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Synopsis
The thrilling finale to the #1 Sunday Times and Los Angeles Times bestselling Nocturna trilogy—a sweeping and epic Dominican-inspired fantasy about a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince who must save their kingdom in the final battle between good and evil magic. Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi, Sabaa Tahir, and Roseanne A. Brown.
In the aftermath of Sombra’s return, the balance between light and dark magic has been destroyed and chaos has broken out in Castallan and around the world. Sombra’s shadows have taken over to create monstrous versions of everyone Finn and Alfie love, and with war between Castallan and Englass looming, the prince and the thief must band together one last time—to save their entire world.
To stop the magical imbalance, they must find the stone relics of Sombra’s body before the god can unite the pieces and regain his full strength once more.
But the laws of magic no longer apply, and with their own magic—and even the laws of time itself—drastically changing at every turn, Finn and Alfie are left on their own to stop Sombra and fulfill their prophecy before it is too late and the darkness reigns.
Will they restore balance to their world or will its light be gone forever?
Release date: December 26, 2023
Publisher: HarperCollins
Print pages: 448
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
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Lucero
Maya Motayne
Dezmin remembered the moment he slipped into the dark.
He’d been standing with Alfie as a strange girl burst into the Blue Room, her eyes wild with fear and purpose. He’d seen the dead guardsmen behind her, their bodies leaking red onto the tiled floor. He should have been terrified of her, but she’d looked so afraid—like Alfie did when he woke from a nightmare.
He’d once carved Alfie a dragon figurine as a token of bravery to keep him from making that same heartbreaking face.
Dezmin had opened his mouth to calm the girl—maybe he could stop whatever she was planning. But before he could say a word she thrust her hand forward, splaying her fingers wide. The floor beneath him opened and down he fell, catching only a glimpse of Alfie’s panicked expression before the hole closed around him, leaving him in a sea of inky black.
No, not a sea—the sea had a soul. It had currents that pushed and pulled, and waves that frothed and roared. This was not a sea; it was nothing.
He felt nothing and nothing felt him.
He could not tell if he had been here for hours or years. A lifetime or a moment. Space and time held its breath as Dezmin suffocated in the darkness, paralyzed and lost. But that hardly mattered, because the one thing Dezmin was certain of was that this quiet purgatory was eternal. No matter how much time had passed, he still had infinity to go.
Until one day there was a sound. The first he’d heard since Alfie had shouted his name as he fell into the dark.
Hello, my child.
To hear himself referred to as a child, as something beloved—as anything at all after such endless silence—it made Dezmin want to laugh, to weep. But he could do none of those things. He could only stare.
The voice was deep, hypnotic. Dezmin had expected to see a man standing before him, but instead he saw a dragon figurine floating there in the dark—the very one he’d given to Alfie to ward off his nightmares. Was he hallucinating? Why would the figurine appear before him here?
To see something from his life before felt like fate, destiny, salvation. In truth, it was none of those things.
It was simply bad luck.
Alfie couldn’t breathe.
With his father’s body at his feet and Dezmin standing before him, he felt as if his lungs had been plucked from his chest.
But the being standing here wasn’t Dezmin. It was wearing Dezmin’s body, true, but inside was Sombra—like rancid wine poured into a beautiful bottle.
Alfie’s brother looked the same but different—he looked wrong. His features were sharpened, and he even looked taller, as if the god were stretching him from inside the same way you broke in a pair of shoes or flexed your fingers in a new pair of gloves. Was Dezmin in pain from this physical contortion? It made Alfie feel sick to his stomach.
How could this be happening?
Only six months before, he and Finn had battled the god of darkness and, with the help of a prisoner named Xiomara, they’d banished Sombra to the same dark void that Dezmin had been lost to. Afterward they’d returned the god’s stone arms safely to the vault and moved forward with their lives. Yet now here Sombra stood, on the very dais where Alfie and Princess Vesper had just taken their betrothal vows. A layer of flower petals still dusted the floor. Lit candles floated in the air, bathing the vast ballroom in soft light.
Sombra looked as if he’d just arrived to his own surprise party.
