Page 5

Five centuries of training kept him focused, though. Allowed him to silence the screaming in his head, the body that demanded he find heat—and find it fast.

He wasn’t here to coddle himself. He had a task to complete.

Another hair-raising howl rent the night, so hollow and sharp that Az could have sworn even the rain shuddered.

He’d gone further than he should have. Rhys and Feyre’s orders had been specific: Observe, but do not engage. Yet how could he not? How could he turn back when answers were so close—even if their enemies were, too?

A simple whisper had sent him here. A whisper overheard by his foulest of spies, stationed for months now in the mountains encircling Koschei the Deathless’s rotting castle: A long-slumbering object of power now awakens. It is rumored to lie atop Montesere’s Rothorn Peak, waiting to be found. Your enemies will send their worst to attain it before you do. The hunt begins soon.

Nothing more than that. So Az had raced here, to these mountains, darting through the world between shadows and wind, flying with what Rhys and Cassian would consider reckless speed even when his power waned. You’ll snap your wings clean off your back if you dive into a gust like that, he’d practically heard Cassian admonishing him. He’d ignored his friend’s imagined advice, though. If he lost his wings, fine. He had other ways of moving through the world. And his wings had been enough of a nuisance through the centuries that he wouldn’t be sorry to see them go. It wouldn’t devastate him the way it would have for Cassian or Rhys.

But Az’s wings had held against the fierce winds. Had seemed determined to forever cleave to his body, as surely as his shadows now clung to him while he surveyed the terrain.

He’d expected soldiers. Assassins. Slinking spies. Not the howls on the wind. Not the snarls, the baying, the canine keening.

Montesere had indeed sent its worst.

With the wind battering from all directions, it was impossible to distinguish how many windwolves stalked amongst those howls. And almost impossible to detect where they were. They were both flesh and air—able to shift between those states of being as easily as his half-wraith spies. But they were far, far deadlier than Nuala and Cerridwen.

Azriel squinted at the peak far overhead. He’d located the small cave on his flight in, moments before the rain and wind had sent him diving to the lee side of the nearest crag to keep from being smashed against the rocks.

He might be indifferent about his wings, but he certainly didn’t have a death wish—though the Mother knew Rhys believed he did.

There—far above. A faint glimmer of fire, spilling onto the cliffside, then vanishing. Someone had entered the cave.

The howling continued.

Az’s shadows whispered, swift and breathless, They prowl around the cave mouth; they block every pass; they ride the storm winds. There is no path to the cave that does not involve contact with them.

But he needed to get closer. Needed to see if whoever walked out of that cave possessed the object they’d sought.

Focusing his power, Az willed a shadow to slither toward the peak. It didn’t move—just huddled in the shelter of his left wing. As if it didn’t want to go out into the rain, to approach those howls.

Go, he ordered. He shoved a bit more of his power, his will, into the shadow. A bit more, but not too much. Never too much. He’d made sure no one had ever seen the full, hideous scope of those shadows, and he wasn’t about to start today. But a little more power behind them, a slight push—that, he could allow.

The shadow at last slunk away, a dark ribbon wending through the slick rocks. Az kept hidden, attention fixed on the cave mouth.

The shadow described everything as it drew near: Rain, wind, stone. Water gushing between boulders; small rocks tumbling with it. Murmuring voices, barely audible.

Az clenched his chattering teeth. What are they saying?

His tendril of shadow lurched closer, higher. They say that there is nothing in the cave, despite what they learned from Koschei the Deathless. What was there is now gone. They will search elsewhere.

What is it? he demanded. What are they seeking? Who is inside?

The shadow fell quiet for a beat. Then: They wear cloaks and masks; there is no way to determine their identities.

Given what hunted on the storm around him, Az guessed they were from Montesere, but—

The accents are varied; from different places. But all males, united in purpose.

Az blew out a breath through his nose, the air steaming in the rain. He was about to recall the shadow when it said, Montesere. Vallahan. Rask.

Az stilled. And then his shadow added, Made. Az’s wings snapped in tight to his body. The object is Made.

He shook his head, water spraying with the motion. The one they’re seeking?

It is unclear if they have already found a Made object and are pursuing another tonight, or if what was meant to be in the cave is the only Made object they seek.