“I’m afraid I’m going to wake up any minute and find out none of this is real,” Raidyn murmured.
“Luckily, if you’re having trouble staying awake, my sister has been giving me lessons on riding a gryphon. I think I could get us to the castle safely.”
Raidyn made a noise that was half laugh, half growl, and sat back, but paused to press another kiss to the groove between my jaw and neck, his teeth grazing the tendon. I moaned, a jolt of need rippling through me.
“That’s not playing fair,” I complained.
He laughed fully this time, his fingers stroking my hip, just as he had on our second ride together. But this time, I had no qualms about twisting around, ready to give him a taste of his own temptations—
Then caught sight of my sister on Sukhi, just off to our left side, her blue-fire eyes wide, staring at Soluselis.
“What—is something wrong?” Raidyn caught the change in my focus and followed my gaze to Inara.
“It’s like she’s never seen it before.” Which wasn’t true; not only had she been here before, the luxem magnam had saved her life.
Maddok’s wings beat next to Sukhi, and Inara turned toward him, responding to something Loukas said that neither of us could hear.
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter how many times I leave and come back, it always takes my breath away every time,” Raidyn admitted. “Maybe that’s all it was.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, but part of me still wondered. I knew my sister, and I was certain there was more to the look I’d seen on her face.
A glance over my shoulder revealed the rest of our company, including my grandmother and my parents. My mother stared at the Paladin capital with her jaw agape, eyes wide. My father was trying and failing to hide a grin as his wife finally got to see his home, at long last.
It had taken days for the Paladin to go through the belongings and books left in the citadel, choosing only the most vital items to bring back. There had been meetings between the Paladin and the army that showed up outside the hedge, drawn by the rumors of a battle at the citadel, the events of that terrible afternoon overheard by the townspeople of Gateskeep. Ederra had promised them the gateway would be destroyed, that their people would never again be forced to deal with Paladin or rakasa, and they had eventually left us in peace. It also allowed the Paladin gathered enough time to recover the power necessary to open the gateway and deal with the potential rakasa that might try to get through.
But there had been none. Instead, we found three more battalions waiting for our return, brought there by the rest of the council, who had come to the castle only to find Ederra and half their Riders gone. They’d come as quickly as they could without leaving the city completely defenseless, and had only arrived an hour before we all came through.
Now the entire group, a sea of Paladin and gryphons filling the sky like a storm made of blue-fire and wings, soared across the valley toward the castle that glowed like a beacon.
A beacon of peace and rest and hope.
“She’ll be happy here,” I said at last. “We all will.”
“I hope so. Because I’m not planning on letting you leave ever again. Unless I’m with you, of course.”
I smiled and wrapped my arm over his, snuggling back into his chest. “I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Visimperum sometime. I’ve spent a lot of years behind a wall, you know.”
His immediate regret was palpable. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I never meant to imply that I would trap—”
“Raid,” I cut in with a laugh, “I’m only teasing.”
“Oh … are you certain? Because I truly didn’t mean—”
“Truly,” I insisted, running my nails over the veins in his hand, up his wrist, and on to his forearm, where I could feel the goose bumps rising on his skin from my touch. His breath quickened. “I really do want to explore the city and the rest of Visimperum with you, and if I ever feel like I need a break, we can take Naiki out for a flight. But I love the castle. And I’m actually excited to start training with you again. I think I may have discovered a weak spot or two I fully intend to capitalize on the next time we spar.”
He shivered when I dragged my nails back down his arm and laced my fingers through his. “Now who isn’t playing fair?” His voice was low and husky.
My laugh was carried back to him by the wind.
I loved it. I loved him.
And I loved that as we soared above the city’s rooftops, painted golden by the setting sun, over the hedge and into the field to land, the castle rising above us, it truly felt right.
It felt like coming home.
At last.
* * *
The first few hours after our arrival were chaotic and wonderful and exhausting. Explanations were given, tears were shed, food was served, rooms assigned, baths drawn and savored, new clothes slipped over skin that was finally clean … and suddenly, there was silence and solitude. Raidyn had kissed me good night and left me to my bath and pajamas and down-filled pillows with the promise—and knowledge—that I would see him first thing in the morning when we met in the ring to spar, fulfilling my pledge to exploit the weaknesses I thought I’d discovered. Something he claimed he couldn’t wait to experience.
I ran my hands over the silken material of the nightgown I wore. The weariness in my body delved far past mind and muscle, to heart, bone, soul—so deeply imbedded, I wondered if I would ever not be tired again. But though the bed in my room was large and clean and inviting, the sheets so white, they rivaled the milky moonlight streaming through my window, and a fire burned cheerfully behind the grate, making my room warm and cozy and my eyelids heavy—I knew I couldn’t go to bed. Not quite yet.
I located a robe in the bureau and after pulling it on, slipped out into the quiet hallway, softly shutting the door behind me. Inara’s room was next to mine, but when I tapped gently on her door, there was no answer.
“Inara?” I called out barely above a whisper, not wanting to disrupt anyone trying to sleep nearby.