Alfie felt utterly alone as he faced this worst possible incarnation of his brother, his best friend. Luka was out of reach, still in the grip of the Englassen guardsmen who’d restrained him as the king had been murdered. Finn was behind him, pinned to the ground by another set of guards after she had burst into the ceremony.
“No applause? Are you not pleased by the homecoming of your long-lost prince?” Sombra gestured at Dezmin’s body with a grin.
Dezmin was nothing but a garment to Sombra. The unfairness of it all struck Alfie like a slap. He’d spent endless nights desperately wishing for his brother to be found, only to have him return controlled by a monster.
“Leave my brother’s body,” Alfie rasped, finding his voice. “Get out!”
“Ah, but why would I?” Sombra asked. “I quite like it here.”
“This is ridiculous!” cried the petulant voice of Prince Marsden.
Alfie started. Sombra’s appearance had been so shocking, he’d nearly forgotten that moments ago the Englassen royal family had tried to magically enslave all of Castallan. They hadn’t succeeded, because the spellwork required the blood of every living member of the royal family, and they hadn’t had Dezmin’s.
“Guards!” Marsden roared, spittle flying from his thin lips. He pointed at Sombra. “We will repeat the ritual with Prince Dezmin’s blood. Restrain him at onc—”
In the blink of an eye, Sombra materialized in front of the flustered Englassen prince. It happened so fast that Alfie never saw him move, but he felt the air whip past him as if he’d stuck his head out of a speeding carriage.
Standing so close to Marsden that their noses could have brushed, Sombra looked at him like a child contemplating squishing a bug. “You make far too much noise.”
Marsden opened his mouth to protest, but Sombra snatched him by the tongue. Alfie heard the sound of muscle and sinew snapping as the god wrenched it from Marsden’s mouth.
Bile rose in Alfie’s throat.
“Marsden!” Queen Elinore screamed as her son fell to his knees, blood pouring from his lips. She, Princess Vesper, and King Alistair all rushed forward, crying out for help.
Still holding the prince’s detached tongue between two fingers, Sombra waved
his free hand, as if shooing away a fly. With a loud crack, the Englassen royals’ necks snapped sharply to the left and they fell, dead before they could even reach Marsden. The Englassen prince himself had gone silent, blood still seeping from his lips as his eyes grew glassy and still.
The Englassen royal family had been wiped from existence in mere moments.
“Now that I have returned”—Sombra dropped the severed tongue, moving on with ease—“my reign over this world can begin. It will be short, but no doubt memorable.” He met Alfie’s gaze, a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Of that you can be certain.”
Alfie was still reeling as Sombra made an elegant sweeping motion with his hands. A shudder bloomed on Alfie’s skin. From the corner of his eye, he saw something dark slithering. For a moment he thought shadows were crawling on the floor-to-ceiling windows, but he was wrong. It was much worse. A wave of black crept across the sun-dappled sky, as if a pot of ink had spilled onto the heavens. It didn’t look like a regular night sky where there were pinpricks of stars and different shades of dark. It was matte black, as if the sky itself had been painted in one even coat.
A few paces to his left, a Castallano woman’s shadow clawed its way forward, pulling itself up from the ground. The woman it belonged to shouted in fear, recoiling from the sight of the monstrous thing coming to life at her feet. The shadow had no face, no mouth, but somehow Alfie knew it was hungry.
“Alfie.” Luka’s voice shook. Alfie followed his cousin’s gaze. Every shadow, even his mother’s, began to darken and arch off the ground. They were no longer a cast of the light; they were touchable, fluid, thickening like black ink as they hunched their way into life.
He’d never seen anything so ghastly. They did not move the way propio shadows moved—reflecting the emotions of the person they were attached to. They moved like ravenous beasts, breaking free from whatever had once kept them tethered to the floor. Even Alfie’s own shadow rippled at his feet. He could feel it fighting against Sombra’s pull. The hairs on Alfie’s neck stood on end as an overwhelming energy, cold and dark, swept over the chamber.
“Mijo,” his mother said, fear lacing her voice tight as her own shadow slithered forward. She reached out a hand, but she was too far away to touch him. Alfie’s shadow stretched toward her to close the distance between them.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Then came a terrible sound—a cacophony of snaps. With a twist of their shapeless forms, the shadows broke free of the feet they’d once belonged to and hovered in the air. His mother stood still with shock.
