The transition from the monochromatic terror of the Ninth King to the blinding brilliance of the Western horizon was a sensory assault that felt like being plunged from a freezing cellar into a furnace of molten gold.
I stood on a floating shard of the shattered Gilded Bastion, my breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The silver runes on my arm were still cooling, the mercury-like resonance of Kaelum's sacrifice humming in a minor key. Beside me, Kaelen's hands were still locked around my waist, his chest heaving against my back. We were alive. Aidan was safe. The "Unmaking" had been reversed, and the Gilded Coast—once a prison of pearl and coral—was now a chaotic, open sea of clear sapphire water.
But the peace lasted less than a minute.
