If only she were actually there beside him so he could slap her. “I should rest? Do you know, I had not once thought of that. Thank you.”

You’re no good to her exhausted.

He threw the entire vicious force of his frustration into his thoughts. And you were no good to her even at your best.

She recoiled, and Tal had walked half a mile more before she spoke again.

You’re right. Her voice came faintly. I have failed her utterly. I have failed all of you.

Her despair was honest. Even the distant echoes of it rippling through Tal’s mind made his eyes burn. He briefly considered sending her a thought of comfort, though she did not deserve it.

But something distracted him—a flash of light a few hundred yards down the mountain. It shone for two seconds, flickered, brightened, and then vanished.

Tal froze, chills blanketing his overheated skin. The sunlight had dimmed, and the rocks around him had taken on an eerie crimson glow. He was suddenly very aware of how alone he was, and how vulnerable.

He slipped his hand into the pocket of his coat, the stiff fabric caked with sand. Wrapped his fingers around his dagger. Reached for the shield on his back, felt his power pull tight between his body and his casting.

What is it? Ludivine asked.

Nothing good, I’m sure, Tal replied. Leave me. You’ll distract me, and you’re too far away to help.

He felt her hesitation.

Tell me what you find, she said at last.

And if what I find is my death?

Her voice was heavy with regret. I am sorry, Tal.

Then, with a subtle shift of sensation in his mind, she was gone.

Flattening himself against the rock, Tal edged his way down the mountain path, which narrowed into a tight chasm between two tall cliffs.

At the chasm’s mouth, he waited, breathless, for beyond the cliffs, where the path widened once more, there was a dramatic decline, and then a small clearing of flat stone buffeted by a cluster of boulders.

And in this clearing, a ring of light appeared—small and dim at first, and then it quickly grew and brightened, a shifting darkness at its center. The first light had flickered; this one was steady.

A figure stepped through the ring, followed by a second. An instant later, the light vanished, thrusting the mountain back into darkness. Night was coming; only a faint red glow of sunset remained.

Tal’s heartbeat boomed in his ears.

Who these people were, he did not know. But at least one of them was a marque—and Rielle had been traveling with a marque.

He searched the darkness. If she was there, he would have to act quickly. If she wasn’t there, he didn’t think he could bear it.

“That took far too long,” said one of the people below, their voice male and gruff and vaguely familiar. “The earthquake—”

“Tried to kill me and failed,” spat the second of the pair. A woman, Tal thought. She pushed back the hood of her cloak and ran her hands through a long fall of wild pale hair. “The whole world’s gone mad, Garver. The world itself and the people in it.”

Tal’s knees shook with relief even as fresh despair tore at him. Neither of these people was Rielle’s marque. He pressed his forehead against the wall of stone beside him, still warm from the sun. Palms flat against the rock, he began to pray.

Fleet-seeming fire, blaze not with fury or abandon.

Burn steady and burn true, burn clean and burn bright.

As his mind cleared, Tal realized he knew the name Garver, if it was indeed the same man. Garver Randell was a healer and apothecary whom both Audric and Rielle preferred to any of the royal healers at the palace, much to the healers’ dismay. Garver had a son, Rielle had told him. An eight-year-old boy named Simon.

“Avura?” he heard Garver ask below.

“Gone,” his companion answered. “Those quakes brought everything crashing down, even the goddamned mountains.”

Tal listened, stunned. Avura was one of the larger settlements in the western foothills of the Maktari Mountains, which stretched north to south along the entire length of western Vindica.

Tal had been there only four days ago, following the erratic path of Rielle’s trail. The city’s population numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and never in recorded history had an earthquake occurred in that region. Certainly not one large enough to destroy so large a city.

The Gate will fall. It was happening just as Aryava had foretold.

Two Queens will rise. One of blood, and one of light.

For years, he had prayed that Rielle was the Sun Queen. He had prayed it so fiercely and so often that he had come to believe it wholeheartedly—that she was good, that she could be neither broken nor corrupted. That if he taught her conscientiously, if he prayed for her with enough conviction, he could ensure she would become the person who would save them.

But none of it had been enough. He had failed her. He had failed everyone. He was no better than Ludivine, incapable of protecting what was most important, and now Rielle was lost. The queen of blood after all, it seemed. The Kingsbane, many called her.

Only Tal couldn’t make himself believe that, even after everything that had happened. Not Rielle. He had taught her for years, watched her courage bloom. She was powerful, yes, but she was good. She knew what was right and had always strove to do it. He tried to envision her as a bloodthirsty queen on the arm of an angel and refused to believe it, even as his mind easily supplied the images.

“Fleet-seeming fire,” he whispered, his hands trembling against the sun-warmed stone, “blaze not with fury or abandon. Burn steady and burn true. Burn clean and burn bright.”

Then, light bloomed through his eyelids. The air near him shifted.

Tal whirled and snapped open his eyes just as the light disappeared. Two strong hands grabbed hold of his arms; a cold blade poked at his throat.

“He has a casting,” said the person holding his arms. It was the woman he had seen, her voice sharp. “A shield strapped to his back. Call upon your power, elemental,” she said quietly, “and I’ll plunge this dagger into your throat.”

“There is no fire in these rocks,” he replied wearily. “You’re safe from me, marque.”

A faint flush of sun remained at the western horizon, allowing Tal enough light to see the man who held the knife to his throat. He had graying brown hair and ruddy skin, a slight beard, and piercing blue eyes.

The man narrowed his gaze, then used his free hand to rip the scarf from Tal’s head.

“I know you,” he said, inspecting Tal’s face. “Taliesin Belounnon. Grand Magister of the capital’s Pyre.”