“Yet none of us really know what that does, do we? Rumored to protect the world, yet here we are, staring down the blade of an impending moonfall unlikeanythingthe world has previously seen.” Sereme shrugs. “Come or stay. It’s your conscience.”
I snarl, crunching the note in my fist as I tighten my grip on Raeve.
I won’t risk the life of her daughter.
“If you give me your word that Ahvi and Raeve will not be maimed, I’ll come quietly.”
Sereme rolls her eyes, laughing as she says, “We were never going tohurtthe child. We simply require him to protect The Flourish. Ordering Raeve to do what she does best—tokill—was the only scenario in which the miskunn foretold this particular outcome.” She cracks a gleaming smile. “Had I not been going to great lengths to torture her over the past seven cycles,youwould not have accompanied them to this very spot.”
Her words claw past my skin.
I’m the prize Raeve was employed to deliver …
For some reason, the Ath are afterme.
“Why?”
Another click of her tongue. “You’ll see.” She holds out the vial full of purple, swirling liquid, looking down her nose at me as she waits, stillsmiling.
The grin of someone who’swon.
“Take this to him,” she orders one of the guards.
I seethe as the vial is carried to me, dropped in my hand. Still holding Sereme’s smug stare, I pop the cork and drink the smoky contents in a single loathing gulp.
A cold seeps through me, blunting all my edges until everything feels smooth, bare, and …numb. Dulling my sense of Rygun’s flame until I’m left clawing at my internal darkness, blind and senseless while I search with panicked desperation.
Though I feel it’s still there—somewhere—I don’t know where. Can’t pull from it.
Wealdit.
Snarling, I toss the vial so hard it shatters on the stone.
“Contain him,” Sereme purrs, gray eyes glinting. “You’ll find him quite amicable, I’m certain.”
I growl as six folk step forward, grab my arms, and jerk them behind my back, snapping a pair of runed shackles around my wrists. I’m hauled to my feet, lifted off Raeve and Ahvi bunched together like hatchlings suddenly exposed. Looking too weak.
Too vulnerable.
Raeve’s slumbering face—smooth and without strain—is the last thing I see before a sack is pulled over my head. Something hard collides with my temple, and then—
Nothing.
Fingers strained within a divot, I dig my head beneath my stretched arm, hunting the red-stone cliff for somewhere to wedge my soft climbing shoe—my spiked soles discarded within my stuffed pack below. Too loud for the final ascent despite the poor hearing of the beasts that dwell in this fucking place.
This.
Fucking.
Place.
The dense, cloying air is hard to choke down despite my purifying shroud and the phase of breathing exercises I worked through in preparation. Fierce heat from the leering sun radiates through the heavy smog that presses in from all directions, making it feel like I’m in a kiln. Soft pottery being fired free of every last dribble of moisture.
It’s not far from fact.
I shook the last drip from my skein too long ago. Haven’t stumbled on so much as a muddy puddle since, plaguing my climb with moments I’m certain everything is going black despite my eyes being wide open.
If I don’t find water soon, this will be for naught. But I’m sure I heard the Great Silver Sabersythe thump free of her burrow while I was preparing a discreet shelter at the cliff’s base earlier.
