It takes too long for the pins to stop spraying.
I lift my head, narrowed eyes slitting from folk to folk while I solidify the wall keeping Rygun out with another hardened scale. Anything to stop him from charging south into the cold. All the while, I gather thebit of flame he gifted me when we became Daga-Mórrk, feeding it. Feel its surging might split my skin, scalding me from the inside out—
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I whip my head around. Look back over my shoulder in time for two of the masked folk to shift, like curtains drawing to reveal a fae with pale hair pulled back, a long purple coat tight against her curves.
A white bead dangles from her lobe, swinging with each clipped step she takes in my direction.
She stops three long paces out of reach, lips curling at the corners as she looks down at me from beneath lowered lashes heavy with black paint. “Not if you care for the well-being of yourniece, that is.”
The mention of Kyzari reels me, snatching every bit of breath from my lungs.
My next words taste like dragonflame. Charred and roiling, they scald my tongue on their way free. “Who are you?”
Her smile grows. “The one who was just relieved of that spitefulbitchyou’re protecting. Keeping such a beast on my leash has been tiresome, I assure you.”
Sereme.
I snarl, muscles bulging as my skin splits with violent threat. The masked folk pull spears from their sides, jolting them forward. Over thirty sharp points homed in our direction.
“Careful,King.” Sereme ticks her head to the side, gray eyes narrowed. “I’m not afraid to use force.”
“Neither am I.”
The lie is so bitter I almost choke on it.
Though I’d very much like to leap up and slash through her decorated contingent—cave their skulls until I’ve painted the tunnel in their brains—I refuse to expose Raeve or Ahvi to any of the fuckers surrounding us.
Raeve didn’t want to come here. Didn’t want to risk dissolving the bind for fear of putting the kid in danger. If anything happens to either of them, I couldn’t live with myself.
They’ll have to cut me off in bits.
“My niece,” I growl between seethed breaths that shift my entire body—two very different words echoing in my mind:
Raeve’s daughter.
Raeve’s daughter.
Raeve’s daughter.
Sereme lifts her chin. “What of her?”
“What do you know?”
She raises a pale brow, then pulls a lark from her pocket, dangled from pinched fingers as she casts an order to her left. “Take this to him. And grab the book.”
A spear is lowered, the order abided.
I snatch the lark from meaty fingers, noting the slight tremble in themale’s grip before he gathers the Book of Voyd amongst the folds of his cloak and slinks back into formation.
Maintaining my defensive stance, I unfold the lark, slash my gaze around, then quickly skim the text—my heart thumping harder, faster with each word I choke down:
Sereme pulls a vial from her pocket, shaking it. “Princess Kyzari will die if you don’t drink this potion, and if the three of you don’t come with us,” she says, her words distant, hard to grasp over the roar in my ears. Over the feral panic gnawing on my ribs. “The choice is yours.”
“You’re fucking mad. Kyzari bears the Aether Stone,” I hear myself speak, barely feeling my lips move as my gaze homes on her signature.
On four small words hidden within the swirls that boil my blood.
