The crowd fell silent once more.

Audric stared at Sanya, unable to speak.

Because she was right: His people had trusted him to protect them, and he had failed them. He had abandoned them to fend for themselves in the chaos of a country on the brink of a war it could not win.

Suddenly, a swirling cloud of shadows descended upon them, encircling both him and Evyline. The shadows held wolves with snapping teeth and leopards with shifting black coats.

Veiled by their darkness, Audric hurried toward the nearest door leading back into the barracks, Evyline behind him. The rest of the Sun Guard waited inside, eyeing the shadows with awe and terror. One of their number, Maylis, muttered a prayer and touched her nape, honoring the House of Night.

The barracks door slammed shut. Sloane strode out of the shadows, which dissolved at her touch. The glass orb at the top of her casting, an ebony scepter, glowed as bright as a flame’s blue heart.

“That was my fault,” she muttered as they hurried through the barracks, back toward the palace. “We should never have gone out there. You aren’t ready for it.”

Trying to shake off the memory of Sanya’s furious voice, Audric protested. “My sword work is rusty, I’ll grant you that, but—”

“I’m not talking about your sword work,” she snapped. “I’m talking about your ability to face what’s to come and inspire the people whose help you’ll need to survive it.”

To Audric’s left, Evyline grumbled a warning. Sloane sighed and stopped at a turn in the hallway, rubbing her face.

“Don’t apologize,” Audric said numbly. He couldn’t look at Sloane. He wanted to return to his rooms; he wanted so badly to sleep. Maybe it would erase this day from his memory. “You’re right, of course.”

“Listen to me, love.” Sloane gently touched Audric’s cheek so he would face her. “I know you grieve. I know your mind has turned against you, and I understand why. But many of us are grieving, and there’s more sorrow on the horizon, so I need you—we need you—to pick up the pieces of yourself and fight.” She smiled sadly. “You are the Lightbringer, and our world is growing dark.”

He stared at her through a bright film of tears. Though he towered over her, he felt diminished beside her. A boy being examined by a beloved aunt, only to be found lacking.

“When the moment comes, if it comes,” he said thickly, “what if I cannot do what needs to be done?”

Sloane lowered her arm, her gaze solemn. “Then we will all die, Audric. All of us.”

A royal page, pink-cheeked and tow-headed, breathing hard, appeared at the hallway’s far end and hurried toward them.

“A message for you, Your Majesty,” he said with a little bow, and left as quickly as he’d come.

Audric read the letter with dread rising fast in his heart. The message was curt, the letters hastily scrawled.

“The queens are requesting a meeting first thing in the morning,” he announced, crumpling the paper in his fist. Tomorrow, the Mazabatian Senate would vote to approve or deny his request for military aid. “There is news from the north.”

And whatever it was, he could not imagine it was good.

• • •

The next morning at nine o’clock, the war council met in the queens’ atrium, a circular room capped with a glass ceiling through which sunlight streamed, tinged green from the trees swaying overhead. The walls were a rich terra cotta, the floor tiled in pearl and cobalt.

A massive round table carved from rich red oak sat at the room’s heart, around which the war council was seated—Audric, Queen Bazati and Queen Fozeyah, Princess Kamayin. General Rakallo, chief commander of the royal armies. The seven high magisters. Ludivine. Sloane. Evyline, who refused to leave Audric’s side.

And this morning, an additional skinny, pale man Audric guessed to be ten years older than himself. He stared at the table, white-knuckled hands gripping its edge.

All Audric knew about him was that his name was Jazan, and that he was a spy. Months ago, rumors of missing children in Kirvaya had piqued Princess Kamayin’s curiosity. When she had sent four of her personal spies to investigate, only one—Jazan—had returned.

The room hardly breathed as he spoke.

“He keeps them in little rooms,” Jazan whispered, his voice shaking. “Rooms with low ceilings, too small to stand in. When he sends for them, they’re taken down beneath the mountains. To his laboratories.”

Jazan glanced up at Kamayin. “It’s like a whole city, my lady. A city carved out of the ice and black mountains.”

Queen Bazati sat rigid in her chair, her dark eyes blazing.

“What does he want with children?” asked Sloane, her face drawn tight with fear. “Why children?”

“Elemental children,” Jazan corrected. “My lady. Pardon me. They’re all elementals. Most of them haven’t even come into their magic yet, and I think that’s what he likes about them. The things he does to them—with the help of his healers and his soldiers—force the children’s magic to awaken earlier than it would naturally, and when this happens, he can control it utterly. He can mold it. Mold them.” Jazan’s voice cracked. “I also think he takes them because it frightens people when children disappear.”

Jazan dragged a shaking hand across his face. “Oh, God, he hates us. He’ll kill us all. Every single one of us. He’ll do it in the worst way possible. We’ll die burning. We’ll die screaming.”

Audric leaned forward. “Jazan. What does he do with them? Experiments, you said?”

“There are monsters in the Deep,” Jazan whispered through his fingers. “I heard his healers speak of them. But they’re not healers like the ones we know. They’re cutters. They’re angels in human skins, though not all of them are strong enough to stay anchored to their bodies. Some are, and they stay in the same skins for weeks. There were a few I never saw change. But some of them go through bodies like a soldier goes through gloves.”

“You said they spoke of monsters,” Audric redirected him gently. “What kinds of monsters?”

“I don’t know. They called them by a strange word: cruciata. As far as I can tell, they live in the Deep. And now he’s trying to recreate them, or something like them. He and his healers, they make serums, these vile elixirs. They smell like poison, and all the tunnels and caves underneath the mountains reek of it. And then they…”

Jazan looked up at Audric, silently imploring. “There are dragons too. Dragons.” He laughed a little. “I didn’t believe my own eyes at first, but it’s true: There are still dragons in the world. Ice dragons from Borsvall. Furred collars and everything, just like in all the paintings. And he’s…” Jazan spread out his hands, palms facing up. He looked around the table helplessly, as if desperate for someone to tell him it was all a dream. “He’s making monsters out of them. He cuts them open and stitches them back together. And there are other beasts, too, that his healers play with and sew together with the dragons, or…God help me, I don’t know how they do it. But these beasts, they are abominations.