Her hand lifted to the gold-and-bronze torc at her neck. Within the circle, it no longer shimmered. “The White Mare’s torc… It will heal us…”
Nik froze, chest burning with indecision, muscles screaming in pain. The wind shrieked between the ancient stones, drowning the battle’s distant echo.
He glanced back at Leukos.
Rain sluiced down his face, mingling with the blood leaking from his mouth, but he didn’t move to wipe it away. His breaths came shallow and too fast. Yet his stare held steady, locked on Nik with something like defiance. Or maybe it was faith.
If Nik left now, and Leukos didn’t survive…
Theo would never forgive him.
Pelagios would kill him.
And gods, wouldn’t he deserve it? Abandoning his friend—his prince—after everything they’d been through?
“Nik…” Alena whispered, pleading.
He couldn’t meet her gaze. He owed Alena his life and would do anything she asked, but he couldn’t risk fracturing his tenuous friendship with Leukos.
Not again.
But then Leukos moved. A slow, deliberate nod, though it clearly cost him.
There was no command in it.
Only trust.
Go, brother.
It shattered what little restraint Nik still clung to.
He staggered out of the circle, his Gift surging back into him, and he gasped a breath. Strength flooded his limbs.
Up ahead, Katell stood near the cliff’s edge, her silhouette stark against the storm-darkened sky. She’d stripped off her black leather breastplate, discarded in the mud along with her leg greaves. Wind tore at her hair, whipping it across her face as she stared down at the churning Rodanos far below.
Nik ran—or tried to.
His ribs blazed white-hot, each breath tearing through him like broken glass. Yet he forced his legs to move, magic propelling his battered body forward.
He reached Katell—and collapsed, cold mud swallowing his hands and knees, the taste of iron filling his mouth. A sharp gasp escaped as his side gave a sickeningcrunch. If his ribs weren’t broken before, they definitely were now.
Still, he raised his head.
Katell had turned just enough for him to see her face. Her eyes—wide, stricken—cut him to the core. Not the wild panic of battle. Not even the terrified stillness he’d witnessed when Aurelius chained her in the arena as a spectacle.
This was something worse.
She looked as though she no longer knew who she was.
“Stay away.” Her voice trembled, but her magic didn’t. Crimson fire flared and snapped around her, ragged pulses surging in the storm.
She stepped back towards the edge.
Nik’s heart stopped. She was going to jump.
The fall wouldn’t kill her—she was a demigoddess—but the river would take her away from him again.
And this time, she might never return.
