“The right thing must be done, no matter what,” Corbin said. “My daughter will gladly sacrifice herself once she understands the truth.”

  “How long have you thought of her as the cause of the Black Fever?” I asked, tightly gripping the steel bars in front of me. Anger burned through my veins, making it increasingly difficult for me to keep it together.

  Danika scoffed. “He refused to believe it the first time I told him. And the second. And the third. Let’s just say the master commander took months to come to terms with this harsh reality.”

  “Wait, I’m confused… months?” Something didn’t make sense here. I was missing crucial information. Looking at Corbin and Danika, I realized I was out of the loop. “What do you mean months?”

  Danika sighed deeply. “Perhaps I will come across as a liar, Derek, but it’s time for you to know the truth. We’ve tried to keep you out of this for as long as we could, but you’re all so… persistent.”

  “What are you talking about?” I replied.

  “The Black Fever returns every ten thousand years,” Petra said as she joined us. My heart stopped and shot right up my throat when I saw her. I froze on the spot, my joints locked as I tried to understand what was going on. “Well, this time around it has come back much sooner than anticipated. Nevertheless, it is always the same. A curse, as your Faulty girls so accurately identified it.”

  “Telluris, Sofia!” I inwardly reached out to Sofia, desperate to tell her about what was happening. “Telluris, Sofia!”

  For a moment, I felt our souls connect, then Petra seemed to catch on and snapped her fingers. Something invisible struck my forehead, generating a monstrous headache. It spread like wildfire, and I felt something snap inside me. I could no longer feel Sofia…

  “Like Esme, you are irredeemably foolish,” Petra said. “Always looking to snitch, to cry out for help. I saw this coming from a mile away. It’s pathetic.”

  “What did you do?” I snarled.

  She flashed her fangs. “I cut you off. The Lady Supreme here doesn’t have my knowledge, and it took me a while to figure out how to break that Telluris spell of yours.”

  Corbin didn’t seem at all surprised to see her here, and that worried me the most. “Why aren’t you arresting her?” I asked.

  “Why should I? She’s only been doing her job,” Corbin replied glumly.

  “I’m glad you finally see it that way, Master,” Petra said, bowing politely before him.

  She would’ve never bowed before the military master commander, since she herself was high priestess and basically on the same level in the Aeternae hierarchy. No, this was a different kind of title she was using…

  Corbin raised an eyebrow at me, as if he could see it on my face that I was struggling to follow the dynamic here. “Master of Darkness. Ruler of Darklings,” he said. Connections were made. Not everything made sense in my head, but the sight before me could not be denied or rejected. It was unsettling, but true. Corbin was their true leader. My stomach sank, nausea taking over.

  He glanced at Petra. “I heard you lost Ansel. You should’ve kept a tighter leash on the boy.”

  “Master, I did what I could. Kalon, he—”

  “He turned on you,” Corbin cut her off. I stared in disbelief, trying to think back over our previous interactions, wondering if there had been signs I’d missed about him. Nothing, absolutely nothing had given away the slightest hint of Corbin Crimson being the so-called Master of Darkness. For all I knew, Danika herself had greater odds of being the leader of the Darklings. But the father of the very Aeternae woman they were all trying to kill? “I warned you about your children. That they couldn’t be trusted. Not Kalon, anyway. His heart is too… clean.”

  “Pardon me, but you’re one to talk.” Danika scoffed. “How long was it before you accepted who Valaine truly is, Master?”

  “But I accepted it. Look at Petra. Even now, she’s thinking of ways to save her beloved Kalon and Ansel,” Corbin shot back. “I’ve made my peace with Valaine. I will not be the one to kill her, but I will see to it that it is done. What will Petra do?”

  All eyes were on the high priestess. “She’ll deal with Kalon and Ansel. For now, we have a bigger problem,” Danika said. “The foreigners have friends coming.”

  “What?” Corbin snapped, rage quickly firing the embers in his eyes.