“Mother!” Alfie shouted, panic burning through his veins.
Before he could move, the shadows rushed forward, forcing themselves down the throats of their masters. His mother choked, gripping at her throat to stop it, but it was no use.
Amada went limp, her head hanging down, obscuring her face from his vision. The room was full of shadows pouring themselves into the bodies of their victims, leaving them in a loose-limbed stance, as if they’d fallen asleep standing up. Then, without a word, they began to raise their heads. Each one’s eyes were completely black, not a dot of white in them. Just like those who had become shadowless when Alfie and Finn had accidentally released Sombra the first time.
“What have you done?” Alfie asked. Focusing, he felt for the sacred connection between himself and his moving shadow, and engaged his propio. He looked around the room. He should have seen an array of colors, each person’s magic its own shade, but instead everyone’s magic was the same pitch black. He frowned. What would this mean for his own abilities? Could he still match and work with the magic of others if everyone’s magic had turned black under Sombra’s command? Would he still be able to travel through the strands of magic? How could he combat this horror if he did not have his propio?
“I have begun my reign.” Sombra’s eyes were alight. “I am here to finish what I once started.”
Finn groaned and hobbled up to Alfie, blood seeping from a wound in her stomach. The guardsmen who’d been holding her down when she’d crashed the betrothal ceremony had let her go—now that they were shadowless, they were no longer interested in subduing her. Like everyone else in the room, they stood at attention, eyes on Sombra. Alfie still didn’t know why Finn had burst in at the last minute the way she had.
“I tried . . .” She winced as she pressed her hand against her wound, her eyes trained on Sombra. “I tried to get to you before the ceremony happened. . . .”
Alfie blinked at her, the truth dawning on him. Somehow she’d known what the Englassens were up to, but hadn’t been able to get to the ceremony fast enough. There was a strange tenderness in knowing that even after she’d walked out of his life because of his impending marriage to Vesper, she’d still been the one to put the pieces together first. The one to find a way to save him at any cost. He pulled her to his side gently, afraid of worsening her injury.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
By the look on Finn’s face, it was clear she’d had no clue that Sombra would be returning too. No one could have predicted this.
Alfie pressed his hand to Finn’s wound, his eyes still on Sombra. “Sanar,” he murmured, but the cut kept bleeding beneath his touch. “Sanar.” Still nothing. Not only did the magic not work when he called upon it, but something felt wrong now. Magic had always flowed through his body like warm water, but now it crawled over the skin like flies on a corpse, skittering away from Alfie’s touch when he reached for it.
Finn watched him, a question in her eyes, but Alfie didn’t know how to explain.
Was this Sombra’s doing too? Had his return changed the very fabric of magic?
Luka dashed over and, trembling, came to a stop in front of them, his face wet with tears. They’d wished so often for Dezmin’s return, but not like this.
Never like this.
“And you two again,” Sombra laughed, amused at the sight of Luka and Finn. “The four of us reunited in the very room where you once managed to best me. How ironic.”
“Ironic,” Finn said with a pained grimace. “Or annoying. Depends on who you ask.”
Alfie’s mind was a flurry of panic, his gaze snapping between his now black-eyed mother, Luka, Finn, the sea of shadowless, and the deranged god. In the midst of it all, Alfie spotted James on the far side of the room, surrounded by the Englassen guards who had been, at Prince Marsden’s command, holding him back; now they stood blankly by his side.
James too still had his shadow. So aside from Luka, it seemed the only people who had been spared were those with propios. But why was Luka not affected? Was it because Sombra’s magic had saved Luka before and given him inhuman strength—or was it just luck?
Castallanos were taught that propios were a blessing—a sign of a greater connection to the balance of light and dark that had created magic and their world—but Alfie had never imagined it would spare those who possessed them from becoming slaves to Sombra.
James looked terrified. Alfie knew he himself would feel the same if he were in a situation like this, alone, without friends or even allies. But after the boy had helped Prince Marsden—though he’d been forced to do so—with his plan to enslave Castallan, Alfie couldn’t bring himself to beckon James over to stand with them.
