“What’s so hard to understand?” Caspian lifted his chin. “It starts with‘Where Serpent kisses Ram, the lost onewakes.’Simple. We find a snake kissing a sheep, we find the heir.”
“A snake. Kissing. A sheep.” Nikolai laughed. “Try the third line, genius.‘By Coldiron’s shroud, no blood may sing.’Go on. That one’s straightforward enough. Even for you.”
Caspian bristled. “It’s not that straightforward, vamp. And why should I do your job for you? What’s in it for me?” He kicked at a fused clump of glass and dirt. “Last three times we went hunting for the lost heir, we walked into traps. Remember the White Witch’s agents? I barely crawled out of that one with my skin attached. And why call her the White Witch when she and her whole coven practice black magic? Sacrifices, summoning demons, the whole fucking cult.”
“She’s a white woman,” Nikolai said flatly. “As opposed to a black woman. Hence, White Witch. Must I explain everything to you now?”
Caspian opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head. “We should turn back before we breathe in more of the poison. If we weren’t supernaturals, we’d be dead already.”
“You can return alone.” Nikolai’s jaw tightened, his crimson gaze fixed ahead. “I’m not giving up. The lost heir could be our last hope of winning this war.” He gestured toward me. “As Aelindor said—and he’s actually the leading expert on the Fourfold Prophecy—the Fourfold points to us four. You, me, Aelindor, and Drakken.”
He paused.
“Right, Aelindor?”
The Zodiac Covenant was formed whenthe four of usheirs forged an alliance.
Drakken, the dragon heir, had stayed behind at the fortress this time. One of us always remained on base while the others hunted, which was standard protocol, hammered into us after we’d nearly lost everything in an ambush two years ago. Usually, that one was me. I monitored operations, coordinated from behind the scenes, kept the machine running.
But this time, I’d felt the call like fire in my veins, burning hotter with every hour. I’d summoned the other two heirs in the dead of night, and now they both looked at me, waiting for confirmation that I hadn’t dragged them into another dead end.
I let the silence stretch. Then:
“I’ve hunted the lost one for nearly a century.” My voice came out quieter than I expected. “Ever since the Shimmer came down. Before he or she might even have been born. I’ve followed every sign, every omen, every whisper of power that could lead us to them.”
“So the oracle couldn’t decide if it’s a he or a she?” Nikolai asked, as if I were its author. But he was more invested in the prophecy than Caspian, who reserved his passion for women and duels. “The second line is‘He walks in shadow, she in flame.’”
I’d been pondering that line for decades.
“Or maybe it’s twins?” Caspian perked up, flashing me a satisfied smirk. “Are we getting two for the price of one?”
This one kept testing my patience.
“This time felt different,” I said. I shouldn’t rely on feelings. But the prophecy bound our fates together—mine, Nikolai’s, Caspian’s, Drakken’s—and the lost heir’s. Four of us, waiting for the fifth.
“I know we’ve walked into false alarms. Traps. Dead ends.” I paused. “But this wasn’t like the others. It felt real.”
“You’re not alone, Aelindor,” Nikolai offered. “I felt it too. Ringing in my head over and over until I couldn’t stay still.”
“For me, it was like an itch I couldn’t reach.” Caspian’s usual humor had faded from his voice. “It ruined my fun before you two came pounding on my door. Drakken felt it too, and that cold-blooded bastard doesn’t feel anything on a good day.” He paused. “But we’ve walked seven miles, and there’s nothing but poison.”
“Don’t be a fucking baby.” Nikolai’s words were sharp, but his tone wasn’t. “We’ll walk fifty miles if we have to. We keep going. Keep searching. Maybe today’s the day.”
“You say that every time.” Caspian kicked at the dirt. “It’s never our lucky day.”
Yowls rose from the distance, echoing across the wasteland. Bones scattered the ground around us, some animal and some unmistakably human.
We drew weapons in one fluid motion.
Between the three of us, only I wielded elemental magic of earth and wind, but in this dead land, even that refused to answer. So I reached for the blade I’d carried for centuries instead.
My blood sword, forged in the Fae realm from star steel mined from the heart of a fallen comet. Dark as midnight, nearly indestructible. Blood runes ran along the fuller, etched in threads of crimson that glowed faintly when danger drew near. They protected against corruption, against the dark magic that had infected so much of this broken world and turned good men into monsters.
Nikolai drew twin daggers, each blade etched with runes of his own making. He was an axe-wielder in open battle—I’d gifted him that double-headed war axe when he was still a teenage vampire, desperate to prove his bloodline worthy—but for covert work, he favored something less loud.
Beside me, Caspian partially shifted. Grey fur rippled across his arms and crept up the edges of his face. Claws slid from his fingertips with soft clicks. He’d only go full shifting mode if the situation demanded it; the transformation drained energy he might need later.
The shifter prince had other weapons. Two stacks of runed cards waited in his pockets, specially crafted by a war mage. Death cards, he called them.
