“You were promised nothing and took everything!” The words tear from me, raw with everything he’s done, every agony I’ve endured at his hands. “You stole me from my love. Threatened the safety of my child. Forced me to endure your trials. But you never intended for me to survive, did you, Lord of Ithranor?”
Ashen snarls, his lips peeling back, canines glinting.
Anethesis swallows.
“This world has given us nothing but pain,” he says hoarsely. “We just wanted to go home, Amara.”
I stare at him, at the broken man before me.
“That’s all I wanted, too. But we cannot both get what we want and live.”
Anethesis’s lip twitches, his expression curdling with fury. “Awakened whore!” he spits, voice cracking like a whip. He whirls from the bars, thrusting his hands forward as violent gusts tear through the air, wind shrieking at his command. But it’s no use.
Ashen lunges.
A single snap of teeth, swift, brutal, and Anethesis’ hands are gone. Blood spatters across the cage, deep crimson dripping between the grates. He stares at the severed stumps in mute horror before realization slams into him.
Then he screams.
Ashen doesn’t stop.
He lunges again, massive jaws clamping down around Anethesis’s leg before hurling him across the cage like a ragdoll. His body slams into the bars with a sickening crack before crumpling to the floor, motionless but groaning.
Ashen lowers himself, and I climb onto his back, fingers sinking into the thick smoke of his mane. His paws pad toward the door, each step thunderous in the silence, but I glance back one last time.
Anethesis lies curled on his side, sobbing, blood pouring from him in heavy sheets, a waterfall of crimson spilling into the black water below, swirling like ink.
“You will never truly escape,” he rasps, voice warped by pain. “You are Awakened. Death will find you. One way or another.”
I meet his gaze without flinching. “Then let it try.”
Wings of smoke burst from Ashen’s shoulders. He rears back, then leaps into the open air. Wind surges beneath us. The cage door swings shut behind with a final, echoing clang.
He flies us from the cage, from the cavern, from the doom that awaited us and, as the sunlight spills through the mouth of the cave, I lift my face to it, my smile stretching wide.
My first instinct is to tuck myself against Ashen, to press low against his neck and urge him to fly, ears pinned, wings beating fast and true, as far from Driftspire as he can. Especially when his shadow cuts across the floating isles and draws the gaze of the Fae below.
We do not have the advantage here. Not in their sky. Not against creatures who command the wind, who fly just as high and just as fast as Ashen can.
We must run. Now, or not at all.
And we almost do.
Until I hear his scream.
The Golden Son.
I tell myself not to look. Not to feel.
But I do.
I always do.
I tug on Ashen’s mane, hard.
“Down there,” I whisper.
He growls beneath me, a low, warning rumble in his chest. He knows what this means. What it risks.