“Let Dezmin go,” Alfie demanded again. He’d wanted to sound strong, but he could barely manage to keep his voice from shaking.
“You speak as if I stole my way into his body. But I was warmly invited,” Sombra said.
“You’re lying.” Luka’s voice was rough. “Dezmin would never.”
“I cannot inhabit a body I am not invited into, boy,” Sombra said to Luka. “And watch your tone. You are in the presence of the same god who once saved your pathetic life.”
“How?” Alfie demanded, his gaze on his mother. She looked serene. Her husband’s corpse was mere feet away, yet she only had eyes for Sombra. “How is this possible?”
When Finn’s cruel adoptive father, Ignacio, had wielded Sombra’s powers all those months ago, Alfie had watched as the people who he turned black-eyed then infected each other one by one. But this time, at Sombra’s command, they had all become shadowless in the space of a breath. It was as if he’d been plunged into a nightmare where you could not run no matter how fast you pumped
your legs.
“With the help of your dear brother, of course,” Sombra said. “In my name, he destroyed the light. Now humans are finally free to embrace their true natures as creatures of chaos.”
Alfie felt ill. It made no sense. How could Dezmin have helped Sombra? How could they have destroyed the balance of light and dark while they’d been trapped in Xiomara’s void?
“Why?” Alfie shouted, his voice breaking around the single syllable. “What do you get out of this?”
Sombra met his gaze with a cruel smile. “I get everything.”
“We stopped you once,” Luka said, his chest heaving—from trying to restrain his anger or his terror, Alfie couldn’t tell. “We’ll do it again.”
“Ah, yes, we’ve played this game before. But the rules have changed. This time there will be nowhere for you to run. No toy dragon to trap me in.” He leveled Alfie with a glare. “No way to stop me from taking what you stole.”
A dizzying panic surged through Alfie. The stone arms. Sombra was going to take them again. When he and Finn had released Sombra last time, the god had taken over Ignacio’s body. He’d been a force to be reckoned with then, but he’d become even more powerful once he’d procured his stone arms. After they had banished Sombra to the void, the arms had been secured in the vault once more, the magical protections tripled and reinforced. But would that be enough to stop him now?
“Guards!” Alfie shouted, but none responded. They weren’t his to command anymore—they were Sombra’s. Only a wounded Finn and a trembling Luka stood between the god and the stone arms that were locked in the palace vault.
“You want the arms?” Finn raised her fists, one bloody from putting pressure on her wound. Alfie could see sweat gathering on her upper lip. “Then you’ll have to fight for them.”
“I would venture to say there are simpler ways.” Sombra thrust his hand downward as if reaching for something, his fingers flexing.
With a crack, the ballroom floor broke open. Alfie pushed Finn behind him, shielding her as gravel and sharp shards of rock shot up from the ground, a gray cloud of dust following close behind. When Alfie blinked the debris from his eyes, he saw Sombra’s arms had burst free of the rubble and were now racing across the floor to their owner. Sombra had broken through the protections without even approaching the vault.
“I will return to my immortal form.” The stone pieces skittered up Sombra’s legs and onto his arms, encasing them. “And you will not stop
me.”
“Mierda,” Finn cursed, and Alfie knew what she was thinking. Sombra was already so powerful that he could make everyone shadowless in the blink of an eye. How much more powerful would he be now that he was in possession of part of his immortal body again?
“Hear me now!” Sombra shouted. “Today is the beginning of the end. I was locked away by your little prince, but my destiny never wavered. In the very cage that imprisoned me, I found a new path. I destroyed the balance of magic in favor of the dark and have brought Nocturna to this pathetic world. Soon it will crumble in on itself like a dying star, and your gods will finally pay the price of banishing me.”
Alfie’s mind raced. Nocturna was the consequence of Sombra casting the world into darkness—the end of all things good, the unraveling of mankind.
The end of the world.