When no answer came, I tried the handle. It turned easily, the door swung open, but the room was empty.
I knew there was a chance she might have gone off to find Loukas, but I had a suspicion that I might find her elsewhere.
Following that instinct, and hoping I still knew my sister as well as I once had, I moved silently through the slumbering castle. Though it had been a while, I was still able to find my way to the center of the castle, following the pull that was stronger than ever and my own memory of the way to reach my destination—the luxem magnam.
I turned the corner to that last hallway, the undulating light that never dimmed up ahead, and saw an outline of someone standing at the diamond banister, her arms folded as if in prayer.
Inara.
I moved forward slowly, giving her plenty of time to hear or sense my approach. I was only a few feet away when she glanced over her shoulder at me and smiled, the light of the luxem magnam illuminating her, wrapping around her—almost as if it held her, somehow. As if after healing her and giving Inara her power back, she was still connected to it in some way.
“I thought I might find you here,” I said softly. “But I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Of course not,” she responded immediately. “You could never be an interruption.”
I stepped up beside her, staring down at the undulating light below us. It didn’t look solid enough to support a body, but it had somehow from what Loukas had described to me when I’d asked him for more details—the light had held and healed her.
“The first time I saw the luxem magnam, all I could think was how much you would have loved it—and how badly I wished I could bring you to see it. I thought it was an impossible wish.” I paused as warmth melted into my body, a little bit of the exhaustion releasing its hold on me, like a sigh. “And now look at us—here, at the luxem magnam, together.”
“I still can’t believe it.” When Inara spoke, her voice was hushed.
Ther
e were so many things she could have been referring to, I just waited.
Her eyes glistened, the blue-fire almost as bright as it had been during the battle. “I keep thinking that it’ll come back—that the cost for all of this is that one morning the roar will return, erasing everything else. But every day I wake up and I can talk to you whenever I wish. I can’t believe I am truly healed. That we’re here—with our parents. That Louk…” She trailed off with a shake of her head and turned away from the luxem magnam to face me fully. “I’m so happy … but I keep feeling like I shouldn’t be. That it isn’t fair, not when my happiness exists because of so much sorrow and loss.”
My heart lurched for her, because I knew all too well what she was feeling. It was something Raidyn and I had talked about the night before we left Vamala forever.
I wrapped my arms around my sister, pulling her into a hug. “We’ll always miss Sami. And Halvor too. And all the others. It isn’t fair; you’re right,” I agreed, and she stiffened in my arms. “It isn’t fair that when you were born, you brought so much power into the world that Papa got pulled through the gateway, leaving us trapped there with a mother who didn’t know how to find happiness without him. It isn’t fair that you were imprisoned in the roar for fifteen years. So much of life isn’t fair.” I drew back, just enough to look into her eyes, for her not only to feel the truth of what I wanted to tell her, but to see it in my face. “You told me yourself, those who lost their lives have been welcomed home to the Light. They have found true peace and endless happiness with their loved ones who went before them. So if you have managed to find even a tiny piece of that happiness here, the only reason to feel guilty about it would be if you rejected the chance to experience true joy, choosing to remain miserable because you’re worried about them.”
Inara’s eyes still glittered, but the desperate beat of guilt in her heart gave way to the first bloom of hope; I could feel it unfurling in her, tender and beautiful.
“If anyone deserves to be deliriously happy, it’s you, Nara. All I have ever wanted was for you to be free—and happy.”
“And thanks to you, now I am,” she said, pulling me back into a tight hug. “I love you, Zuzu,” she murmured into my hair.
“I love you too.” I squeezed her tight.
After a few moments, I pulled away and turned to face the luxem magnam once more, running my hands over the diamond balustrade. “It’s honestly too bad the gateway was destroyed. Think of the fortune we could have made if we’d been able to smuggle even one beam from this thing back to Vamala.”
“Zuhra!” Inara’s scandalized outcry was followed by a burst of laughter that echoed up to the glass ceiling far overhead, where the moonlight broke into soft beams of white, caught up in a dance with the shards of dazzling light of the luxem magnam, refracted and multiplied by the diamonds we leaned on. The sound of that laughter was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard.
“You know I’m not serious. I’m nowhere near strong enough to break off an entire beam. Maybe just a chunk from the top.”
Inara laughed again, and this time I joined her. We laughed and laughed, until our stomachs hurt.
“Come on, we should get to bed,” I finally said. “I don’t know if you remember what the beds are like here, but if my memory is right, I’m pretty sure it’s like sleeping on a cloud.”
“Having now flown through clouds, I’m not sure I’d want to try to sleep on one. I think we’d just fall through.”
Our giggles followed us as we wandered through the castle, trying to remember the way to our rooms. I wondered if this was what it would have been like to grow up like normal sisters, without a roar or a hedge or a hidden gateway … but ultimately it didn’t matter. I couldn’t change the past. I could only be thankful for the fact that we were together in that hallway, that we could wander through a castle in Soluselis, giggling and lost, and not caring because it was our home now. Because our parents were there, somewhere, and our grandmother, too. Because Raidyn and Loukas would be there in the morning when we woke—or to find us if we were still lost.