  “A shuttle entered our airspace,” Danika replied. “My airships are on it. They attempted to go invisible, and I’m pretty sure Derek’s little vessel tried to keep my people distracted. Unfortunately for GASP, however, I’ve also had Darklings watching the skies, prepared for exactly such instances, from the moment you all made a run for it,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

  I stepped back, horror choking me up.

  “You’ve been in on this from the very beginning,” I whispered.

  “I’m not the only Whip around here,” Petra replied, nodding toward Danika, who rolled her eyes in contempt.

  “Unlike you, my identity is still safe,” she said.

  “I told you, Kalon flipped on me!” Petra shouted, her cheeks red with fury.

  “Enough,” Corbin cut them both off, in absolutely no mood for any more bickering. “You do realize we will never let you go, Derek.”

  “What will you do, then?” I asked, my options suddenly scarce and dreadful. My only thought revolved around Sofia and getting back to her alive. Every moment I spent here, I brought myself closer to… death.

  “I haven’t decided yet. While in captivity, you are basically harmless,” Corbin said. “We’re more focused on killing Valaine, for the time being. Dealing with you is not a priority, unless your wife and your friends decide to become an even greater pain in my ass.”

  “Corbin… I can’t believe this,” I said. “I thought you were a man of honor and integrity.”

  “I am. And my role is to protect the Aeternae. The Black Fever is a part of our existence, and we’ve been able to stop it from killing us all since the first outbreak, ages ago,” he replied. “This time it’s Valaine’s turn to die.”

  “But why?”

  Petra sighed deeply. “The Black Fever’s source renews itself upon its destruction. Before Valaine, there were others sacrificed every ten millennia. We did drop the ball and kill the wrong people sometimes, but we always find and neutralize the source. That’s how the curse works. In another ten thousand years, it’ll be someone else’s turn, and it’ll be up to us to figure out who the source is, for they do not know it themselves.”

  It felt like a devastating blow, causing the pain in my head to spread into my torso, drilling holes through my stomach. The Darklings believed Valaine was essentially a vessel, a source for the Black Fever.

  “You people are insane,” I said, shaking my head. “Killing innocent Aeternae based on a… on a superstition!”

  “It isn’t a superstition,” Petra growled. “It has been our truth for many generations. Just because you cannot accept it, it doesn’t make it any less real.”

  “This has been your whole game then, huh?” I retorted. “You hide in the shadows. You kill people. You convince others that your mission is somehow sacred, and that the only way to stop the Black Fever from spreading is to murder an innocent Aeternae. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I believe this crazy-ass rhetoric of yours… have you never considered that you could spend the ten thousand years between outbreaks to find a way to stop the bloody curse once and for all? Or are you all just fine with murdering your own children, if you have to?”

  Corbin came closer to my cell, the air thickening around us. “I will not have my decisions or my people judged by the likes of you, Derek. You should have minded your own business. In the courtroom, you should have backed away and let us handle Valaine. If you had, all this would’ve been over by now. Instead, we’re dealing with the effects of a growing outbreak. This was the earliest we’ve ever been able to identify the source, but that information is useless as long as Valaine eludes us.”

  “Besides, there is no way to ever really end the Black Fever,” Danika said, visibly displeased. “Don’t think we haven’t tried. It’s the bane of our existence. A cycle we must go through. The most we can do is try to minimize the damage.”

  I still couldn’t believe it. I was missing something about Valaine and the Black Fever, but I had a feeling these monsters wouldn’t tell me more. Not for the time being, at least. Not while my friends and my wife were probably working to get me out of here. I knew Sofia, and I knew she wouldn’t let me linger here for much longer.

  All I could do was stall my execution. “So, Acheron’s death. He was assassinated by Darklings. Which one of you greenlit that atrocity?” I asked, fists balled tightly at my sides. I cried on the inside for the Aeternae man I’d dared consider my friend, wondering if he’d been in on all this. Nothing gave him away, even in death. Then again, Corbin had been an absolute shock…

  “Oh, that was me,” Danika replied nonchalantly. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be done. Acheron was digging too deep. Going against my wishes. He was getting close to figuring a few things out, and he was too much of a self-righteous bastard to accept who I am, who we all are.”

