This was it. The last moments of the Great Abandonment.

I pulled myself away from the ruins and ran for the Drakontos celestus, but she was me and I was her, so it took no time at all to find my way between the wings, and then I launched into the sky. My final flight.

A horrible crack rent the air, Darina rising, but I kept flying up and away, into the sky, watching for the moment the sun started to reappear.

And then it happened.

A bead of bright white pierced the edge of the eclipse, and sunlight poured back in.

I imagined all the eclipses before this, how triumphant this moment must have been. The return of the sun. The victory of light over dark.

But this was no ordinary eclipse. For a few moments, the moon had taken away the light. But now that the day was back, we’d lost something else.

I looked over my shoulder, toward the place where the Fallen Isles had been just moments before.

Now, there was nothing but empty ocean, dotted with tiny vessels struggling to stay upright as waves rose up, unimpeded by land. No homes. No islands. No gods.

And one more eclipse.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE SECOND ECLIPSE BEGAN BEFORE THE FIRST WAS even finished.

To everyone else, all the survivors on the ships and rafts and dragons, it must have been a terrifying sight. A moment of victory. The day returning, only for darkness to claim the sky once more.

But when I looked up, I saw two moons crossing the sun, its light like scythes through their darkness. The effect was eerie. Beautiful. Ominous.

Below me, waves crashed into one another, the whole ocean adjusting to the absence of islands. Did Apolla see a difference in the empire? Did the other continents and islands around the world notice?

Just as the first dragon had said, the gods were gone. They’d held on, waiting until totality was almost over before vanishing. Maybe that was Darina’s doing; maybe the goddess of love knew how much I needed those last moments to take in the truth and absorb the magnitude of this sacrifice. I’d think about that later, if there was a later.

First I had to find my dragon.

I had to reach her, hold her, promise that I still loved her more than anything in the world. Before our connection was forever muted, I needed her to understand what she meant to me and how my heart would never heal from this.

The moons moved across the sun’s face, but there was still time. There was. If the gods hadn’t left until the instant the sun came back, then I had that long, too.

I touched my heart, pounding in time with the Drakontos celestus, and searched the sky for a tiny golden dragon. One among thousands.

When I reached, hundreds of dragons reached back. I could feel them all—titanuses, maiors, ignituses, and sols. A thousand smaller species sparked in my mind, their souls open in greeting, and for a moment I was stunned. Shocked. Overwhelmed by the number of dragons all turning their minds toward me.