I nodded, despite my mind replaying every scenario and cataloging every single thing that could go wrong.
“Have faith, Bonscaíh,” Kellan murmured in my ear. “It’s a good plan. We can’t defeat them in the field. We need to be smart about this.”
I heaved a breath as Kellan’s hand squeezed the top of mine.
“Right.” I sighed. “Let’s get set up.”
Moansof the prison occupants slowly slid through the thick, black vines separating the cells in Pyracantha like worms forcing paths through the mud. It was easy to forget this place of horrors was still a working prison. A shiver racked my spine at the sound, and I forced my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
Memories of my time here, of my failed attempts at transforming the ashen, crouched in the shadows of the small cell. Dim, supernatural light emanated from the black vines withan ominous pulsing, like the staggering heartbeat of a dying animal. This place was the opposite of everything in the Land of Light and Life.
My thoughts drifted to Ronan as I paced, my mind replaying our moments here. His friendship had been a solid anchor, even when we were rebuilding it. It’d been almost a year since I’d seen him. Almost a year since I’d left Aedrialis to fight Daimos on Kayj. Was he safe in Aedrialis now that Mount Telum had been activated as a rubelline? Was Evony all right? It’d been so long since I’d seen either of them…
I jumped as the vines hissed, their thorny spikes clacking against each other as the door unwound in a creeping, snake-like fashion. My powers surged beneath my skin, and it took everything in me to leash them. I whirled toward the door, and my heart stopped.
Nerissa’s form appeared in the dark entryway. Her brilliant green eyes were dull in the dim light. The War Slayer paint on her face was slightly smudged, or perhaps it was pixie blood. It had been almost eight months since I’d left Nerissa in Kayj and sailed for Votruvia, and I’d spent the previous three months in hell. Warmth pricked at the corners of my eyes as they landed on my bonded sister.
New scars peppered her shoulder and forearm, like a thin line of stab wounds.Recent, I realized. Very recent… I followed them down to the múritinne ring on her finger and noticed how it trembled. Concern squeezed my chest, and she snapped her hand into a fist.
A question formed on my lips, but her mouth quirked to the side. She arched a brow.
“Votruvian war paint, huh?” she asked, scanning the thick paint on my own face.
My lips twitched, and my shoulders relaxed.
“I’m happy for you,” she murmured, nodding her head once.
Emotions clogged my throat, and the abrupt arrival of tears burned behind my eyes before I leaped.
Nerissa stiffened as I threw my arms around her, squeezing as hard as I could. Her arms fell to the side.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I choked out above her shoulder, pinching my eyes shut.
She gently lifted her hands and placed them on my back. They shifted slightly as I heaved a breath.
“Thanks for the ring. Though I’m not usually the jewelry type,” she murmured.
I squeezed harder as I laughed through tears.
She let out an irritated sigh and dropped her hands from my back. “I’m also not usually thehuggingtype, Lyv.”
“I don’t care,” I mumbled, squeezing once more.
“You have two seconds to remove your arms.”
I laughed, stretching my lips into a wide smile despite our current situation, and released her. She cracked her neck as she straightened. Her expression was grim, sobering my brief moment of joy.
“I take it Ronan hasn’t found the Celestyn Bone?” I asked, pinching my brows.
Nerissa shook her head. “We don’t have time to debrief on everything I learned in Aedrialis, but no. I just came to…” She trailed off as if she truly didn’t know why she’d come to see me.
I nodded and offered her a small smile. “I’m glad you did.”
Nerissa cleared her throat and raised her brows, as if shaking off the affection.
“The others will be here soon,” she continued. “Tiberius will let you know when it’s time.”
She nodded once and waved her hand over the creeping vines that had closed the door to the cell before striding into the darkness beyond. My thumb ran over the ring on my finger,twisting the violet gem so it bumped against my palm, and back up above the top, the sparkling múritinne ring sliding against it.
