Disappear forever.

And there was the grin, the crimson eyes wild with triumph. The weight lifted from her chest as the great black dragon stepped away from her, fangs bared at the ready, eyes fixed on her every move.

“Your kind, in their folly, have doomed themselves.” The manacles rang against his scales when he shifted his weight, a high, pure, powerful sound.

Silver hardly heard what he said. Just as in Alti, her power coursed through her, less painful but no less blinding. She burned from the inside out, burned until she hardly remembered who she was, or why it was that she stood and turned her sword towards the ancient dragon, seeing his death written clearly in the ledgers of the world.

“You destroyed the Dawn. Do you know what you’ve done?” she heard herself ask, her voice ringing in the hush that stretched between them.

“Taken my revenge for these chains that bind me.” He lifted one paw, the silvery bracelets flashing. “Twelve years ago, the pillars began to fall. Now, it is only a matter of time. I can stop the destruction. If not for your own sake…agree to free me. Or let your beloved humans die. Die with them, if you can…then perhaps you can escape your cursed existence.” The dragon’s jaws parted, and his great wings spread. “Take your time with your decision…it means nothing to me how many die while I wait. Simply know, princess, that Alti returns to a world ill prepared. Come to me soon, or you will be too late to save anyone.”

Fire rained from the heavens. Fire in the form of power, and fire in the form of scales and talons, horns and wings and great green eyes that encompassed them all as Seijelar dove between them. The flames lit up Silver’s world, driving Hess away from her, yet still she stood with her sword outstretched, not trusting the sudden absence of his presence. Seijelar noticed. Crimson scales gleaming even in the dim light of the snow-laden twilight, the dragon turned and regarded her, jaws half open so that its teeth showed clearly above black gums, green eyes bright and wary. Bat-like wings were unfurled at the beast’s back, and they billowed with the traveling heat of dragonfire, dancing like flames themselves.

“He is gone.”

Silver did not reply. She stared at the point beyond her dragon, the point where Hess had been only moments ago. His presence was indeed gone, but everything else remained. Hatred. She drowned in it. It encompassed her, and it fed the magic that awaited only her will to do its work.

She already knew what she had to do. This was not about Zien or the beasts anymore. This was not even about her family. Someone had stolen her memories. Someone had stolen this…this terrible, overwhelming magic, from her. It was wild and uncontrollable, but that was because it was broken, caged, trapped somewhere inside of her. She could choose to believe that the ancient dragon told nothing but lies, but instead she chose to believe he was telling her the truth. Someone had to.

She had been betrayed.

Cara’s rope slunk around her waist as her gaze turned to the remaining Zara in their vicinity. Five – one that was held at bay by Skourett’s snapping jaws, another that chased the wolf, one slowly lifting a car and trying to pry open the door, one more that seemed to look on, motionless. And the one that had held her down, which seemed to have vanished for the moment, at least.

“Seijelar,” she said, “are there more of them in the city?”

“Everywhere. But there are humans that fight against them. They have some strange magic that keeps the shadow beasts at bay.”

That was good to know.

“I’m taking the one near the car. You know what to do.”

Before the dragon could respond, Silver was hurtling across the twisted earth, sliding on the broken asphalt and leaping a downed light pole. Her feet clanged noisily as they hit metal, and the Zara turned to look at her, the car tilted level with its eyes. Their gazes met. Some part of the shadow beast must have remembered death. It dropped the car as her sword flashed out ahead of her. Shadow flesh met steel, but with little effect. Silver rolled as she hit the pavement, rotating on her heel to face the empty street.

“Left,” Seijelar roared. The dragon dove towards the beast as it surfaced, talons wrapping around its neck. Two more steps. One. Izathral sank home, deep into the creature’s smoke clad chest, where perhaps once there had been a heart, and if it no longer beat, it still housed the creature’s tortured soul. Not pausing, Silver whipped the sword clean of the Zara. Her magic pulsed outward, just as Bek had demanded. Her gaze shifted upward, to the part of the Zara that might once have been a head, and now housed only the demonic eyes that stared at her and through her. They were fading.

The beast slumped to the earth, motionless, as the dark haze began to fade from its body. Silver saw the patches of silver scales beneath, where the darkness evaporated away. There was a cruel irony in the color of its hide.

