A familiar prickle runs up my neck, and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to feel it.
“Leah,”Syrus breathes into my mind,
“Syrus,”I reply, reaching out to caress his presence with my thoughts.“I tried to contact you, but you had walls up around your mind.”“Syrus is here,” I say aloud to Asterim, tapping my temple.
“I know,”Syrus says, sounding pained.“Or rather, I didn’t know until just now. Ajax’s spell put up protections around me I had to remove before I could reach you again, but I didn’t sense them before.”I can feel his awareness traveling through my body, checking I’m all right.“Where are you?”he asks.
“Kaliban’s fortress,”I say.“But be careful. He wants to draw you here to kill you.”
“I’ll end him for ever laying a finger on you,”he says, his voice icy.
“There’s more, Syrus—look.”
He slides behind my eyes and looks out of them onto the chamber. I make sure to direct my gaze over all of it—the broken bodies and the dark water. A rage that isn’t mine simmers beneath my skin as Syrus realizes what he’s staring at.
“That stupid, reckless bastard,”Syrus bites out.“It’s been him the whole time. And now he’s trying to take my place as Lord of Malice since he’s realized his little experiment is doomed to fail.”
My blood chills at the prospect, and Syrus must feel it, because his anger ebbs a little and his words stroke comfortingly across my mind.
“Listen, Leah, I have to go. I’ve only just crossed the border, and I’ll fly faster if I’m not with you. But you and Aster must be careful. Hide, and I’ll be there soon.”
Then he’s gone from my mind again, and I feel hollow in his absence.
I turn to Aster. “He’s on his way. He says we should hide in the meantime.”
She’s about to speak but stops when a voice carries from the corridor, calling someone’s name. We share a look. If this new arrival is looking for one of the guards we knocked out, it’s only a matter of time before they come down here and find us.
I adjust the grip on my sword. “We’ll try it again like last time,” I whisper as quietly as I can. She nods, and we creep back toward the iron gate. I peer out into the corridor and see…nothing. But just as I’m about to cross over to the dungeon entrance, a demon comes sprinting out of it. He doesn’t see us but takes the stairs at speed, shouting to raise the alarm.
“Prisoners on the loose!” he bellows. “They’ve escaped!”
I shove the gate open. “Come on,” I say to Aster. “It won’t be long before they send every demon left in this place down here to hunt us.”
We take the stairs two at a time, the guard’s shouts still audible in the corridors above us. At the top, I grab Aster’s hand and yank her into the first room I can see after checking quickly that it’s empty. It’s a dining room, but it looks more like a mess hall, with long tables stacked side by side and another one up on a raised platform toward the end. A glance out the large window along one wall tells me we’re pretty high up in the mountains.
Heart thudding, I pull Aster along with me, sparing a thought for the slim, impractical pair of silk slippers slowing her down.
I twist around, scanning the room for a good hiding spot. Nothing jumps out at me, but I hear boots on the ground and realize our time is up.
“Get under the table,” I hiss at Aster. I drop to my knees after her, and together we crawl beneath the far end of the table farthest from the door. The boots are thundering just outside, and seconds after we’ve tucked ourselves out of sight, the door swings open briefly before closing again. The footsteps in the corridor start to get further away, and I exhale slowly. I doubt it bought us much time—when they can’t find us, they’ll likely be back for a more thorough search, but we’re in the clear for now.
Then the screams start.
Aster and I stare wide-eyed at each other as we listen hard—the shouts and cries of pain echo from deeper in the fortress, accompanied by crashesand bangs like furniture is being thrown across rooms. The floor beneath us shakes.
“Syrus?” Aster mouths to me. I close my eyes, reaching out to him like I did before, trying to nudge his awareness, but I get no answer.
“I don’t know,” I admit when I open my eyes again. “Let me go check.”
She shakes her head hard, but I ignore her, crawling out from under the table and treading softly over to the door. I ease it open, only to be confronted with a wall of pale, tattooed muscle.
“There you are,” Kaliban grunts, grabbing hold of me, twisting my arm back so hard that I immediately drop the sword, terrified he’ll break my bones.
“Syrus!”I scream into my mind, not knowing if he’ll hear, just as Aster pulls herself out from under the table and charges across the room, her delicate hand outstretched.
“Let her go, you ugly son of a bitch,” she yells.
Before she can lay a hand on him, Kaliban sweeps his huge arm wide, backhanding her hard enough to send her crashing against the wall. Something in me breaks open at the sight, a raw, uncontrolled energy buzzing through me.
