“You’re going to kill a bunch of people for nothing,” I said. “Their deaths will mean nothing to the Fallen Gods, beyond that we are unworthy of their presence.”

He took a step forward.

I took a shaking step back.

“The gods are slaughtering more people than I ever could.” His knuckles paled around the knife handle—I couldn’t stop looking at the blade, waiting for him to use it against me again—but he didn’t come closer. “At least this way, their deaths accomplish something. We aren’t meant to stay with the Fallen Gods, Mira. They’re supposed to leave us.”

“What makes you such an expert?” I tried to block out the pain in my back, but it was so loud, so demanding. It was a warning, I knew; pain insisted on being felt because something was wrong, but I. Was. Aware. “Do you think that because you saw the Great Abandonment coming decades ago that you are the sole voice of what it means? You hastened this day.”

He shook his head. “The Book of Destruction has always been clear that the Great Abandonment would happen during an eclipse, and the moons don’t move differently because of our actions. Today was always the day, Hopebearer. If I did anything, it was all in accordance with Anahera’s plans. She is the trickster, after all, and we are but puppets.”

“You’re wrong,” I hissed. My thoughts listed to one side of my mind, drifting out as the pain in my back tried again to take over, but above, LaLa screeched and blew fire, despairing over the impending tremor—the abandonment. It took everything in me not to reach out to her, to offer comfort, if I could. The last time I’d been connected with a dragon during the period before an island got up, I’d nearly lost myself to the despair, too.

Of course, the pain might get me first. I couldn’t stand here and talk to him all day; we’d never agree how to set the world right, and the eclipse was close, and—I heaved my thoughts over the mountain of agony in my back—he was trying to distract me. Delay me.

“Anahera may be the trickster,” I said, “but we are not puppets. We make our own choices, and you chose to serve yourself.”

He looked at me like I was crazy, like he couldn’t believe there was any other choice. “And what do you serve?”

“I serve hope.” I pivoted and threw myself toward the first dragon.

It wasn’t enough. My movements were clumsy with pain, my range of motion limited, so when Paorah surged forward, his knife plunged easily into my shoulder.

I stumbled, screaming, and when I reached around, the only thing I could feel was a sticky, hot mess of blood flowing. Everything hurt, and all my muscles trembled from the strain of running so far in the desert heat, and now this, too. Now, this man coming after me, threatening me, attacking me.

Three more steps. I staggered that far, reaching for the first dragon with my good arm; my bleeding shoulder hurt almost as much as my back, rendering my right arm useless.