Zareth's POV
My hands are on fire.
Not real fire—silver fire that doesn't burn. It pours out of my palms like water, cold and beautiful and completely terrifying.
"Make it stop!" I scream at Lysander.
"You have to calm down first." He's standing ten feet away, which is smart because I almost blasted his head off three seconds ago. "The magic responds to your emotions. Fear makes it wild."
"I AM CALM!" I shout, and another burst of silver light explodes from my hands, cracking the stone floor.
Okay. Maybe not calm.
We're in a training room deep under the Archive—a place Lysander says is "shielded enough that you won't accidentally destroy the building." Which is NOT comforting when you realize your teacher thinks you might actually destroy a building.
It's been two hours since we escaped from Cassian's Reapers through that pit in the library floor. Two hours since I learned my mother was a hero, not a monster. Two hours since I discovered I'm half-immortal and the Empire has been draining my life to fuel their magic.
And now Lysander wants to teach me how to use the powers they've been stealing from me my whole life.
"Try again," he says patiently. "This time, don't fight it. Magic isn't your enemy."
"Everything in my life has been my enemy," I snap. "Why should this be different?"
Something flickers in his golden eyes. "Because this is yours. Not the Empire's. Not Cassian's. Yours."
I take a breath. My hands still glow with silver light, but softer now. Like moonlight instead of lightning.
"Good," Lysander says. "Now, feel the magic. Don't just push it out. Listen to it."
"Magic doesn't talk."
"Doesn't it?" He steps closer, and his own power awakens—golden light that makes my silver respond, reaching toward him like they're old friends meeting again. "Close your eyes. Tell me what you feel."
I want to argue. But something in his voice makes me obey.
I close my eyes.
At first, there's nothing. Just darkness and the sound of my own breathing. Then—
Oh.
I feel it. Not just in my hands, but everywhere. In the cracks of my silver marks. In the air around me. In the stone beneath my feet. It's like the whole world is humming with energy, and I've been deaf to it my entire life.
"That's the starlight," Lysander says softly. "Magic isn't something you create. It's something you borrow from the universe. You ask, and if you're kind about it, the stars answer."
"The stars?" I open my eyes. "You mean actual stars? The ones in the sky?"
"Where do you think magic comes from?" He smiles, and for the first time, I see him as he must have been thousands of years ago—young and excited and still amazed by the world. "Everything that exists was born from dying stars. We're all made of starlight. Mages just remember how to ask for a little extra."
I look at my glowing hands. "So I'm not a freak. I'm just... remembering?"
"Exactly." He moves beside me, his golden light dancing with my silver. "Your mother was brilliant at this. She could weave dreams from pure starlight, create memories so real you could live inside them. She used to say magic was just another language—you had to learn how to speak it politely."
My chest tightens. "Tell me about her. Not the hero stuff from the walls. Tell me about HER."
Lysander is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is gentle. "She laughed louder than anyone I've ever known. She ate too many sweets and got hiccups during important meetings. She cried at sad songs even after three thousand years. And she loved you and Lyra more than she loved the whole world combined. Which is saying something, because she literally gave her life to save the world."
Tears blur my vision. "I don't remember her laugh."
"Then let's fix that." Lysander holds out his hand. "Give me your memories—the broken pieces the silver marks left behind. I can help you put them back together."
I hesitate. "Will it hurt?"
"Probably. But the good things usually do."
I take his hand.
Golden light flows into me, warm and careful. It finds the shattered pieces of my past—the memories Cassian carved away—and starts gluing them back together like broken glass.
I see my mother's face, really see it, for the first time in twenty years. She's singing a lullaby about dancing stars. Lyra and I are tiny, maybe three or four years old, and we're supposed to be sleeping but we keep giggling because Mom's doing funny voices for each star.
"The red star said, 'I'm too hot!'" Mom sings, making her voice squeaky. "The blue star said, 'Well, I'm too cool!'"
Little Lyra laughs so hard she snorts. Little me—before the silver marks, before the Empire, before everything broke—throws my pillow at Mom and says, "Do the purple one! The purple one's my favorite!"
Mom catches the pillow and boops me on the nose with it. "The purple star said, 'I'm just right, like you, my little anchor.'"
The memory fades, but the warmth stays.
"Little anchor," I whisper. "She called me that."
"Because she knew what you'd become," Lysander says. "She saw the future in dreams sometimes. She knew you'd save the world someday."
"I'm not saving anything." I pull my hand back, and the silver light around me flares brighter. "I'm just trying not to die."
"Those are the same thing right now."
He's probably right. I hate that he's right.
"Okay," I say. "Show me what I can do."
For the next hour, Lysander teaches me to shape starlight. It's easier than I expected. The magic wants to help—it flows through me like it's been waiting my whole life for permission to come out.
I learn to create shields of silver light that can block almost anything. I learn to sense living things by their magic—Lysander glows like a golden sun, and even the moss on the walls has tiny sparks of green. I learn to move objects without touching them, to float a few inches off the ground, to make my eyes glow so bright I can see in total darkness.
"You're a natural," Lysander says, and he sounds surprised. "It took me decades to learn what you've done in an hour."
"Maybe it's genetic?"
"Maybe. Or maybe you're just that powerful." He watches me lift three heavy stones at once, spinning them in the air. "Your mother was strong, but you... you're something else."
The stones crash down as my concentration breaks. "Don't say that."
"Why not?"
"Because powerful is what Cassian made me. Powerful is what kills people. I don't want to be powerful—I want to be normal."
Lysander moves in front of me, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Zareth. Power isn't evil. It's just power. A sword can protect or murder. Fire can warm or burn. What matters is the choice. Your choice."
"I've made a lot of bad choices."
"Then make better ones."
Before I can answer, the room suddenly goes cold. The stones on the walls start weeping frost. Our breath comes out in clouds.
Lysander's expression changes from teacher to warrior in a heartbeat. "Get behind me."
"What—"
"NOW!"
I dive behind him just as the door explodes inward.
But it's not Cassian's Reapers.
It's worse.
Seraphine stands in the doorway, but she's wrong. Her eyes are solid black, like someone filled them with ink. Her skin glows with purple light—the same purple as the void-cracks Lysander showed me in the Archive's pictures. And floating around her head like a crown are seven silver chains, each one attached to a different Reaper standing behind her like puppets.
"Hello, Zareth," Seraphine says, but it's not her voice. It's layered with something else—something old and horrible and hungry. "Did you think you could hide from destiny? Did you think the Prophet wouldn't find you?"
The Prophet. The mad First Sovereign. The one trying to destroy reality.
It's not just whispering to Cassian anymore.
It's here. Inside my former friend. Controlling her like a weapon.
"Seraphine!" I shout. "Fight it! I know you're still in there!"
"She volunteered," the Prophet says through Seraphine's mouth. "Such a broken little bird. So easy to fix with promises of power and purpose. She wants to kill you very badly, Zareth. Shall we let her try?"
The seven controlled Reapers raise their weapons as one.
Lysander's hands glow gold. "Zareth, remember what I taught you. Shield first, attack second."
"There are eight of them!"
"Then we'd better be impressive."
Seraphine—or the thing wearing her like a costume—smiles with too many teeth. "The girl-who-was-a-weapon versus the teacher-who-wants-to-die. How poetic. The Prophet showed me visions of how this ends." She raises one hand, and the controlled Reapers move forward like a wave. "Spoiler alert: you both lose."
And then they attack.