Page 58

In moments, the tree withers, and not only where the crystal had grown, either. The decay travels through trunk and limb until the entire thing stands gray and lifeless among the glittering remains of the blight.

My hope dies with it. “The crystal is gone.”

“Yes.”

“But so is the tree.”

Nyctarian lowers his hand. “Forever.”

I frown.

He gestures beyond the ruined garden.

Only then do I notice the barren stretch behind it.

No crystal mars the earth there. But neither does anything grow. No trees. No flowers. Not even the creeping vines that seem determined to swallow every neglected corner of the Dark Spire.

Only bare soil.

“How long has it been like that?”

“Thirty-seven years.”

I struggle to comprehend the span. “Nothing grows?”

“Nothing.”

The distant music reaches us from the revelry, melodies colliding in combinations that have grated at my senses since the moment I entered the spire.

“The discordance,” I say in dawning understanding. “You have been using it to fight the blight.”

“Not fight.” He steps over the fallen leaves. “As you just witnessed, a strong enough counterpoint destroys the crystal, along with everything it has claimed. But a lesser disruption…” His attention shifts toward the infected garden. “It slows the spread.”

I stare across the barren wasteland. This was once a garden of deadly marvels, a place fae crossed borders to behold.

“But it does not stop it.”

“No.”

Every clashing note. Every jarring vibration. Every deliberate dissonance woven throughout the sithe…

It’s not madness or whim, as rumors whisper behind closed doors. It’s a realm-wide effort to disrupt the crystalline blight wherever it takes hold, slowing an advance Nyctarian has found no way to stop.

“And if it stops working?”

Nyctarian gestures toward the barren soil.

The answer settles cold inside me. “You destroy it all.”

“If I must.”

“And leave nothing alive in its place.”

“In the space between life and death, there is nothing.” His attention settles on the dead garden. “Nothing has its place, too.”

For the first time, I understand the choice facing Nyctarian.

He has found a way to slow the blight.