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“Well met, my friends.”

“Well met, Warlord,” Kellin replied.

“Brother-mate,” Lachlan added with a grin.

Skadi made a disgusted sound, swooping so quickly that my stomach twisted in a way I’d only experienced at sea. Before I could be sick, though, he dropped us at the entrance to the maw and flew back up.

“She’s inside,” I said to the selkies, though I knew they could feel her, too. I clapped Lachlan on the shoulder, and we both followed Kellin into the tunnel.

It was a good thing I was last and paying attention. The earth shook violently at the very moment I stepped into the tunnel, and something had me grabbing the backs of both their shirts. My arms were long enough, and I was strong enough to haul both of them off their feet. We tumbled backward, all three of us rolling away. We’d barely cleared the entrance when the tunnel caved in, a wave of dust and heated air rushing toward us from where we’d been standing seconds before. We coughed and choked as the earth trembled again.

“Shit,” Lachlan rasped when he could speak. “My thanks.”

“You’re my vasyl, my blood brother,” I said, wiping the cuts on my arms. “My blood is yours.”

“As mine is yours.” He used his sealskin to clean away his own blood, though his wounds seemed to heal instantly.

“How?” I asked when he caught me staring at my own miraculously healing wounds.

He shrugged. “We’re bonded to her. She’s bonded to the Emperor of Emperors.”

“And that scaly, cold fucker, too.” I nodded. “Makes sense.”

At that very moment, an enormous red-gold dragon launched itself from inside the volcano, its fiery wings lifting it toward Skadi, who took off to the north, over the sea, though Edan wasn’t far behind. The two dragons clashed in the sky, and the winds from their battle even at this distance half-knocked me from my feet.

I forced my attention away from the sky and turned back to the volcano. “Skadi’s lured him out. While they’re fighting, we’ll get her out and take her to Lusca. There’s no other way in?” We both looked at Kellin. He’d conversed with a sailor who’d been inside, long ago.

His expression was answer enough.

I sighed. “We’ll need rope to climb down from the top then.”

Kellin frowned. “What rope?”

“Vines?” I wanted to curse. There was a jungle, but not for miles. We didn’t have time to gather vines. Skadi was fighting carefully, but he roared in pain too often, and Edan’s dragon form grew far too bright to mistake who the winner of that battle would most likely be. As I watched, Skadi tumbled almost to the water. “Vines, then. We’ll run back to the jungle. There’s no other way.”

I’d only just turned back when Kellin cleared his throat. “There is one.”

“Kellin, no,” Lachlan gasped.

“You’d do the same,” the calm selkie prince replied. “We all would.”

Their gazes locked, an unspoken conversation taking place in seconds, before Lachlan nodded grimly. “We would. Let’s climb.”

I had no idea what their plan was, but my mate bond was pulling me toward Rada. I climbed carefully, trying not to fall when the volcano moved like a horse trying to buck its rider. When the bond went quiet, though, I gave up being careful and began to run, the selkies right behind me.

Sparks and heated air rushed up to my face as I lay on my front and leaned over the opening, squinting down. Hands gripped my ankles as I took it all in. It was as bad as I feared. Holding an unconscious Rada, Alexios stood at the edge of a wide space that was quickly becoming a pit of lava. The boy that had been taken stood beside them, his hand on a short piece of rope that was fixed to the wall somehow.

Alexios looked up and shouted my name.

“Priest!” I shouted back, stripping off my shirt, though I knew it wouldn’t help. Even if I tore it into strips, they would be too weak to hold her. “Do you have more rope?”

His face turned upward. It was too smoky to read his expression, but his voice held a combination of relief and anguish. “No. Is Lusca there?”

“No.”

We both went quiet. I glanced at the battling dragons in the distance. Skadi was flying crookedly, one wing badly torn and his neck hanging low. I stared down at the maw, my thoughts churning like the lava, despair taking hold as the first stars of night twinkled in the east. There would be no moon tonight. The world felt lost.

Then…