Korac held Sagan’s hand and relearned how to breathe in time to her gentle inhales and soft exhales. She survived, and when she smiled at him, it shone so brightly it threatened to put out the sun. Rain or no rain.

He glanced up at Tameka, who still watched him with suspicion, then back to his girl’s violet eyes. “Did you hear?”

Rayne’s victory meant Nox’s defeat. After fighting alongside the warrior King for nearly two-thirds of his life, relief and grief warred in equal measure within Korac. The emotional battle left him hollowed out and almost numb.

Roughly, Sagan nodded. Again, she graced him with that bright smile. After another second it faded, and she croaked, “Nox…”

He shook his head. “We don’t have to worry about him anymore—”

“No. I mean…” She licked her lips and tried again, “He said he didn’t want to kill me. That he’d use me as a diversion to be alone with Rayne. Then he...”

Korac picked it up from there, “He placed your own nacre in your hand...” Because he knew Korac would find it. Would save her. Over the last millions of years, the disgraced General would describe his relationship with his King as complicated. But he never denied it was a friendship. So when Nox fixated on tormenting Sagan as well as Rayne, it bordered on betrayal. Knowing he never intended to kill Sagan, even after learning of Korac’s treachery? The sting lessened. He understood the man better than anyone. The nacre was a gift. His blessing. Korac harbored some unspoken guilt for betraying his King. With this gesture, Nox absolved him of it.

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Sagan finished, “He said, ‘Everything would be all right.’ I almost didn’t hear it, what with the dying.”

Tameka growled, “It doesn’t excuse what he did in any way. He—”

Lightning struck. An image flashed across the clouds… everywhere. Rayne spanned the entire sky of Cinder. Her face clean, and her clothes changed to a pretty white dress. Absent of blood or any other signs of her battle for their lives. Just the tears streaming from her Atramentous eyes.

When she opened her mouth, her voice was not her own. Impossibly deep and otherworldly, it sang her story. And Korac fell to his knees in the mud with his head bowed low.

Elden. Out of her mouth.

“I was the first. I was born from the best outsider and with him, I obtained a wondrous gift.

“I was alone in my gift. Surrounded by my Shadow Progeny, but they couldn’t understand me.

“They didn’t know what I knew. Or see what I saw. The blood, the bones, the tears…

“They only worried.”

Tameka and Sagan looked at each other. Tears shone in their eyes.

“Night waited patient. We trained for him a hundred eves. Then ten hundred more. In my dreams, he came for me.

“I tried to teach my Progeny about the pain. How it helped. About its part in the universe.

“I waited for more outsiders. To battle. To save. To find the meaning behind Night’s pain.

“Then they came.”