Esmyra and Draevyn—Kaelypso and Irah—were always destined to destroy each other. In every lifetime, every vessel their souls bore. They would never be able to outrun fate.
Tears stung the back of her eyes as she admitted, “I don’t have her here, Atlas.”
Atlas’s stare darkened before his smirk grew cruel. “How devastating.”
She opened her mouth to explain that she would get her. She would bring him to her this instant in Maerinys and would somehow deal with Syrena later.
But thena glint of movement caught her eye from above, and by the time she realized what was happening, she was already too late.
Like a monstrous spider descending onto its prey, an enormous net dropped from the rooftops. Esmyra barely had time to glance up before it slammed into her from above, the weight and strange sting of it instantly robbing her of breath.
A scream of both her and Kaelypso erupted from the depths of her soul as she became trapped within a net bound by velsinyte. Her limbs went rigid, her magic blinking out as the vibrance of her tattoos faded to an ashy hue. It was like a thousand knives lanced into her nerves. The net was unbearably heavy without her godly strength, and when her knees hit the ground, she could barely move.
Atlas casually walked up to her and crouched at her side, his grey eyes glittering with a thousand unreadable things. “And now this war is about to get a lot bigger, you see. Because not only did you kidnap Lephyrin’s queen, but also the daughter of the elven king of Sumnae.”
Esmyra’s eyes widened as she tried to process what he was saying.
“And let’s just say they have very intriguing punishments,” he continued.
“Kae, what are we going to do?!” Esmyra said in a panic.
No answer came. Kaelypso was gone.
Sharp, frantic fear nearly consumed her in an instant from having no way to speak with her goddess, and now to sit through torture at the hands of the elven and their mind-breaking powers. Could she shield her mind from them? Even if she could, she knew that wouldn’t hold up forever.
Her lip curled, but her strength was rapidly fading. “You’re not going to win with this approach, Atlas.”
“I already have.” His fingers grazed her chin through the net, forcing her to look up at him. “You’re not untouchable anymore.”
He stood from his crouch and turned to his guards. “Varis, your first duty in your new position is to take care of this. Get her out of my sight.”
Soldiers approached as Atlas stalked back down the road, disappearing into the darkness with his shadows.
As the men pulled her up, she forced herself to become dead weight. She lunged and tried to bite and punch them through the net, kicking at one of them as they grabbed her legs, but it was useless with her weakened strength.
“Knock her out. She’s too much fucking trouble,” one of them—Varis—said from behind her.
Her eyes flared, and as she moved to strike again, a sharp, brutal pain rocked through her skull, forcing a yelp from her that was cut short.
As the world began to fade and darken around her, Esmyra realized in a sick, bitter twist of fate that while trying to do something good—while trying to save Draevyn and those she loved—she had walked into her own indestructible cage.
CHAPTER 35
Jak
The wind howled between Jak’s feathers as he soared low over the streets. Smoke curled, mingling with the night’s foggy air from Lephyrin’s fleet setting fire to anything in sight. From this height, Anchorage Cove was barely recognizable. Raucous laughter was replaced with the bellowing cries of maidens as they sought shelter from blades, and the smell of spilled liquor was now overpowered by blood as it filled the streets in its place.
Jak’s heart thundered in his chest. Esmyra was here and there was a chance they could all make it out alive. They had lost Cyrus and half of their crew since they sought out that damn cave that led to Maerinys, but the worst of all was that they’d lost her too.
Esmi was his best friend—his everything, really. She was all Jak had aside from the few other idiots they sailed with, but even then, his love for them was no comparison to what he felt for her.
Since the moment he met Esmyra, Jak had noticed the way everyone looked at her. Their eyes were always filled with the same nonsense. Curiosity, fear, and a hint of lust. Her beauty was undeniable, but whenever they got too close to her, sensing there was something different about her, that rush of terror took root. He didn’t blame them, but he also knew that someone who cowered beneath herwithout knowing who or what she was would never be worthy to be in the presence of someone like her.
All of this was why he loathed Draevyn so much, especially in the beginning. The Phoenix never showed her fear, always meeting her fire with his own flames.
When Jak thought Draevyn had doomed her that day in the cave, he imagined carving the man’s heart from his chest, of torturing him in ways unimaginable and watching him bleed out at his feet. But when that man, theirenemy, came crawling out of the hellhole they’d been trapped in, covered in brutal scars and begging they turn around to get her back, it was then that Jak knew.
He knew that Draevyn had fallen in love with Esmyra. No man would ever act the way he was if there wasn’t something much deeper going on between them.
