For a moment, Rafe almost felt sorry for the dragon as Jolt rained lightning down from the sky, stunning the beast so it dropped onto the waiting raft. Dragons had killed his parents, and nearly him. Dragons had delivered him to Lyana's waiting arms. Dragons had ruined his life. And yet, for an instant, all he saw was another living thing wrapped in chains—its snout muzzled shut, its body tied down, its wings bent and broken. All he saw was another creature of the sky being forced into submission upon the sea.
The moment passed.
Spout crashed a wave upon its back, dousing the flames seeping through its scales. The best slumped against the raft, alive but unconscious, and Rafe remembered all the lives it would have claimed had it escaped. Dragons were the enemy, and this was war. There was no in-between.
Next stop, Da'Kin. A sudden sense of triumph flooded his chest. He could already feel the wind in his feathers and the welcome sting of crisp air against his cheeks. Next stop, my wings.
31
Xander
If the past few weeks had taught Xander anything, it was that he and Cassi made a good team. While she scanned the shelves, he studied the pages. As she read aloud, he took notes. When she started a sentence, he had a habit of finishing it. They were so thorough, in fact, that he felt as though he'd learned nothing aside from their own efficiency. For every argument he made, she had a perfect retort. In every theory he voiced, she found the crushing weakness. Round and round they went, in endless circles that left them nowhere. Though he had a mountain of notes about the magic and the isles and the mist, Xander felt no closer to rescuing Lyana than he had the day they'd stepped foot in Rynthos. The frustration was beginning to show.
"Cassi, you can't honestly believe this means nothing," he said, staring at her over the mound of unrolled scrolls sitting between them on the table and feeling slightly crazed. It took everything for him not to yank his hairs out as he smoothed his palm over the top of his head, pushing a stray lock back into place. "Every isle aside from the House of Peace has been shrinking, so slowly no one is noticing, but quickly enough that each map holds changes. It can't mean nothing."
"If it means something, then why is the House of Peace unaffected? Why would one isle remain the same while all the others changed?" She shrugged, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
"Maybe it's Aethios," Xander suggested, leaning over the maps as he ran his finger around the outline of the inner isle of the dove kingdom, then brought it to a stop above the city of Sphaira. "His god stone is the most powerful and it protects their home, but the rest of us receive a diluted share." He tapped the parchment as the possibilities spun. "Maybe… Maybe he's losing strength, and our isles are bearing the brunt of the loss."
"For argument's sake, let's say you're right. Why does it matter?"
"Why…" He trailed off into silence as his eyes just about jumped out of his head. "Why does it matter? Our homes are dropping bit by bit into the Sea of Mist. I should think that's cause for some alarm."
"Why?" She shrugged, unimpressed. "If it's happening so slowly no one else can even tell, what's the big deal? We've been up here hundreds of years, and if the isles keep shrinking at this rate, we still have hundreds more to go before there's a problem."
"But…but…"
Xander released a frustrated breath and dropped into his seat. Letting his chin fall into his palm, he stared at the maps. Was she right? Was he looking for problems where there were none?
No. A nagging feeling poked at his thoughts, whispering something was there, something he was still missing. It can't be nothing. It can't be.
His thoughts drifted back to that day in the sacred nest, magic swirling invisibly through the grove, a current he'd been unable to see but had undoubtedly felt. The man, his two minions, and Lyana locked in a battle around him and not with him. Then the ground shaking, the ravens screeching, the cave cracking and snapping.
It wasn't a coincidence.
On instinct, he reached for his notes, scanned the list of executions, and cross-matched them against some of the larger earthquakes the owls had kept on record, then aligned those with the changes to the maps. Some dates overlapped, but they were associated with all different magics—some he and Cassi had been able to tie to the elements and some from sources still unknown. There was no clear pattern. Xander flicked his gaze to the maps, then back to the notes, then the maps, then the notes, over and over until the two began to blend. What if he'd been looking at this all wrong? What if it wasn't the type of magic that mattered, but the location?
He jumped to his feet.
"What?" Cassi tilted her head to the side, studying him.
Xander was too deep into his breakthrough to answer her. "This girl here, there was an earthquake in the House of Song around the same time her magic was made known. Where was she? Where did she live?"
"I don't…" Cassi swallowed, her brows knotting into a frown.
He grabbed a volume from across the table and flipped it to the page on her execution, then read aloud. "First discovered in the city of Cytrene on the tenth day—Cassi, do you see what this means?"
"No."
Was her voice strained? Xander paused for a moment, noticing her face had gone slightly pale. Fear, maybe? But fear of what? With a shake, he returned to his notes. There would be time for that later.
"What about this earthquake in the House of Flight? It says here, the man was first seen using magic in the heart of Abaelon. And here, this woman, in the House of Prey. It was the first earthquake recorded on their isle in nearly two hundred years. The second-born princess was found in possession of magic, which meant she lived with the royal family in Lantos. Has there ever been an earthquake in the House of Peace? Yes, one. It happened—" As his finger came to a stop beside the date, he found Cassi's eyes. Their color reminded him of molten metal churning in the kiln while the smithy stood watch, still deciding whether to form a dagger or a shield. For some reason, his voice dropped to a whisper. "It happened eighteen years ago, I'm guessing on the day Lyana was born."
"I heard talk of it as a girl," she said in a grave tone. "The people claimed it was Aethios showing his approval with a reminder of his might."
"Whenever people came into their magic close to the god stones, there were earthquakes," he said slowly, the discovery forming as he spoke. "We grew up learning to fear magic because it had once been used to enslave us, but what if there's more? What if magic challenges the very strength of the gods? What if that's why we've been taught to hate it and to fear it, to cast it out as soon as it's found? Because its presence weakens the very foundations of our world. We loathe Vesevios, but he's still a god. He must know this. And that must be why he sends people with magic to our world, why they took Lyana as soon as her full power came to fruition. The answer is so simple I don't know how it took me so long to see. That man didn't just want Lyana. He wanted to see our world come crashing down, and he was going to use his magic to do it."
"Then why—" The words came out jagged and torn. Cassi coughed, finding her voice. "Then why did he leave? If magic could so easily disrupt the might of the gods, why not stay in the sacred nest until Taetanos was defeated?"