“We need to move,” said the voice. “Can you get up?”
He pulled at the edges of his thoughts, trying to weave them together into some sort of sensible mass. Each time he thought he might have pinned one down, it slipped away.
The voice became sterner, more severe. “Come back to me,” it commanded. “You’re stronger than this.”
Cedric couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t even lift his head to look in the direction of the voice. He was worried that if he did, it would disappear too. He didn’t want it to. There was something about it. Ittuggedat him, a golden thread tied to something deep in his chest.
Something else was tugging at him too. Not in his chest but at his arm. Both arms. Someone was pulling at them, yanking them up. “By the stars, get your ass up andmove, Cedric!”
Oh, the voice was mad now.
Cedric’s heart pounded in his chest as he slowly lifted his head, blinking away the sting of smoke. His blurred vision took in the figure attempting to lug his heavy body across the smoldering cottage floor. Small, strong hands gripping his wrists. His eyes traveled up slender arms to the waves of golden hair draped over each shoulder.
For a moment, he dared to hope. Dared to believe that somehow, impossibly, his mother had survived. That she was here, now, calling to him, pulling him from this nightmare.
And then a sweet almond scent cut through the noxious smell of embers and ash, and Cedric jolted up.
Because those weren’t his mother’s golden waves. It was the firelight reflecting off the hair cascading down the figure’s shoulders. And those werewingslooming behind her head.
His vision clearing, reality slammed into Cedric with a cold, hard edge. It wasn’t her. Of course, it wasn’t her.
It was Elyria.
Relief surged through him, dizzying and disorienting—a wave that hit him so suddenly he barely had time to take a breath. She was here. She was okay. And for one bewildering, baffling moment, that was all that mattered.
Something between a gasp and a laugh escaped Cedric’s mouth as he lurched to his feet. She dropped his wrists, a small sound of surprise slipping from her lips as she backed up until she was outside the cottage. Cedric followed, his fingers outstretched, reaching out as if he needed to confirm that she was really here.
The Revenant was here.
Jagged, raw mistrust suddenly clawed its way up from deep in Cedric’s gut.Whywas she here? How did she find him? Was this another trick of the Crucible, another part of this hellscape? Had this stars-forsaken trial not broken him enough already?
The hand he’d reached toward Elyria clenched into a fist. His pulse spiked. His mind reeled. The whats and hows and whys all ran together in a muddy, thorny mess. And at the center of it all—her.
Cedric’s gaze snapped to her. “You,” he hissed. “This was you, wasn’t it? You did this.”
Elyria’s green eyes widened, something Cedric thought looked strangely like hurt flashing across her face. It lasted only a fraction of a second, however, and her typical cool, defensive mask was back on before Cedric could be certain of what he saw.
“What in the deepest quarter of hell are you on about?” she said, her mouth twisted in a scowl.
“I—” Cedric’s voice trembled with the weight of his confusion. Was it the Revenant he’d seen? Was ither? “I heard your name.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” she said drily, though her eyes went totheir surroundings as if trying to piece together where they were, what she was missing.
“Don’t play innocent,” he snarled, moving further into her space.
She compensated with an immediate step back, her wings vanishing with a wisp of magic as she narrowed her eyes at Cedric. Like she didn’t want him getting too close to them.
“You think I’m involved inthis?” She waved an arm at the smoldering cottage behind Cedric. “That whatever twisted nightmare you’ve been living is my fault?” Her voice was like ice. “I just fought through my own trial—quite literally. Even if I had the energy or the inclination, how in the four hells would I be able to mess with yours?”
Cedric wasn’t listening. His mind was spiraling, pieces of the nightmare still bleeding into reality. He touched his hand to the scar on his lip, and when he drew it back, blood stained his fingertips.
Everything hurt. His lip, his mind, his heart. It was all too real, too fresh, too painful. And she was here. Standing right in front of him. The final piece in a puzzle he didn’t understand, but that he knew he needed to solve. Like the trial itself was telling him that her being here waswrong.
Something inside Cedric snapped. Fury rose in his chest, hot, searing, ready to burst free. The overwhelming mix of relief, confusion, and betrayal erupted.
Deep, deep inside, he might have known she wasn’t responsible. She wasn’t there. It wasn’t her. But she knewsomething. She must. And he would get it out of her one way or another.
He lunged at her.
