THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 3

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• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 53

  The phrases echoed in Ignatius's head like the chime of a divine bell—sonorous, conclusive, irreversible.He wrapped Krishna more firmly in his arms as the wall at his back split with a deafening boom, cracks radiating like shattered crystal. Wind shrieked in from the forest rim, heavy with ash and the sickly reek of the plague-beasts screaming with famine. He still did not turn.Krishna's body was heating up, her skin slick with sweat, her lips pale and hardly moving. The magic had drained too much from her. She had given everything she had left into the shield—given absolutely everything—and now she was more ember than flame.But alive.And as long as her heart remained alive, so did his purpose.He sprinted rapidly over Brunschière's battered courtyard, boots pounding against stone, avoiding the frantic townspeople and sentinels rushing to answer the breach. Children wailed. Bells rang out. Arrows flew overhead. The walls would not stand.Not without her.A commander cried, "We hav

• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 52

  Krishna was panting, every breath a shiver of exhaustion. Her chest heaved and deflated, blood still spilling from the gash she had created, her hand throbbing with the rebound of outlaw magic. Her fire had coiled around the beast like paper—concluding and consuming it, black ash—that would not hold its shape, but at a cost.Her legs were shaking.She fell back, her eyes shaking. The cosmos spun around her, black edges curling around the edges.The light that surrounded her pulsed with the power of the breaking barrier, but it was falling, crumbling from the edges. The abominations outside didn't let up, teeth and claws crashing against the wards she had laid. They never would let up. They would penetrate. And when they did, Brunschière would be dead."Ignatius." She was hardly more than a breath, the words whispered over the din. "I can't. Can't continue. much longer."Ignatius scooped her up almost as soon as she had spoken, his massive hands pushed on either side of her shoulders,

• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 51

  Meanwhile, at Brunschière —The wind howled more angrily than tonight.Not like wind at all.It was moist, as if it had been brought through lungs that should not breathe, scraping against the stone windows like claws rather than air. The light from the sanctuary flickered, casting long shadows that trembled against the vaulted ceilings.Krishna paced at the balcony that faced the forest abutting the Brunschière Sanctuary. The moon was full, but even its silver light could not cut through the seeping blackness closing in on them from the southern perimeter.She sensed it before she saw it.A pulse in the ground. As a heartbeat — ill and unnatural.Ignatius burst into the chamber, his steam-hissing fire-lit cloak still aglow with the heat of his reconnaissance."They're coming," he snarled, eyes burning like a dying fire. "The plague's broken the outer rim."Krishna spun around. "What of the wards?""They held… for awhile," Ignatius ground out, jaw taut. "But the disease isn't just gna

• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 50

  A small boy cringed beneath a broken cart, his face pale and trembling, fists clapped over his ears."Mommy…?" he cried. "Don't leave me here…"His mother's hand was still on his shirt—torn, stiff, fingers locked in readiness even in death.In a cellar not far off, an old priest clutched the last silver moonstone, muttering frantic prayers."May the moon guard—may the—moon—Krishna, have mercy on us—"The moonstone cracked. Then shattered.The charm Krishna had cast so many years before to shield Yureth was gone.Unbound.Black ichor bubbled up from the darkest places in the ground, cracking the earth like corrupted veins. It moved up walls, wrapped around doorways, dragging entire houses down into the darkness with a low, hungry groan.The earth itself howled, living and furious."IT'S MOVING—THE GODDAMNED GROUND IS MOVING!" a farmer screamed before the street collapsed under him and engulfed him.A boy tried to dash across the square—but the well had changed.It bubbled with black wa

• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 49

  The soldiers looked around at one another now, fear blooming."We have moldy silos of grain," said another man, stepping forward. "Our saltwater is black. We drag bodies of fish out of the river now. Bodies with runes carved on their chests."One of the elders pounded his cane on the ground. "We are cursed! And we know why! This began the night Luna Krishna was judged!"Perfera's words pierced the air, honey and steel. "She was a witch. She claimed it. You all saw what she became.""And what have we become, Perfera?" spat the old priestess.The hall was silent.Miyal clutched the arms of his throne. His breathing was harder now. Something in his chest shifted—memories like ice compressing. Krishna's green eyes. Her shriek in the flames. Her voice wailing out his name, again and again, until the fire consumed it.But the spell tightened tighter.Perfera leaned in, brushing a kiss against the back of his ear. "Don't listen to them, my love. You did what you had to do. You are stronger w

• THE SILVER LINING   THE SILVER LINING CHAPTER 48

  The flame had burned down, its light now smoldering embers nestled in ash.Krishna sat cross-legged on the wooden floorboards, arms around herself, her cheek pressed against her knees. Dark curls spilled over her face like a veil as the tears silently streamed down.Opposite her, Ignatius knelt beside the fire, piling fuel into it with slow, methodical actions—anything to keep his hands occupied, his heart level."Whatsoever she did," Krishna breathed, the sound raw in her throat. "But I felt him… I felt him leave. Like a door in his head just shut. Like he's gone."Ignatius's expression hardened to a hard line. He didn't look at her."Please, Krishna," he said finally. His voice was low and insistent. "Miyal doesn't deserve your love. Forget him."She flinched—not because the words hurt, but because they were true.Ignatius turned to her now, face shadowed by candlelight and old anguish. "Recall what he did to you. He permitted them to curse you. He let them burn you and did nothing.