“Then why fight against the rift?”

Sfithrisir’s wings spread out like smoky sails. “Because the rift discerns not between a world of stone and air and water and fire, or a world of formless mists! At the rift’s borders, all of being ends—order and chaos alike. It is the annihilation of all existence, not only for this world, but for all those worlds that draw near to it.”

A shard of understanding pierced Grace, freezing her heart and shattering her soul. She could comprehend destruction. A rock could be crushed to dust, a piece of wood burned to ash, a living organism sent back to the soil that gave it life. But in each case something—dust, ash, soil—remained. Travis had destroyed the world Eldh when he broke the First Rune, but even before he forged the world anew somethinghad existed. He had told her about it: the gray, swirling mists of possibility.

But the rift was not like that. Inside it was neither light nor dark. It was a place without potential, without possibility. It was a vacuum, a field in which nothing existed, or could ever exist. In that moment, in the presence of Sfithrisir, Grace truly understood what the rift was. It was Pandora’s box emptied of everything it had contained.

It was the end of hope.

Grace clutched her stomach. She was going to be ill. No human mind should try to comprehend what hers just had. But already the crystalline moment of understanding was passing, her mortal faculties too feeble to hold on to it.

“It’s . . . it’s like the demon below Tarras, isn’t it?” she gasped. “The sorcerers had bound one of the morndari, and it wanted to consume everything in the city. It almost did.”

“Wrong again, mortal. The spirits, the beings which the sorcerers call Those Who Thirst, come from a place which is like this world reflected in a mirror. It is the opposite of this creation in all ways, a place not of being, but of unbeing. Yet all the same, it is something; it exists. The rift will eradicate the morndarijust like everything else.”

Despair weighed upon Grace, pressing her down like a hundred blankets. The dragon’s words rang in her mind. The world would cease to be. And those worlds which drew near it.

Earth, she said to herself. He means Earth.But the name hardly felt real, as if the world it signified was already gone, its lands, its cities, its people swallowed by the rift and replaced by nothing at all.

“How?” Grace said. “How can Travis and I do anything to stop it?”

“I am wise beyond all,” Sfithrisir said, letting out a soft hiss of steam. “Yet even I do not know the answer to that question.”

Sudden anger filled Grace. She clenched a fist and shook it at the dragon. “I don’t believe you. You’re supposed to know everything. Even Olrig had to steal the secret of the runes from you.”

Sfithrisir’s head bobbed in what seemed a shrug. “And can you truly steal knowledge, mortal? Is not the knowledge retained by the one it is stolen from even as the thief makes off with it?”

Grace’s anger faded. Somehow the dragon’s words made sense to her. Olrig stole the runes from the dragons, who had heard them spoken by the Worldsmith. But Olrig wasthe Worldsmith.

There have been countless Worldsmiths, Grace. Olrig or Sia or whoever the last Worldsmith is wasn’t the first. The world before this one was destroyed, and afterward only the dragons remained. They’ve always been there, watching, listening, hoarding knowledge. Then Olrig learned the runes of creation from them, just like all the other Worldsmiths before him must have, and used the runes to make Eldh.

Which meant, much as the dragons loathed creation, they were part of its cycle. And that was why Sfithrisir had come to her. If the rift continued to grow, Eldh would never be created again. Or destroyed again.

“You don’t know we can stop it,” Grace said, looking up at the dragon, meeting its smoldering eyes. “If there’s nothing in the rift, then your knowledge ends at its borders. There’s no way you could possibly know that Travis and I have the power to stop it.”

The dragon’s wedge-shaped head ceased its constant movement. “Perhaps your mind is not so limited after all. No, I cannot see into the rift, and so I know not how it can be defeated. All the same, much as I loathe this creation, I know it must be saved, and that you and Travis Wilder have the power to do so. The knowledge of it is woven into the very fabric of this world, and I have read it there. I do not know how to close the rift. But this one thing I do know: Only the Last Rune can save this world.”

“You mean the rune Eldh?”

“No,” the dragon hissed, eyes sparking. “Eldh was the first rune spoken at the forging of this world, and it was the last rune at the end of this world. But what will be spoken at the end of all being, of all worlds? Even I do not know the rune for that.”

The dragon uncoiled its long neck, stretching its head toward the sky, spreading its wings. Red light tinged the horizon. Dawn was coming. The dragon beat its wings. Its talons left the stones of the battlement.

“Wait!” Grace shouted over the roar of the wind, reaching a hand upward. “How can I find out what the Last Rune is?”

“Seek the one who destroyed this world.” Sfithrisir rose upward in a cloud of smoke. “He will come in search of it.”

The creature beat its gigantic wings, and Grace was knocked back by the blast. By the time she looked up, the dragon was a red spark in the gray sky. The spark winked out and was gone.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and Grace turned to see Sir Tarus along with the Spiders Aldeth and Samatha running toward her across the battlement.

“Your Majesty!” Tarus said breathlessly as they reached her. “Are you injured? By all the Seven, that was a sight I never dreamed I would see in my life. Are you well? Did it harm you?”

She was so dazed she could only shake her head.

Samatha gripped a bow, aiming an arrow at the sky, then swore. “It’s gone. I can’t see it anymore.”

“It’s not as if an arrow would have done you any good against a dragon,” Aldeth said with a snort.

Samatha lowered the bow and glared at him, the expression making her face even more weasel-like. “And how would you know? Have you ever met a dragon before?”

“No,” Aldeth said. He looked at Grace, his gray eyes solemn. “But Her Majesty has.”

Grace gazed up at the sky. It was getting lighter. The stars had faded, and she could no longer see the rift. Only it was still there. And it was growing.

“What is it, Your Majesty?” Tarus said, touching her arm. “Are you certain you are not harmed?”

“I’m fine, Sir Tarus. Let’s go downstairs. I need to talk to Melia and Falken at once.”

However, it was Aryn and Lirith she spoke to first.

Their voices came to her across the Weirding just as the sun crested the summits of the southern mountains. She was in her chamber, hastily donning a gown so she could go downstairs, when Aryn’s voice spoke to her as clearly as if the blue-eyed witch had been in the chamber.

Grace, can you hear me?

She gripped the back of a chair, gasping in surprise and delight.

Aryn, yes, it’s me. I can hear you just fine.

Happiness hummed across the threads of the Weirding, and love. But there was more. A sense of urgency, and something else. Before Grace could ask about it, another voice spoke— deeper, smokier.

Sister, it is so good to be with you again, even if only over the web of the Weirding.

Despite all that had happened, Grace couldn’t help smiling. “Lirith,” she murmured aloud. Then, in her mind, How is Sareth? And little Taneth? And your al-Mama?

Very well, though given to fussing a bit.

Which one do you mean?

All three of them, I confess, Lirith said, her laughter like chimes in Grace’s mind. But I departed the south several weeks ago. Taneth and I are in Calavere now, with Aryn and Teravian. They’re both doing well, and Aryn looks beautiful.