CHAPTER
76
Tears slid down Varian’s blood-flecked skin as we watched that spot on the sea where Amren had vanished.
Below, beyond, our forces were beginning to cry out with victory—with joy.
Up on the rock … utter quiet.
I looked at last toward the broken thirds of the Cauldron.
Perhaps I had done it. In unbinding her, I had unbound the Cauldron. Or perhaps Amren in her unleashed power … even that had been too great for the Cauldron.
“We should go,” I said to Varian. The others would be looking for us.
I had to get my father. Had to bury him. Help Cassian.
Had to see who else was among the dead—or living.
Hollow—I was so tired and hollow.
I managed to stand. To take one step before I felt it.
The … thing in the Cauldron. Or lack of it.
It was lack and substance, absence and presence. And … it was leaking into the world.
I dared a step toward it. And what I beheld in those ruins of the Cauldron …
It was a void. But also not a void—a growth.
It did not belong here. Belong anywhere.
There were hands at my face, turning me, touching me. “Are you hurt, are you—”
Rhys’s face was battered—bloody. His hands were still tipped in talons, his canines still elongated. Barely out of that beast form. “You—you freed her—”
He was stammering. Shaking. I wasn’t entirely sure how he was even standing.
I didn’t know where to begin. How to explain.
I let him into my mind, his presence gentle—and as exhausted as I was, I let him see my father. Nesta and Cassian. The king. And Amren.
All of it.
Including that thing behind us. That hole.
Rhys folded me into his arms—just for a moment.
“We have a problem,” Varian murmured, pointing behind us.
We followed the line of his finger. To where that fissure in the world within the shards of the Cauldron … It was growing.
The Cauldron could never be destroyed, we had been warned. Because our very world was bound to it.
If the Cauldron were destroyed … we would be, too.
“What have I done,” I breathed. I had saved our friends—only to damn us all.
Made. Made and un-Made.
I had broken it. I could remake it again.
I ran for the Book, flinging open the pages.
But the gold was engraved with symbols only one being on this earth knew how to read, and she was gone. I hurled the damn thing into the void inside the Cauldron.
It vanished and did not appear again.
“Well, that’s one way to try,” Rhys said.
I whirled at the humor, but his face was hard. Grim.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
Rhys studied the ruins. “Amren said you were a conduit.” I nodded. “So be one again.”
“What?”
He looked at me like I was the insane one as he said, “Remake the Cauldron. Forge it anew.”
“With what power?”
“My own.”
“You’re—you’re drained, Rhys. So am I. We all are.”
“Try. Humor me.”
I blinked, that edge of panic dulling a bit. Yes—yes, with him, with my mate …
I thought through the spell Amren had shown me. If I changed one small thing … It was a gamble. But it might work.
“Better than nothing,” I said, blowing out a breath.
“That’s the spirit.” Humor danced in his eyes.
The dead lay around us for miles, cries of the wounded and grieving starting to rise up, but … We had stopped Hybern. Stopped the king.
Perhaps in this … in this we would be lucky, too.
I reached for him—with my hand, my mind.