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“Oh yes, the Wilds prince will enjoy a real princess until he’s made to hand her over to a nunnery.” Draga’s smile thinned as he focused on the Rider behind me. “Take her before they arrive.”

Above us, his phoenix gave a low clicking sound, almost impatient. Smoke drifted through the chamber, coiling around the firelight and turning the stone walls black. My neck stung sharply.

Then the tunnel started spinning.

Poison.

Then, the visions came one by one. Then, all at once.

The little book on the workshop bench, and all the false histories hidden in the pages. Of women erased from being Riders. Each kingdom with its tyrannical rule. The nunneries, and the towers that Ember was now being subjected to. The stories were collapsing into one another until all that remained at the centre were Kings and men with flames wrapped around their hands, calling it peace.

“Why do you care?” I asked, as my mind fogged with the drug.

He was almost at the start of the tunnel, but he heard.

“We’ve no throne,” I went on. “No army. No kingdom left. Hunt me for what you think I did in the library. But why the others?”

“Because fools kneel for blood, and no one needs another war.” His fire around my throat tightened as I sagged against the Rider holding me.

“Take the south lift,” Draga said at last, leading the way. “We need to leave.”

The Rider hauled me upright and dragged me out of the chamber. The tunnels beyond had descended into chaos. Smoke curled along the ceiling. People flattened themselves into doorways as two armed Riders shoved through the passageways.

The Rider at my back jerked hard on the restraints when I resisted. “That wire likes royal blood,” he sneered.

“Then perhaps wrap it around your prince,” I muttered. “See if it improves him.”

His fist slammed into the back of my head, hard enough to make the tunnel lurch sideways, but I stayed standing through spite alone.

People watched from the shadows, their faces pale in the lantern-light. Some made old Annatalian signs over their chests as we passed.

We reached the south lift—a wooden platform suspended by chains vanishing upward to the top of the ravine. Two Riders waited beside it, holding a boy by the collar. He could not have been older than twelve. Blood streamed from his nose.

“Found him cutting the brake rope,” one guard reported.

The boy glared at the Riders with trembling hatred.

“Throw him down,” said the Rider to my left.

“No.” The word tore from me before I could stop it.

Pain exploded through my bound wrists as the wire constricted. I dropped to one knee, choking on the agony. The boy’s frightened eyes met mine.

“Let him go,” I rasped. “Please. He’s just a kid.”

Draga turned slowly toward me, and our eyes met, and regret flashed across his face. Then the other Rider at his side said, “Fine, I’ll break his hand instead.”

The loud crack echoed through the tunnel. The boy screamed, and I tried to reach for him. The monsters of the Barren Lands knew no bounds. His cries lodged somewhere deep inside me, tearing at my heart and reminding me of everything that I had spent a week running from. They brought back all that I had deeply buried. Ember crying softly in the dark after her first ‘correction.’ Thorn biting through her tongue so she wouldn’t scream.

Closing my eyes, I found the cage Aster had made me build, and put everything back inside it. I let nothingness flood my heart. One day I would see this all end. And Draga would pay for what he allowed to happen to that boy and all the people he had harmed before him.

The lift groaned upward through the ravine, carrying us toward the surface while the underground city receded beneath us. Snow drifted through the narrow cut of sky above, melting against my face and the blood drying at my mouth. The eighth night of Yule was almost over by the time we reached the upper ledge where two phoenix landing platforms were carved into the cliffside.

Three birds circled overhead. One red—Fire. One orange-gold—Flame. And one white one—Ash. All rogue and all crazed by the thinning of the veil.

The moment they spotted us, all three screamed. The sound ripped through the mountain air and into my bones. Every Rider on the ledge froze. Draga turned slowly toward me. For the first time since he’d captured me, uncertainty flickered across his face. Beyond the birds, high against the dusk, a dark shape moved between the clouds.

The Smoke Phoenix—was that Torran’s bird?—circled gracefully overhead. Watching us.