  “He didn’t know your affiliation with the Darklings,” I said.

  She shook her head. “It might come as a surprise to you, but I’ve been perfectly capable of leading a double life for millennia. Until you showed up, that is. Until your stupid witch got dragged into Zoltan’s risky operations and ended up dead.”

  “It’s all been an act, then. Your grief. Your suffering…”

  “No, I genuinely felt sorry to lose him,” Danika replied. “Like I said, difficult choice.”

  “Does Thayen know?” I asked.

  Corbin sighed. “He’s far too young to understand any of this and accept it. Which is why I disagreed when Petra brought Moore and Tudyk into the fold. I told her they were too young, but Petra is—”

  “Stubborn,” Danika finished his sentence for him. She then scowled at me. “Rest assured, I will get my son back from your bitch wife. I’ve burned Nethissis’s body. I’ve sent a clear message to Sofia. I’m expecting Thayen to return anytime now.”

  This was all news to me, but I refused to let her see my surprise. I refused to show any kind of weakness in front of three of the most dangerous Aeternae. They had lied. They’d kept secrets. They had manipulated the minds of the people. They had killed so many innocents. I couldn’t let them snuff out my dignity, too.

  “What if Sofia doesn’t bring Thayen back?” I wondered, leaning back against the hard wall.

  Danika pointed a finger at me. “Then I shall string you from the palace walls and leave your entrails hanging. I shall put your head on a spike for all to see. Maybe then Sofia will understand that I am not to be messed with. Either way, I will get my son back.”

  It pained me to think what Thayen might say once he learned this horrible truth. Once he saw his mother for the monster she truly was. They were all sociopaths and murderers, but still… Corbin scared me. I’d been so wrong about him.

  In retrospect, he’d played his part well. I hadn’t seen him coming. It made the Darklings even more dangerous, because if Corbin had proven himself so foul as to be the Master of Darklings… could we really trust anyone?

  My sole objective was finding a way to tell Sofia about all this. But I was stuck in a tiny cell with no way out. The Master and two of his Whips watched me in silence, while my friends were out there somewhere, struggling to protect Valaine and stop the Darklings. What a mess this was…

  Esme

  We flew under the airships, trying to decide what to do. We’d seen the pulse from the woods and how it had revealed Ridan’s shuttle. Sweat dripped down my temples as I watched the inevitable unfold.

  Fires burned brightly behind the airships as the Aeternae gathered in groups of three. They spread out, gradually preparing for an attack. Ridan’s shuttle still flew in a straight line, but I knew it would dip at some point.

  “How are we going to handle this?” I asked Tristan. “They won’t leave Ridan alone.”

  “You heard Sofia. We can’t fire at them,” he replied, equally stressed.

  The last wisps of smoke rose beneath us as we left the imperial city’s airspace. We were headed east, unseen by the Aeternae above, and we had zero idea how to distract them, to stop them from taking down Ridan’s shuttle. This was one of the moments when I detested our protocols, though I begrudgingly accepted their logic—we didn’t need a war with the Aeternae when all we were trying to do was stop the Darklings.

  “We can’t just hold back,” I said.

  “I know, sis, but we’re outnumbered here. If we reveal ourselves, we’ll just end up in their crosshairs, too.”

  The impossibility of it all made me grunt, frustration testing my resolve. Then the first projectiles were shot, narrowly missing Ridan’s shuttle. I watched the incandescent trail they left behind as they exploded somewhere in the dark and starry distance.

  “Tristan.”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  I was about to reiterate that we had to do something, when I heard the engines roar on several airships as they launched another round of explosive projectiles. I’d had enough. “That’s it,” I said. “We’re not hiding anymore!”

  I reached for the invisibility cloak control while Tristan eyed me nervously. He didn’t say anything, though, and I knew he was on my side for this. But the view ahead suddenly turned black, and I froze.

