POV: Queen Amethyst Walker Reynolds
The sky was no longer the sky. It was a weeping wound.
The moon had reached the center of the heavens, its silver light fully choked out by the rust-red shadow of the eclipse. The world below was bathed in a light so unnatural it turned the green of the pines to charcoal and the white of the palace marble to the color of dried blood.
I stood before the Dark Ward on the Eastern Wall, my palms pressed against the cold, vibrating obsidian. Beside me, Jackson was a pillar of golden heat, his hand covering mine, his breath steady even as the mountain groaned beneath us. We were the only things keeping the palace from shaking apart.
"Ames," Jackson whispered, his golden eyes tracking a massive crack snaking across the ceiling of the Great Hall. "The barrie