“Good work, Seijelar,” Silver said, ignoring the shiver that passed down her spine as she felt the semblance of life fading from the Zara’s being. The icy sense of dread that gripped her, setting the hairs along her neck and back on end, was the very same she had once felt in Alti at the sight of death. This was the most terrible, most defiling sense of absolute end, the true void. To willingly be its harbinger was a terrible thing. “Does Skourett have the other one covered?”

“For the moment. My brother seems confident.”

Silver gestured at the wolf, who was still frantically avoiding one of the shadow beasts. Before she could move, however, one of the Zara fell upon the other, a dark-cloaked reaper, eerily silent. They became a roiling mass of darkness, shadows flickering against the earth as the wolf skittered away towards her and Seijelar. When they vanished into the shadow cast by one of the listing buildings, Silver was not sure whether she should pursue them or not.

One reappeared before she had the chance to move. It was directly in front of the Zara Bek had managed to trap, and as she watched, it dropped open its jaws and breathed the putrid black flame of its kind. The trapped Zara threw open its own jaws as if to retaliate, but in an instant, the flame had consumed it. Seijelar roared and charged at the victor. Silver blinked.

The Zara was gone, after destroying its own kind. Why?

“The other Zara has vanished.” That was Skourett’s voice, broadcasting for all of them.

“The other humans come,” the wolf was growling, pushing up against her. “Will they meet us peaceably?”

“No,” Silver said icily, “Seijelar, tell Skourett to get Bek out of here. We need to go now.”

“My brother says Bek would have us stay. The humans here are unprepared for this level of disaster. He would help them.”

“Then he stays alone,” Silver said, drawing beside Seijelar and leaping onto the dragon’s back. Its spines barely sheathed in time. She was holding her hand out for the wolf already.

“Human, this is unwise,” Seijelar grunted, turning back to her, “you told me only yesterday we would go to the place you call the MASO. Now you would flee them? Is it not true that if we help them now—”

“We are not fleeing, Seijelar.” Silver shifted, settling the wolf between her legs. “I disagree with Bek that Jack or whoever will have the answers we need. I want to speak with Cara.”

“This is not Alti. There is time yet—”

“Hess was here, Seijelar. Surely you recognized the ancient dragon that killed the king and queen of Alti.” Seijelar’s slit green eyes regarded her coolly. “How is that possible? Cara might know because of her relationship to the beasts. I doubt the MASO does. But we’ll be going to them soon enough, anyway.”

The tinkle of dragon scales told her Seijelar had spread both wings in preparation to leave. On the other end of the street, she heard someone talking over a loudspeaker. Bek was motioning something, and after a moment, he looked back at her. Their eyes met as Seijelar leapt skyward.

He would follow. Silver was certain of it, just as she was certain everything they thought they knew about what was happening in their modern era was wrong. When they reached a height where she no longer had to brace herself against the upward momentum of the dragon, she closed her eyes, trying to quiet the magic inside of her. It had never been so hard, like swallowing fire.

Even so, when Seijelar finally spiraled lower of the forest and brought them down in a small plain far from civilization, Silver felt better. For a moment, she had forgotten that she had no idea how to reach Icthuria from above. The wolf might know, but not her. Skourett came with them, black wings billowing as the dragons touched down.

“What are you thinking, Silver?” Bek demanded from Skourett’s back. She slid down at the same time he did, looking around to try and get a sense of where they were. The only thing she could tell was that she had never been there before.

“We should be helping those people,” Bek was continuing. “We should be trying to determine how on earth the king’s dragon…” he trailed off, staring at her now that they were closer. He paled visibly.

“Zien must have told you she thought Hess was behind the theft of the Stones,” Silver said reasonably, “She was right. Whatever the ancient dragon was after when he started the war in Illian and Cevora’s time, he must still be after it now. And he has the Zara working for him as well.”

Bek said nothing for a long moment. He was just staring at her clothes.

“It’s already healed,” Silver said, following his eyes. There was hardly any of the original color of her shirt left. Parts of it were in tatters, and all of it sodden with blood. Shrugging her torn backpack from her shoulder, she pulled out one of the newer shirts Elise had given her, and proceeded to change. Bek watched incredulously.