  “What the…” My voice trailed off.

  We couldn’t see anything. Tristan worked his magic on the steering controls and swiftly brought our shuttle to a slow hover. “Let’s not do anything yet. Hold on,” he muttered, looking ahead.

  There was nothing to see. Just a pitch blackness so intense it seemed to swallow us whole. A streak of white light cut through the dark canvas. I heard the moaning of metal being torn apart. A second flash revealed an airship split in half, and an orange plume of fire rose, blooming smack in the middle of it. The vessel exploded and fell into pieces before the darkness covered it again.

  “What is going on?” Tristan breathed.

  “I… I have no idea…”

  A third streak, promptly followed by a fourth, worked its way through the remaining airships. Farther to the left and right of our field of vision, more flashes appeared, disabling the entire Aeternae fleet. Each burst of white was followed by an explosion and an airship ripped to shreds. The fiery debris landed in the woods below.

  Ridan’s shuttle was intact, stunned in a hovering position like ours. I realized then that Tristan’s reflexes had paid off. Whatever this mixture of bizarre darkness and light was, it only targeted the Aeternae’s airships. And as strange as the sight before us was, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

  “What are those things?” I asked, watching as the flashes multiplied. They were merciless against the airships, slicing through them, chopping each vessel into bits and pieces and leaving the damaged engines to do the rest.

  One by one, explosions adorned the darkness, and the remaining airships fell.

  “Holy crap!” I yelped.

  Tristan jumped. “Let’s get back to the hilltop. Now!”

  I didn’t wait to be told twice. We steered the shuttle away from the aerial disaster and headed back to the hilltop, where Sofia and the others were waiting. Ridan’s shuttle flew past us, and the darkness persisted. I understood then that the sky-watchers would find it impossible to see it. The only reason I’d been able to spot it had been because of its proximity to ours.

  The folks in and around the imperial city had zero chance of spotting Ridan’s shuttle now. The smoke left behind by the fireworks, the black plumes rising in the wake of the airships falling, and this incessant and peculiar darkness—they were all helping hide us.

  “This is so friggin’ weird,” I gasped.

  “But helpful, nonetheless. I’m taking this as a win,” Tristan replied, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  The hilltop was barely visible in this absence of light, but we managed to safely land on it, right next to Ridan’s shuttle. We saw them get out of it before we descended. As soon as our boots hit the ground, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Seeing Ridan’s crew here was the single most important victory we’d had since coming to Visio. He bolted straight to Amane and took her in his arms, showering her with kisses. They reconnected for the first time in what could easily be described as the longest days in their lives, and my heart warmed at the sight of them. Tears trickled down Amane’s cheeks as she cupped his face and kissed him with all the love she had, and Ridan tightened his grip on her, hiding his face in the delicate curve between her neck and shoulder.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” he said, his voice muffled.

  “And I thought I’d never see you again.” Amane sighed, melting in his embrace.

  We all needed a few moments to recover and reunite after what had just happened. The pink water cave would’ve made everything easier—but alas, when had anything been easy for us?

  “Did you guys see that?” Rose asked, her eyes wide in astonishment.

  Sofia hugged her tight, then cupped her face and covered it with kisses. “I’m so happy to see you, honey!”

  “We’re lucky to be here in one piece,” Caleb replied as Sofia gave him a serving of motherly love, as well, before she moved on to Kailani, Hunter, and Ridan.

  We laughed and hugged one another, shaking hands and passing congratulations around, our breaths still short and our faces sweaty from the earlier thrill ride. My knees were weak, but I kept myself upright, happy to see our team grow in the face of such numbing uncertainty.

  Kalon took me in his arms and kissed me deeply, smiling as he pulled back to measure me from head to toe. “You are one resilient creature, I’ll give you that,” he said.

  “Just trying my best to stay alive.” I giggled, blushing like a teenage girl.

  “Ridan, what happened up there?!” Sofia asked, putting her arms around Rose and Caleb. “Why couldn’t you put the invisibility back on?”