“What do you need?” Amja asked him.

Wesley’s fingers traced over the stave and he breathed, like he was breathing in the magic.

“To win,” he said.

Wesley would end the battle for Uskhanya and for Creije.

He would return home and fight like never before, with an army that loved him and an army that hated him.

He would win this war.

He could win back his home and have the life with Tavia that he’d always thought was out of reach. Nothing was going to stop him.

32

ZEKIA

Dante Ashwood, leader of Uskhanya’s magical nexus and capital city of Creije, was sipping Cloverye. He let Zekia have some, mostly because she was bored and he didn’t seem much for conversation in the late hours of midmorning. Ashwood was like a moon flower, blooming best at night when the shadows and the darkened skies came out to play.

While he sipped his Cloverye and the glass disappeared beneath his cloudy lips, Zekia toyed with the core of an apple.

They brought her out in a rash whenever she ate them, but she liked the taste, and scratching away at her skin almost felt like she was scratching away all of the evil things inside of her, like the fruit was bringing the rotten parts to the surface and Zekia could scrub them into nothingness.

“There’s still much to do,” Dante Ashwood said. “So much left to conquer, even after Yejlath falls.”

Zekia nibbled at the apple core.

“Your once Kin, for example,” Ashwood said. “Your once family ran and escaped like the treacherous rats they are. They couldn’t face us and our vision for this great realm.”

Zekia put down the apple core and scratched at the rash on her hand.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt them. You promised that we’d wait until I was ready. That busker Nolan—”

“Gave me what you couldn’t, little warrior.” Ashwood shook his head and placed his Cloverye in the center of the table. “You and Wesley are starting to disappoint me.”

Zekia looked to the floor and kept scratching, but the more she did, the more a voice scratched at the back of her mind. As though Wesley, upon hearing his name through the winds of the world, had come to say his piece.

Zekia, he whispered.

His voice touched at the back of her mind, like he was tapping against a door.

Zekia opened her thoughts to him.

“Let me tell you a story,” Ashwood said. “About a little boy who grew up on the streets of Creije, long before you were ever born.”

He wiped a hand across the surface of the table, smudging the dust between his forefinger and thumb.