“I thought you must have gotten away from him. I heard you yell to run, and then I couldn’t see anything,” Bek shook his head, “How did you survive?”

“Seijelar came right before the dragon could kill me,” Silver muttered, tearing her old shirt in disgust when it clung wetly to her skin.

“Of course I did,” her hatchling huffed, curling its great head towards the two of them.

“But not before he nearly killed you,” Bek said, staring at her. “And I doubt that was a mistake. Why did the king’s dragon hesitate, Silver? What did Hess say to you?”

“Nothing,” she lied, meeting Bek’s gaze for a second time. For a split second, he stared into her eyes. And then he scowled, brows furrowing.

“You’re lying.” His voice was sharp with disbelief. “What are you hiding? What don’t you want us to know? It’s not just me, is it? Seijelar? The wolf?”

Silver looked away from him, away from them all. The wolf did not accuse her of anything. Neither did Seijelar.

“Silver,” Bek grabbed her arm, trying to force her to look at him. When she did, he seemed at a loss for words.

“You want to confirm something about the Castle of Divides, and for that, you needed to know who your father met with, right? Is that really the whole reason we went to your mother first, Bek? We could have called her from the MASO. There’s such a thing as phones in this era. Or was it because you actually do think you know who I am, and you don’t want the MASO to have that information? When you found out your mom couldn’t do anything, did you think it might be okay after all to have me back there, especially if I were to just never remember?”

“No,” Bek said after a short pause.

“Who’s lying now?” Silver asked, watching him as if his expression might give him away. For once, it did. Bek Trent did not know who she was, but he had his suspicions, and he wanted them to be wrong. Just as much as he had wanted her to refuse him the night he had invited her to join the MASO.

“I’m going to Cara,” Silver stated flatly. “Go to the MASO if you want. I’ll be headed there eventually anyway.”

“Why?” Bek demanded of her.

“Why what?” She was already leaping up onto Seijelar’s back, muttering to the beast as she did so. “I might need you to lead, wolf. I don’t know the way to Icthuria.”

“Why would you go the MASO at all?” Bek asked.

“To get my memories back, of course,” Silver said, fixing him with a hard glare. “To get answers. Also, depending on what Cara knows, like you said, we might need to talk to Jack Weiss.”

“I thought your whole purpose in meeting Cara was to get in contact with the beasts and take the Stone to the vampires,” he demanded, gesturing sharply towards the trees.

“Maybe if you weren’t so fixated on Hess having spared my life,” Silver observed, “you would have thought to ask why the ancient dragon targeted me at all. Like I said, he was after the Stones. I had the Dawn. He destroyed it right in front of me, Bek, so there’s no reason for me to go the vampires now. Instead, I need to figure out why Hess is destroying the Stones of Alti.”

“Silver,” Bek said, jumping up on to Skourett’s back.

“Let’s go, Seijelar,” she said, turning away from him. Her dragon turned to look at her once more, eyes scathing.

“I can take you there from the air,” Bek interrupted stiffly.

Silver felt her dragon’s eyes shift with hers, to Bek. He was staring straight at her, hands clenched around the straps at the base of Skourett’s neck.

“Does that mean you’re coming with us?” she asked more calmly.

“It means I think you’re right. Cara will have information the MASO doesn’t, period. She’s the only one who would work with the beasts. Even if I know Weiss worked with my father, he might be reluctant to share anything with me. We can use whatever we learn from Cara to convince him he has no choice,” Bek explained, clearly unhappy.

Before she could say anything in response, Skourett leapt skyward.

“He is unwell,” Seijelar rumbled into her mind, following suit. “If you push him more, my brother will be upset.”

“What do you mean he’s unwell,” Silver asked above the roar of the wind. Somehow, the dragon’s words made her angrier. Of course, Bek would be unwell. Of course, despite everything that happened to her, she could not focus only on herself without irreparably hurting someone she cared about. She hissed in frustration. It was several wing beats before Seijelar answered.

“We do not know. Only that he is ill. Are all humans so foolish as you two? Like wild dogs, licking your wounds far from prying eyes.”

“Most likely, Seijelar,” she yelled above the roar of the wind. “Most likely.”