Wren takes a single step towards me, and suns save me, she’s all I can focus on. She looks over her shoulder to the twins, but almost as if she can’t help herself, as if she’s pulled towards me, too, her head turns back.
Once again, our eyes connect. It’s like a punch to my gut, a vise tightening around my lungs. All the air disappears from around me. The stone walls seem to close in, and I release a strangled breath.
The way I’m being drawn towards her as if there’s a hook in my belly that demands I touch her, is more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt.
Like it originated from the gods themselves.
Which is . . .
Impossible.
It shouldn’t be happening.
But like the flames on the floor, it’s undeniable.
I need to get closer to her like I need air.
My feet move of their own volition as if they can’t bear the fact that distance exists between us, and I step towards the blue flames. That rope yanking me towards her doesn’t care if I get burned.
But the pain never comes. The flames part as if they don’t want to touch me. As if they’re alive and they recognize me.
There’s no time to ask how this is happening. Wren’s mouth falls open, and she gasps. The sound reverberates all around us, and the tug in my gut nearly forces me to my knees.
And Wren’s Mark . . .
Rising fucking suns, that swirl is glowing brighter than all three moons on a cloudless summer night. It paints the stones in a blue sheen, eerily illuminating the dead soldiers scattered around us like charred corn husks.
I am no stranger to death. After all, the court in Myreth is soaked in blood. Death was as much a part of my upbringing as was hiding from the dangerous, blackhearted man who sired me.
I know death intimately. I have brought it about many times and witnessed it even more often, but this is different.
Not only because of where we are, but because this is Wren’s handiwork. The hands that healed me killed these soldiers, and she took their lives without touching them.
Wren sucks in a breath, and the sound resonates around us. We stare at each other through her shield, the depth of her gaze stirring something inside me. It feels endless, as if I could lose myself in her forever.
This doesn’t make any fucking sense. My mind swirls, and it feels like I have a thousand questions and not a single answer.
Seconds that feel like hours pass before one of the twins lets out a strangled sob. The sound is a knife, slicing through the rope drawing Wren and me together.
Wren hitches a breath, stumbling back as if she’s in pain. My eyes shift from Wren to the girls, and I stare at them. Now that I’m truly looking at them, similarities start to appear.
The slope of their noses and the arch of their identical brows resemble Wren’s. It’s almost uncanny and can’t be a coincidence. Wren is older than the teenagers, and curvier, but the more I look between them, the more I’m certain that these twins aren’t just anyone—they must be related to the gods-blessed.
Are they sisters? Cousins? I’m not sure, but their presence here strikes me as odd.
The blue wall flickers once, twice, then disappears altogether. The flames vanish a moment later.
“Birdie?” the twin who sobbed asks, the bottom of her pink dress stained red with blood. “What’s happening?”
The other girl raises a trembling finger, pointing at me. “Who is he?”
The questions snap me out of whatever trance had been cast over me. All I’m left with is the desperate need to get out of these tunnels. Part of being a Hunter is knowing when strategic retreats are appropriate, and this is one of those moments. There is no doubt in my mind that the king will be back and Esyn only knows we need to leave before that happens.
“Introductions will have to wait,” I say gruffly. “We have to go.”
Every nerve in my body is vibrating, the urge to depart this wretched place growing stronger with each passing moment.
“We?” Wren stares at me incredulously as if I suggested we grow wings and fly out of here. The tone of her voice is bitter and at odds with the way she was looking at me mere moments ago.
