“Meira!” Mather slides to the ground beside me, his arms coming under my shoulders to pull me to my feet. I blink at him, caught in another cruel dream. Mather’s here. And Sir—
I stare, trying to get the last image I have of Sir to make sense with what I see now. Bleeding and broken on the ground outside of Bithai; dancing through the air on grunts and thrusts, driving Angra back just as viciously as Angra returns his blows. His body is whole and strong, flying around as his muscles do what they were made to do. He and Angra are matched blade for blade, moving before us through the bloody massacre of war.
My fingers dig into Mather’s arm, my heart freezing.
“Sir?” I breathe.
The tension in my chest loosens. It doesn’t matter who I am now, queen or not, because Sir’s here. Sir’s alive. And he’ll be able to help me through this.
Mather nods, his eyes on my face while mine are on Sir’s, his determined focus, the familiar way he curls his upper lip when he’s decided to kill someone.
“You healed him, Meira. Everyone thought he was dead, but when he awoke after the battle, he told us you healed him. A fluke in conduit magic, that somehow you harnessed,” Mather whispers.
I grab onto his words and try to fit them into the gaping puzzle around me. What I remember most about his death is the desperation, the thoughtless need, pure and strong, for him to live. Maybe that was a type of surrender—opening myself up to anything, everything, that could save him. An unconscious decision.
Mather reads the distance in my eyes, my swelling exuberance. He bows his head. “My queen.”
That pulls me back to the present, roaring and horrible. To Mather, a broken look in his eyes.
“You know?” I gasp on the words and feel everything else come crashing down on me. All of Mather’s worries and concerns and strain, how he wanted so badly to be enough in a station where he never would be. And now—none of that matters, because it isn’t him anymore.
Mather bobs his head again. Around us the battle rages on, but in that one moment of looking at each other, I can’t tell if he’s relieved or scared. All I can feel is his strength, the determined way he looks at me, a soldier to his ruler. He’ll hold on as long as I need him to.
The locket half still sits around his neck, a physical reminder of the lie of his life. My eyes lock on it before swinging away, a rush of adrenaline pushing through me as I look back at Angra and Sir trapped in a flurry of swords. Angra’s conduit dances through the air and Sir’s focus follows it, his gaze hungry and desperate.
A thud drops in my stomach. Sir needs to know what it really is, what he’s really fighting. The way he looks at Angra’s staff, like he wants to obliterate it into a million pieces—that cannot happen. Angra’s conduit cannot be broken, the magic allowed to link with him in an endless feed for the Decay.
A blade comes out of nothing, the cannon debris making the air a dark and dangerous place. I scream and shove Mather down, buckling under the sword as the Spring soldier continues his swipe through the air. Mather turns, throws me his blade, and I grab it midair before barreling headfirst into the soldier’s stomach. We fall, rolling down a slight incline in a fit of darkness and dirt as my sword slides home into the soldier’s gut.
A series of screams. Names shouted in rapid order, panicked screeches that make me pivot in the dirt.
“Mather, grab it!”
“William—”
“MATHER!”
I struggle to my feet, eyes flashing over the space now between me, Mather, Sir, registering everything before I know what’s going on. A swell of horror pulses in me and I’m frozen, watching it all happen.
Sir knocks Angra’s staff from his hands. It flies through the air, flipping end over end to land in a clatter at Mather’s feet. Sir lunges away from Angra as he reaches out to Mather, something horrible and terrified exploding out of him like nothing I’ve ever seen. Panic pushes up my throat, tasting like the iron tang of blood.
Mather picks up the staff.
“Break it!” Sir’s voice is strangled. He swipes at Angra, knocking him to the ground. “Destroy it!”
“I will kill you!” Angra screams, scrambling against the dirt. He flies up and Sir tackles him next to Mather’s feet. One of Sir’s curved knives slams into Angra’s shoulder, pinning him to the earth with Sir hovering a breath above him.
Mather looks at me. There’s that determined severity again, some great pull of desperation. He’ll protect me. He’ll keep me safe. He can still do this one thing, even if he isn’t who he always thought he was.
He raises the staff over his head. Angra’s conduit. The Decay that overtook the land, the hideous, unstoppable evil that came to Angra, joined with him and has been gaining strength from his corrupt magic use. Mather’s arms tighten against the coming impact as he pulls the staff through the air, a slow and painful draw.