But above all else, despite whatever else the future held, we had each other.
Now—and forever.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As I sit and try to compose my thoughts to write the acknowledgments for my seventh (!!) published book, I’m feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. It is a very strange and difficult time right now—in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that has devastating consequences for so many in various ways. Having life change so drastically so quickly has forced many of us to step back and think about what is truly important in our lives. For me, that is God, my family, my health, nature, and story—for the beauty and magic that is the gift of escaping into the pages of a book and finding pieces of ourselves or ways to make sense of our world through the lens of another’s eyes. Now, more than ever, I am deeply indebted to all those who have enabled me to continue to tell my stories—especially this one about the bond between sisters, something so dear to my heart.
I will never be able to express in words my gratitude to Melissa Frain for loving my sisters and these books as much as I do, and for giving me the chance to bring them to life. Mel, I am so grateful for you—it was my honor to work with you on this series. Thank you to the entire team at Tor Teen for your amazing work on this series! Special thanks to Susan Chang for stepping in and being so understanding, Lauren Levite and Anneliese Merz for all of your support and work on these books, Saraciea Fennell for your excitement and support, Jim Tierney for another incredibly gorgeous cover, Christa Désir for not getting mad about my inability to use farther/further correctly and for such an incredibly kind comment that it made me cry (in a good way), and Melanie Sanders, Jim Kapp, Heather Saunders, Peter Lutjen, Lesley Worrell, Devi Pillai, Lucille Rettino, Eileen Lawrence, Anthony Parisi, and Isa Caban, who work so hard to get these books on shelves and into the hands of readers, especially right now during such a hard time.
Thank you, as always, to the inimitable Josh Adams, my agent extraordinaire, and the entire team at Adams Literary for continuing to make my dreams come true and always having my back!
Kathryn Purdie—no acknowledgments page would be complete without you, just as I would never survive this journey without you. Thank you for everything, especially all the karaoke.
As always, I am so grateful for my family and their unflagging support. My incredible parents and of course my sisters—whom I love so deeply, that love inspired this entire series. And thank you to my in-laws also. I’m so lucky to have such amazing cheerleaders in my corner!
To all of my author friends who have supported me on this journey—whether it’s cheering for one another or commiserating together—this career would be a hundred times harder without all of you. During the creation of this book, special thanks must go out to Danielle Jensen, Becky Wallace, Kate Watson, Demetra Brodsky, Emily King, Caitlin Sangster, Tricia Levenseller, Julie Olsen, Charlie Holmberg, Kerry Kletter, C. J. Redwine, Sarah Goodman, Nadine Brandes, Samantha Hastings, and so many more. I am blessed with amazing friends and support in my life.
Thank you to the incredible book bloggers, readers, librarians, and booksellers who have been such a huge support throughout the years—I can never thank you enough for all you do! Special thanks to Bridget and Kristen from Storygram Tours; Krysti and Sarah from the YA and Wine book club; Jenn Kelly, teacher extraordinaire; the entire staff at King’s English Bookshop; and so many others for your continued and unwavering support of my career!
So much gratitude to my dear friends and sisters of my heart—Sarah Cox, Marie Rappleye, Jessica Knab, Janessa Taylor, Abby Degraff, and Emelie Lasson—for keeping me sane and always being there for me in this crazy thing called life. Thank you to Cathy Blake for your kindness, love, example, and support.
To my incredible readers who have either stuck with me this long or are just finding me with these books, a simple thank-you will never be adequate for taking the chance on picki
ng up one of my books and allowing me the honor of sharing my stories with you. Your messages and posts about how much you love my characters and the worlds and words I create mean more than you can ever know.
I always save the most important ones for last. Travis, my best friend and soulmate. I believe in the ability to fall in love in a matter of weeks because I knew I was in love with you on our first date. Thank you for loving me as much as you do, and for making our life together so amazing. I adore you. To my four incredible children—I love you so much, I’m not sure you will understand until you are parents yourselves. Thank you for giving me the gift of being your mommy.
And finally, my eternal gratitude to my Heavenly Father. Thank You for giving me the gift of story and every other good thing in my life.
BOOKS BY SARA B. LARSON
Defy
Ignite
Endure
Dark Breaks the Dawn
Bright Burns the Night
Sisters of Shadow and Light
Warriors of Wing and Flame
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARA B. LARSON is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Sisters of Shadow and Light, the YA fantasy Defy trilogy, and the Dark Breaks the Dawn duology. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t write books—although she now uses a computer instead of a Little Mermaid notebook. Larson lives in Utah with her husband, their four children, and their Maltese, Loki. She writes in brief snippets throughout the day and the quiet hours when most people are sleeping. Her husband claims she should have a degree in “the art of multitasking.” When she’s not mothering or writing, you can often find her at the gym repenting for her sugar addiction.
Visit Sara B. Larson on the web at
sarablarson.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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