Nocturna was what he and Finn had fought to prevent last time they’d released Sombra. He’d thought they were safe from that fate. He couldn’t understand how this could be happening now. The balance of magic was hidden in the heart of the world, a sacred place that no man had ever found. The void where Sombra had been imprisoned was barren of life, virtually inescapable. How had he managed to leave the void and find such a place of legend? Every hour Alfie had ever spent reading and researching magical theory seemed wasted in this moment of not knowing.
“You’re delusional,” Finn said, brandishing a dagger. “But I can fix that.”
Alfie wished he had even half her confidence. Sombra was exponentially more powerful than he had been the last time they faced him—and since he was using Dezmin as a vessel, Alfie could not bring himself to hurt him.
How could they possibly win?
Luka gripped Alfie’s shoulder, and as their gazes met, he knew Luka was worrying about the same things.
“Is that so?” Sombra asked Finn, spreading his arms wide. “Then why don’t you try.”
Finn didn’t need to be told twice. Dezmin wasn’t her brother—she only saw an enemy. Her wound long forgotten, she dashed forward, too fast for anyone to stop her.
“Finn!” Alfie shouted, running after her. His mind raced, trying to come up with what spell to use, but what could he do to stop this? Hurt Dezmin to hurt Sombra, or hurt Finn to stop her from hurting his brother? Would Dezmin die if they killed Sombra?
“Paralizar!” he shouted at Sombra, hoping that his magic would at least stop the god from harming Finn, but nothing happened. Why was the magic not responding?
Sombra didn’t even seem to notice. His eyes, alight with amusement, only followed Finn.
Alfie should have been terrified that he was about to watch Finn run directly to her death, but at that moment he saw something on Sombra’s face that shocked him—and gave him hope.
Blood was trickling from the god’s nose—from Dezmin’s nose.
“Is he bleeding?” Luka asked, his eyes wide.
Still smiling, the blood from his nose splashing his teeth red, Sombra raised his hand, letting Finn’s dagger pierce his palm. It sank straight
through. She twisted the blade deeper, her eyes wide at the sight of the blood flowing down his arm.
If Sombra could be injured, then maybe he could be killed. Hope caught in Alfie’s chest, quickly tempered by pain—it was also Dezmin’s body that Finn had stabbed.
“Finn!” Alfie shouted again.
His voice seemed to rouse Sombra. With a quick hand, he gripped Finn by the neck and tossed her. The thief slammed against Alfie, sending them both rolling across the tiled floor.
When they came to a stop, Alfie raised his head and watched Sombra touch the trickle of blood coming from his nose. The wound in his palm was still oozing red. He wasn’t healing instantly the way he had the last time.
The prince and the god locked gazes, and for a moment so fleeting that Alfie wondered if he imagined it—
Alfie saw uncertainty in Sombra’s eyes.
“I’ll let your loving subjects do the honor of ending you.” Sombra raised his bloody hand and squeezed it into a fist.
At his command, the ballroom sprang to life as shadowless Englassens and Castallanos lunged at one another viciously with the vigor of old enemies. Alfie watched a woman ransack the body of the man she’d stabbed, stuffing his jewels into her pockets. Hair was torn from scalps, thumbs dug mercilessly into eye sockets, screams of pain stifled by slit throats.
“Stop!” Luka shouted. Pandemonium surrounded them like a whirlwind until the three of them stood back-to-back. Luka gripped two fighting men and pried them apart. “Stop it!”
The men turned on him, their fists raised. Using his enhanced strength, Luka threw them, sending them skidding on their backs to opposite sides of the ballroom. Without skipping a beat, they launched into fights with new opponents. It didn’t matter who they fought so long as blood was shed and life was lost.
All Alfie wanted was to find his mother, save his brother, bury his father, and stop this wave of violence—but there wasn’t time for any of that. He couldn’t even ask the guards for protection because they were shadowless as well, jumping into the fray with horrifying grins.
“We’ve got to stop Sombra!” Alfie cried to Luka and Finn. “We can’t let him escape!”
The god had bled and not healed, which meant that he was somehow vulnerable. They needed to take advantage of that. But would doing so mean hurting Dezmin? The pain of that thought was too much to bear. Alfie hid from it, pushing it aside for later.
“He disappeared into the rush of people!” Luka said. “I can force my way through and look for him!”
