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Niko studied him with the sharp eyes of someone who’d spent all his life training to be a healer. “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
The vampire king nodded once in return.
“So now what?” Lars asked from where he crouched over the shards of the magical glass coffin we’d used to carry the princess through the Wild Lands. The box had been enchanted to keep the sunlight away from her, but the Voidborn had shattered it within moments of their arrival, as if determined to keep us from protecting her in every way.
Only the spell Byron cast upon her last night could guard her from the sun now.
“We need to get after her,” Clay responded. “Oz too. If those creatures drive her back into the Wild Lands…”
Sickened looks crossed the others’ faces. We’d barely survived that cursed terrain. And while the princess was formidable and Ozias would stare down the gods themselves, that didn’t mean I wanted them to face that on their own.
Roan made an irritated noise. “Then we should get going instead of standing around here talking.”
Ruhl growled, and Roan’s gaze snapped over to him with a glare. The wolf fell silent.
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. Something was definitely odd about my friend.
“Well,” Clay said, strained levity in his tone. “Back into the woods we go. Fun times.”
“Indeed,” Casimir agreed far more seriously.
Clay’s eyes slid in the direction of the Wild Lands, and his wry look faded into dread.
“She may not have gone that far,” I said. “But if she did…” I drew a breath. “Stay close to each other. Trust nothing. We made it through there once. We can do it again.”
The others nodded.
Keeping our weapons ready, we headed for the forest.
3
OZIAS
Idarted between trees and leapt over fallen logs, and everything in me raged as if I was being torn in two. Ahead of me, Gwyneira was in danger. Behind me, the men I called friends were too. I couldn’t save them both.
I might not be able to save any of them at all.
Anguish came from the beast inside me, spurring me to run faster. Dex had told me to find her, but he hadn’t seen Gwyneira’s face in the moments after those creatures rose from the cracks in the ground. Her horror. Her terror as they lunged at her.
The way her expression transformed into that of a rabid predator when they touched her.
Those Voidborn were trying to sap her humanity. They wanted to steal everything she’d fought so hard to hang onto after she was turned.
And for that, my beast roared with rage.
Leaping fallen logs and tearing past bushes stripped leafless by the winter cold, I threw a swift glance back. Trails of black smoke sped between the trees behind me, turning everything they touched to ash. More tentacles of smoke rose from the fissures in the earth around me, twisting like snakes and lunging into my path, cutting me off.
The hell they would.
Skidding to a halt, I whipped my axe down from its strap on my back and slashed at the Voidborn, the ore-lined edge leaving burning trails in the air where it ripped through them. Their screams reached into my brain like claws, bypassing my ears entirely to grate at my mind.
But I didn’t care. Let them scream. They were between me and Gwyneira, and for that, they would die.
I whirled, slashing through one that tried to whip around behind me, as I struggled to find any sign of where the princess had gone. She wasn’t touching the ground any longer, which meant my power couldn’t detect her. But surely she would come back down.
Gods, let her come back down…
At another slash from my blade, the Voidborn fell back for a moment. It was all I needed. I darted through the gap they left, slinging the axe back into place as I moved with practice born of decades of use. Screeching, the creatures dove after me.
