“What did I miss?” Fin murmured.
“Fin!” Marrill cried. They rushed toward each other, and she leapt at him to wrap him in a huge hug. “We’re in trouble,” she explained under her breath.
“Looks that way,” Fin said, gesturing to the shadows filling the chamber.
Marrill waved a hand. “Those are just echoes—old memories magicked into place.” He started to ask her to explain but she cut him off. “The plan didn’t work. Ardent couldn’t fix the Map.”
Fin scarcely believed what he was hearing. If Ardent had failed, then their last chance at stopping the end of Stream… was gone. It didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Marrill’s eyes met his, and his gut clenched as he recognized the defeat twisting her features. “What do we do?” she breathed.
Fin turned to Ardent. There had to be a backup plan. A secret solution to their problem that would come through at the last minute and save the Stream. But the wizard merely shook his head.
“I don’t know,” the old man murmured.
A hole opened up inside Fin, and his knees buckled. It wasn’t just Ardent who’d failed. It was all of them. After everything they’d done—after all the fighting and struggling, after finding his mother only to lose her again—they’d accomplished nothing. The Stream would still be destroyed.
Fin watched, heart pounding, as the Lost Sun climbed the last of the steps to the dais.
“Do not feel shame,” the Star of Destruction told them. His arms spread wide, as though they offered a welcoming embrace instead of a quick death. “You fought hard and well. But your task was never achievable. From the first time I shone my cleansing light into the raw madness of creation, this day was inevitable. For everything, and everyone, there must be an ending.”
To Fin’s surprise, Marrill jumped forward, hands clenched in fists. “No,” she shouted. “You’re wrong! The Pirate Stream doesn’t have to end. It doesn’t have to be this way!”
The Lost Sun’s head tilted to one side, his eyes focusing on her. Even from where they stood, Fin could see the dark star’s power pulsing under his skin, seeping through tiny, almost invisible cracks. As though it was too much energy for a human vessel to contain.
“It does have to be this way,” the Lost Sun told Marrill. “The chaos of the Stream yearns for my light to give it shape, to define it with certainty. I am drawn to its purest waters, the last concentrated vestige of raw, unchained possibility. They call to me to leave this vessel, to shine my light into them, and through them touch—and end—all possibilities at once. There is no way around it. It is destiny. It is certain.”
“Enough!” Ardent shouted. His expression had grown darker, hard and harsh like a weathered rock face. The temperature in the room dropped, sending chill bumps racing down Fin’s arms. Energy sparked along Ardent’s knuckles. “The Pirate Stream is not yours to destroy,” he growled. “And if you want to try, you’ll have to go through me to do it.”
The Lost Sun did not look at him or speak. He merely swatted a hand through the air, a gesture as gentle as a cat pawing at a loose piece of paper.
The impact, though, was enormous. Ardent was lifted from his feet and thrown across the room, smashing against the far wall so hard that it sent cracks screaming up the thick stone. He dropped limply to the ground, rolling over with a groan.
“Ardent!” Marrill’s screech seemed to come from far away. Fin stood paralyzed, struggling to absorb what was happening as she raced to their fallen mentor.
“That should have destroyed him,” the Lost Sun mused. “Your friend truly is powerful. Perhaps he would have made a better vessel than this one.…” His cold eyes looked down at Serth’s porcelain hands. “No matter, I leave this body soon enough.”
Fin scarcely heard him. Everything about the moment felt hollow and wrong. In his mind the same vision repeated over and over again: The moment blood had blossomed on the Crest’s fingers. The way she’d clutched at Fin as she’d fallen. The sound of her voice—so familiar and foreign at the same time.
The heaviness of her body in his arms when she’d died.
Down in some small, wounded place, part of him wondered if the Lost Sun was right. An end to everything meant an end to pain, too. It meant an end to all the anguish and all the suffering that people felt every single day. It meant that no one would see their mother die, that no Fade would be kept in a pen or told they were nothing.
The Lost Sun swept across the dais, pausing as the birth of the Prophecy replayed itself before him. Black tears poured from Serth’s eyes as he recounted the images implanted in his mind. The echo of Annalessa struggled against his frozen robes, trying to comfort him.
