Page 447 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

So, they were alive. Alive and…

My brain buzzed through every worst-case scenario in the fraction of a second it took Vesper’s eyes to slide from my mate back to me.

“Moros has blinded the Seer of the North.”

August

With the might of eight hierarchies at my back, I took Luminark’s steps three at a time, Lana, Alec, and Fae on my tail. Two cats stood sentinel in front of the door—a long white-haired one with bright blue eyes and a black one with sharp hazels.

“Salem?” I barked, scowling as Magnolia’s braid lifted his little head and cocked it to one side.

“We ride with the queen,” he announced in his creepy fucking demonic voice.

“Good.” When I lifted my eyes, Freya was already standing in the doorway. Her sharp gaze was drilling into the back of Salem’s head.

“Of course, you’re all fucking familiars,” she muttered irritably, like she couldn’t believe it had taken her that long to realize it.

“You did summon an army, Majesty,” the white one purred back. “And where you’re going, I’ll find my witch.”

“You’re Blythe’s,” I realized as thunder rumbled.

“I am.”

“Make them suffer.”

Her eyes flashed red, an eerily human smile lifting the cat’s mouth.

“Ready?” I demanded, eyeing Vesper where she watched from the shadows within. Because, of course, she’d just made it home now.

I was fucking terrified of what we were about to find, but the shadow lurking in Luminark seemed like an omen, if ever there was one. As if everything were culminating now, exactly when I needed it to.

Reyna materialized beside me already in her silver armor, with her son at her side. She dipped her chin, fingers still working as she braided her hair tightly. For the first time since meeting her, she didn’t utter a fucking word. By the time we reached Freya’s war room, Nat, Marcus, Sire, Zeke, and Kingsley were already waiting.

They were studying a hand-drawn floor plan. A rough map around it. Cliffs to one side, ‘rolling flats’ to the other until they met ‘woods.’

“The palace is massive,” Vesper hissed in my ear as she ghosted over the hardwood beside me. “At least three floors above the earth, hundreds of windows, and I have reason to believe they’ve dug below it.”

“Dungeons?”

She tapped her fingernail over the eastern wing. Freya quickly placed a small marble over it.

“Healer’s infirmary is here.” Naturally the opposite side of the fucking building.

“Did you see a window with a candle in it?”

“A few,” she purred. Her head canted with that eerily inhuman twitch of hers, and I was reminded exactly why the humans thought we were demons. She tapped twice directly over the dungeon again. Then over the arm of it.

“Everyone knows their places?” I glanced between commanders, and they quickly relayed the plan we’d worked so tirelessly to hash out, now sharpened with specifics.

“What about Adrastos? Won’t he know we’re coming?” Blaz pressed.

“He will.”

“And that’s not a concern?”

“I don’t think so,” Cyrus said before I could open my mouth.

“Care to explain?” Reyna demanded.