Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
The slope quaked and rocks began to loosen and tumble, and those ruined pillars that remained standing began to sway. Magpie watched as the column from which Talon had leapt to save her life leaned and came tumbling toward them, and they all scattered as it crashed to the ground. They took to their wings. Bertram bumped Talon onto his back and Mingus seized Batch by the tail and lifted him into the fork of a tree. They all watched transfixed as the pocked, mossy face of the temple burst from within and rumbled down the steep slope, crushing the long stair and leaving behind a ragged hole in the rock.
And there, in the hole, stood the Magruwen.
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-EIGHT
A terrified silence hung over the faeries. Few now alive in the world had dreamed a day when the Djinn might again walk the earth, and no faerie present, save Magpie and Talon, knew him for what he was.
Even knowing him, Magpie and Talon were as awestruck as the rest. This was not the Magruwen as they had seen him in the bottom of the well. Here was the Djinn King in splendor in a new golden skin, and he was magnificent. His gleaming mask bore full lips and broad cheekbones engraved with a filigree not unlike the design of the Rathersting tattoos. A rim of ebony lined his almond-shaped vertical eyes, and many rings of gold looped from the lobes of his golden ears. His horns curved like molten scimitars, fire-bright, sparking, and alive, and from his shoulders flared immense bat wings of the thinnest burnished gold.
The last ruins of his old temple fell away at his feet and he looked out at the faeries in the sky, spread his great wings, and rose into their midst.
It was Calypso who first lowered his head in a mid-air bow and cried, “Hail, Lord Magruwen!” and Magpie, Talon, and the crows quickly followed suit.
Suppressed gasps and cries could be heard among the Never Nigh faeries, who only now realized who and what they were seeing. With shaky voices they echoed the cry. “Hail, Lord Magruwen!”
“Faeries,” said the Magruwen in his smoldering crackle of a voice. “The last stones of Issrin Ev have fallen, and tomorrow the first stone of a new temple will be quarried and cut. Hai Issrin—new Issrin—Ev shall rise on this site. But that is the work of tomorrow, and tomorrow is a luxury you have too long believed your birthright. You have lived blind and dumb at the edge of darkness and if not for the restless schemes of the dead you would already have subsided into it. You little know how close you’ve come, and how even now you teeter at the brink!” His voice rose to a roar, and all trembled to hear it.