“The Lost Sun of Dzannin is found again.…” Serth muttered, clutching at Annalessa.
“The Dzane believed they could contain certainty in a prison of endless possibility,” the Lost Sun said, his voice coming through Serth’s lips. “But in endless possibility, there must, too, be the possibility of an end.”
“Help me with him,” Annalessa begged a young Ardent.
“I’m writing as fast as I can,” the echo of Ardent snapped.
“What he’s saying doesn’t matter! He needs our help,” she insisted.
The shadow of young Ardent didn’t even bother looking over at her. “What he’s saying is all that matters.”
“And as in the beginning…”
The Lost Sun reached out Serth’s hand to his former self. With hardly a touch, the echo vanished from existence.
“So it will end,” the Lost Sun finished, moving at last to stand before the Font of Meres. The glow of the Stream’s purest water lit his face, causing the black grooves etched along his skin to stand out in stark relief. His empty eyes grew wide and eager. His hand raised, held out toward the Font.
Fin forced down the pain, the despair. He looked back to Marrill, cradling Ardent gently. If the Lost Sun destroyed everything, she would never be hurt again.
But then, she would never smile again, either. An end to pain also meant an end to happiness. A world without fear was a world without laughter. A world without tears was a world without friends.
Fin shook his head, breaking the paralysis that had gripped him. He had to do something. He had to stop the Lost Sun. But how? There wasn’t any more time!
Serth’s raised hand began to crack and glow, the power of the Lost Sun gathering. The room hummed with energy. Light coalesced around his fingertips, preparing to pour forth. “They call to me even now,” the Lost Sun intoned. “The pure waters of the Stream, their chaos begs for order—I am drawn to them!”
Suddenly, that phrase triggered something in the back of Fin’s mind. Pure waters. The Lost Sun said it over and over; that’s why it had gotten stuck in Fin’s head. The pure waters of the Pirate Stream. They call to me… I am drawn to them. But that wasn’t the only time he’d heard that phrase recently.
Fin’s eyes widened, remembering the lines of the Dawn Wizard’s will, recited via Karnelius:
To the King of Salt and Sand, I leave a wish ungranted, an ambition unfulfilled, an army leaderless…
“…and an orb of gold,” Fin finished, “its waters as pure and true as the headwaters of the Stream itself!” He patted through his jacket frantically, finally pulling free the wish.
The Lost Sun’s hand glowed like white-hot metal, blasting away the shadows of Meres with its bright light. The power seemed to drain from Serth’s body, focusing into his palm.
Outside, the wind howled, the void growing feverishly as the Lost Sun approached the moment of his triumph. The end was here.
It was now or never.
Jumping to his feet, Fin thrust the orb into the air above his head. His heart pounded furiously. He had no idea if what he was about to do was incredibly brilliant or incredibly stupid.
If it was the latter, at least he wouldn’t be around long enough to regret it.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he called. “Catch!”
And then, with all o
f his might, he hurled the wish orb straight at the Lost Sun’s porcelain face.
The power barely contained in Serth’s body surged, flowing forth toward the Font of Meres. But the last bit of Serth’s humanity reacted out of reflex. Before it could strike him, the Lost Sun snatched the hurtling orb out of the air with his raised hand.
The Lost Sun shook and trembled. The blinding light rushed forward and faded, pulled in by the purified waters of the wish orb. The essence of the Lost Sun drained from Serth’s body, but never reached the Font of Meres. The wish orb captured it first, sucking it in greedily.
Serth’s body convulsed as the power bled from it. The silver faded from the wizard’s black robes. The stony face softened to pale flesh as the Star of Destruction left it.
“This prison… will not hold me.…” The Lost Sun’s voice was a thin rasp, draining away along with his power. “It cannot contain me.…”
Serth’s body dropped to its knees. The wish burned bright in his hand, thrust into the air as though it were the orb that held up the man.