Alfie stepped closer to Luka. “We’ll be right behind you.” Alfie turned to Finn and held out his hand. Luka could run through without a problem, but he and Finn might get separated.
She laced their fingers together. “Ready.”
“All right, here goes!” Luka began to run.
Alfie gripped Finn’s hand and made to follow, but skidded to a halt as a figure moved past him, a blur of red silk and fury.
“You!” Queen Amada
shouted.
Alfie watched in horror as his mother leaped at Finn, shoving her away from Alfie with both hands. Alfie’s hold on Finn’s hand broke as Amada pushed him behind her, protective as a tigress with her cubs. “You have brought my son nothing but violence and danger.”
“Qué?” Finn caught herself from stumbling backward into a fight between two Castallano guardsmen.
“Stay behind me, Mijo,” Amada said to him.
Alfie stared at his mother in surprise. The last time they’d faced Sombra, the shadowless had had no memory of who they were—they’d simply been thoughtless monsters. But the queen recognized him. She was still some version of herself. Maybe she could be reasoned with.
“Mother,” Alfie said. “Mother, listen to me. Finn is—”
“Alfehr was sheltered and protected before he met you,” Amada hissed at her. “He stayed out of trouble. The day he fell into your hands, I lost my baby. That ends today.”
“I’ll have you know that I’ve saved your very tall baby many times, thank you very much!” Finn sank into a defensive stance, daggers in each hand. “Prince, you better control your mamá before I do it for you.”
Alfie gripped Amada’s shoulders, but she shook him off and threw her hand forward as if gripping the air. “Sofocar!”
Finn gave a choking gasp, the daggers falling from her hands as she clawed at her neck, trying to free herself from the magic that stole the breath from her lungs. Alfie stared in shock. Why did the magic work for his mother and not for him? Finn’s strained cries shook him from his reverie.
“Mother, stop!” Alfie grabbed her by the arm. “Stop it!”
But Amada’s gaze was glued to Finn. The thief dropped to her knees, her eyes growing bloodshot.
Not seeing any other choice, Alfie tackled his mother, forcing her to lose focus and take her eyes off Finn. As they rolled to the ground, Finn fell onto her backside and heaved a desperate, ragged breath.
“Let me go!” Amada shouted. She shoved him away and crawled forward, snatching one of the daggers Finn had dropped. Still on all fours, she tried to stab Finn’s feet as the thief crawled backward like a panicked crab.
“Stop!” Alfie stood and lunged forward, grabbing her around the waist as she tried to leap at Finn. She bucked against him, wild with rage. “Paralizar!” he shouted at Amada, but her body still would not stop moving. He reached for the magic with his mind, as he always did, but it crept away from his touch. “Paralizar!” Nothing was working; nothing made any sense.
“Prince.” Finn grabbed the remaining dagger and stumbled to her feet. Through gritted teeth she took in hungry gulps of air. “I know you love her, but I am not getting murdered because you’re a mamá’s boy!” She pulled a second dagger from her sleeve, this one with brass knuckles on the hilt to slip her fingers into.
“I’m trying—” Alfie began before Amada elbowed him in the stomach, wriggling away when his grip loosened. She launched herself at Finn, dagger raised high.
It was as if time slowed just so he could marvel at this moment: his mother, shadowless and savage, poised to kill the girl he loved. Finn looked at Amada as she approached, still and calm. It was the look of someone who had been charged many times and come out alive. Bloodied, but alive.
“Don’t hurt her!” Alfie shouted.
Finn tossed him a look as Amada slashed at her. “What do you want me to do, hug her?”
“No stabbing,” Alfie sputtered. He grabbed Amada by the shoulders and tried to subdue her again. “Please, anything else—but no stabbing!”
“Fine!”
With a grunt, Finn headbutted Amada, sending her stumbling back against Alfie’s chest. Before Alfie could speak, Finn followed up with a brass-knuckled punch to the queen’s temple. Alfie caught his mother as she went limp.
“Finn!” he shouted at the sight of blood oozing from his mother’s head.
“What?” Finn said, rubbing her forehead with a wince. “You said no stabbing!”
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