The rangers pushed Anton and the others toward the edge of the platform. Anton stared over the edge, where the powerful surge of the falls crashed down into the river below, and suppressed a shiver. It reminded him too much of all his nightmares of being submerged, of seeing the vision of the end of the world flash before his eyes.

“You’re up first,” one of the rangers said, grabbing Hector and attempting to force him over the edge of the platform.

“Let go of him!” Hassan yelled, struggling against his own captors.

The cold knot of fear in Anton’s stomach hardened to resolve.

“Wait,” he said. “Lady Iskara, please. Listen.”

Lady Iskara held up a tiny hand to still her rangers.

“We’re not Witnesses,” Anton said, his voice trembling. “We were afraid to tell you the truth. Who we really are. Who I really am.”

He could see it on her face—she was curious.

“The truth is—” Anton swallowed hard. He glanced at Jude, and while there was a storm in his eyes, he didn’t try to stop Anton. “The truth is, I am the Last Prophet.”

“The Last Prophet?” she repeated, skepticism dripping from each word. “That’s just a rumor. There’s no truth to it.”

“There is,” Anton said. “It’s all true, my lady. The last prophecy. The Age of Darkness. And me—the person who can stop all of it.”

Lady Iskara paused. Anton could see her hesitation. The flicker of doubt coming up against her need to appear strong before her people.

“You’re lying,” she said at last, her voice low and poisonous. “You expect me to believe that?”

Anton shut his eyes, letting his Grace spool out of him like he did each morning when he scried for the Witnesses. He reached out, letting the echoes of his Grace disturb the patterns of esha around him. Calling out with his Grace, the way he’d done in the Circle of Stones.

“What are you doing?” Lady Iskara demanded. “What is he doing?”

A sound like thunder rolled over the mountains, starting low and then building, a surge of power resonating around them.

He felt something pull at him. His vision. It was like it had been lurking there, since he’d seen it for the third time on the lake near his childhood home.

The vision swallowed him again. He saw Behezda, breaking apart. The sky above Tarsepolis exploding with bright fire, the twin statues at its harbor looking on. Pallas Athos, its white streets running red with blood. The familiar, glittering river city Endarrion, its citizens stumbling through cobbled streets, afflicted with sores and sickness. The mountains around Charis, bellowing black smoke into the sky. And finally, Nazirah, battered by a storm of lightning and hail.