“The end… can only be… delayed,” the Lost Sun gasped. “Soon I… will… be… free.…”
The last light drained from his lips, his eyes. Then the body that had once held the Lost Sun of Dzannin, the Star of Destruction, the Dzane’s most powerful creation, collapsed flat onto its face.
CHAPTER 30
The Compass, Rose
Marrill stared at the crumpled body. “Did you just…” She tried to untangle her thoughts. “Did that just…”
She let the unconscious Ardent down gently and pushed to her feet. Together, she and Fin approached the Font and the lifeless body beside it. Outside, the wail of the void died. The cracks in the walls stopped growing. The deep nothingness within them dissipated, turning into just empty air.
Marrill shook her head. “Did we just save the Pirate Stream?”
Fin shrugged. “Yes?”
A tide of giggles erupted from Marrill’s mouth. It felt amazing to laugh after everything they’d just been through. “We won!” she said, letting the excitement and relief overcome her. “We saved the Stream!”
They grabbed each other by the arms, bouncing up and down with glee.
“Again,” Fin pointed out.
Marrill let out a high laugh. “Again,” she said. But a moment later, her jubilance dimmed, remembering Ardent. The wizard may have been shockingly tough for his frail frame, but the Lost Sun had hit him pretty hard. “We better get Ardent out of here and back to the Kraken.”
“Uh,” Fin said. He pointed. Ardent was no longer collapsed in a heap. He’d risen to his feet and moved to the center of the chamber, where he stood wordless, staring at the entrance to the Great Hall.
As one, they rushed to him. “Ardent?” Marrill asked. “Ardent, are you okay?” She leaned forward, trying to catch his eyes. “You might have a concussion,” she tried to tell him.
“No,” the old man said. “No, Marrill, I’m fine.”
She sighed in relief. “Well, in that case, you totally missed it! It was end-of-the-world time, and the Lost Sun was all WAHMP-wahmpwahmp-WAHMP.” She held out her hand, mimicking the sound of the Lost Sun gathering its energy to pour into the Font. “And then Fin was all like, ‘Hey, catch!’ and then…”
But Ardent didn’t seem to be paying attention. He didn’t even glance her way. Instead, his eyes remained locked on the entrance. “Annalessa,” he breathed.
Marrill spun. At the far end of the room, a new figure swept into the chamber. Annalessa looked exactly as Marrill remembered her from Monerva: long black hair, elegant gown, gentle but prominent cheekbones.
Marrill’s heart jumped with joy. They’d found her! “Annalessa!”
But Annalessa didn’t seem to hear. Indeed, she looked hurried, harried even, as though she were in a great rush. She moved quickly across the room, as if she didn’t see them there watching her.
And that’s when Marrill realized. “She’s an echo,” she said aloud.
All the other echoes had vanished, burned away by the light of the Lost Sun. But Annalessa’s was here, as clear and vivid as though she were in the room in real life.
“Someone must be here who remembers this,” Marrill said aloud, thinking back to what Ardent had told her when they’d first arrived. “Which means maybe Annalessa is here in real life?”
Ardent nodded curtly, but his eyes never left Annalessa’s image, which mounted the dais and moved to position herself behind the Font of Meres.
“I know you’re here,” Annalessa whispered. Her eyes swept the chamber. Her chin lifted. “Nothing will sway me from this course.”
Marrill’s breath caught. She sounded so severe. But there was no one else in the room. Who could Annalessa have been talking to?
Beside her, Ardent shifted, moving to stand at the base of the dais. He positioned himself directly before Annalessa’s echo, as if she were talking to him, as if she might see him. The pain written on his face brought tears to Marrill’s eyes.
Perhaps, she thought, this was a message to Ardent. Perhaps Annalessa had known that one day he would be here, listening, watching what she was about to do. Perhaps this was her way of bringing them together in the same time and place, to speak to him directly even though she couldn’t be here in the flesh.
“Marrill,” Fin hissed. He gestured toward the entrance.
The figure waiting there blew away Marrill’s theory in the space of a heartbeat. He was tall, expressionless, wreathed head to toe in cold metal. From one of his hands, an empty cage dangled.
