Because that mountain does nothing but snuff life.
“He’s a monster. And—” I break beneath Kaan’s steady stare, until there’s nothing left of my self-composure.
Nothing but the cold, dead truth.
“I can’t lose you too,” I force out. “I won’t. And that’s what he does, Kaan. Arkyn takes and takes and fucking takes until there’snothingleft.”
Time stretches.
He stares at me like he’s hewn from stone—breathless. Unblinking. A heavy swallow is the first sign he’s still alive.
He drops my wrist and grips both sides of my face, exuding such tenderness that I almost don’t notice the slight tremble in his hands as he tips my head and plants a warm kiss between my brows. Lips still brushing my skin, he says, “We will find a way to shed the blood bind.” The steady calm of his tone is at odds with the volcanic heat radiating off him. Something that only seems to happen when he’s barely containing Rygun’s fire. “Then I’m going to hunt thisArkyndown. I will break him or serve him up for you to slit his throat. That’s an oath.”
No—
He releases me and spins, stalking toward the trapdoor while I stand—frozen. Lashed with wild panic. Coming to the horrific realization that I let Arkyn’s name slip.
Kaan’s entirely out of sight before my body finally remembers how to move.
I sprint down the stairs, leaping over the final few to see Kaan stuffing his bags full.
“I can undo the blood bind,” Ahvi says from where he’s still cross-legged on the ground.
I slam to a halt, his words marinating in a swirl of silence as Roan, Pyrok, Kaan, and I look between each other, brows raised.
There’s only one way to break a bind such as mine. Rid the offending jar of its bloody contents and hope it wasn’t diluted at some stage—half dumped into a different jar.
Unfortunately, given the fucker I met in the village was able to torture me using one I’ve never seen before, I believe my bindhasbeen diluted.
Probably numerous times.
Sereme’s not the type to forget to construct a multitude of backup plans. Especially when it comes to maintaining control over theoneshe seems to despise more than anything.
Me.
“Are you sure about that, Ahvi?” Roan asks from where he’s crouched by the table, his half-mixed tinctures scattered across it. “Dissolving a blood bind … It’s considered one of the world’s great impossibilities. It’s why the practice is so frowned upon.”
Ahvi repeats himself, louder this time. And notably slower. “I can undo the blood bind.”
Well … shit.
Kaan dumps his bag on the ground and strides closer. “How?”
Ahvi pinches another sliver of bloody meat off the table, dangling it over his dragon’s gaping maw. “A bit like untangling a knot, I guess.”
I’d garner it’s a lot more complicated than that, but sure.
“Time is more stretchy than folk realize.” A shiver climbs my spine as Ahvi drops the meat down his dragon’s gob, wipes his hands on a cloth, then looks at me; that bold silver stare like an anchor plunging deep. “But to remove the bind, we have to be in the place where it was sewn.”
Understanding slaps me so hard my heart skips a beat.
“No. Not happening.”
Zero.
Chance.
Ahvi frowns. “But yousavedme,” he counters with an impressive amount of grit. “Now I repay the life debt. That’s how honorable folk are supposed to behave.”