The Master of the Iron Ship.
Panic spiked through Marrill’s system. She tripped backward, scrambling to put distance between herself and the terrible figure. Fin shot out an arm, steadying her. “It’s not real,” he murmured. “Just another echo.”
Marrill gulped, nodding. She could see that now: the way the light wavered around the Master, the distance of time making his body vaguely insubstantial. She was thankful Ardent had been wrong about him showing up for their final confrontation with the Lost Sun. But what was his echo doing here with Annalessa?
“We were wrong,” Annalessa said to the Master. Her voice came hollow, distorted and distant. “We should have tried harder to stop Serth back then. Say what you will, but the truth is, we didn’t try at all. The Wizards of Meres wanted the power of the Dzane. The power of creation. And look what we found instead: destruction. We are as responsible for this as he is, and you know it.”
Marrill swallowed. So it was true. Whatever had happened to make him what he was today—time travel, evil pact, or some kind of spell gone awry—the Master of the Iron Ship had once been a Wizard of Meres.
She dug her fingers through her hair, trying to make sense of it. “Everything comes back to the Master,” she whispered. “He was there when Serth first opened the Gate aboard the Black Dragon. He was the one who drove us into the whirlpool to Monerva.”
“He was the one who filled the wish orb at the Syphon,” Fin pointed out.
And of course, the Master had set free the Lost Sun at Margaham’s Game. And now here he was yet again—well, not now, but in the echo-now—with Annalessa. Marrill shook her head.
Why? What did he want?
As she pondered, the Master’s echo strode forward to the heart of the chamber.
The echo of Annalessa paused. “You can’t stop me,” she said. “You know you can’t.” From within her robes, she produced a stone cup. It was a perfect replica, Marrill realized, of the cup Serth drank from long ago.
“I made the original, remember?” Annalessa said with a halfhearted laugh. “You didn’t think I could craft another?” She stepped toward the Font, the cup clutched in her fingers.
Ardent, who up to this moment had watched in frozen silence, burst free of his trance. “Oh, Anna, no!” His cry seemed to suck the heat from the chamber; Marrill staggered back, shivering in the cold. The wizard’s emotions were out of control; they were bleeding out into the worl
d around him!
It was impossible for Annalessa to have heard him—she was just a remnant from an event that had already taken place. But she raised her head all the same. Tears shimmered in her eyes.
Ardent took a step toward the dais. “Anna, please,” he begged.
But Annalessa, locked in another time, could not listen. Instead, she pulled something else from her robe. It was an odd little object, looking to Marrill like a cross between a spoon and a pitcher, rounded and empty like a bowl on one end, thin to a point at the other. As Annalessa held it balanced at the center of her hand, the strange device turned of its own power, swaying back and forth. It pointed to one side, then the next, then back again, finally coming to rest pointed straight at the Font in front of her.
Ardent sucked in a breath. “The lodestone… it’s the Compass Rose!”
Marrill didn’t understand. That wasn’t the Compass Rose. The Compass was Rose—the scribbled bird.
The echo Annalessa dropped the lodestone straight into the stone cup.
Ardent seemed to understand what was about to happen, though Marrill didn’t. “No, Annalessa!” he gasped, leaping onto the dais and rushing forward until his face was inches from hers. “No!”
Pain and panic radiated from him in physical form, spilling forth a torrent of jagged energy that whipped through the chamber. Marrill and Fin had to duck to hide their faces, for fear that it might scorch them.
“Ardent, calm down!” Marrill cried. But if the wizard heard her, he definitely didn’t show it. Just as Annalessa showed no sign of hearing him.
Annalessa smiled, a tear falling from her eye. “I do this to save us all.” She plunged the cup into the Font. Fin and Marrill gasped as her skin touched the naked Stream water. “See how the waters do not harm me,” she intoned.
Marrill knew those words. They were the same ones Serth had uttered, just before he drank from that very cup. The uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach morphed into fear.
Annalessa took a deep breath. “My love for you, Ardent, is as wide and deep and wild as the Stream.” She lifted the cup to her mouth and drank.