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My body was failing. Pain became my only constant, that and the endless stream of power funneling through me, my body twitching and jerking from the force of it.
More, I begged the world beneath me.Give me more. Let’s end this.
But the flow stuttered and slowed, the cold seeping in to replace the power, and I yanked up the final dredges I could reach, spending the last of the magic in one furious burst, not caring about saving some for later.
Later didn’t matter.
Only now.
When I finally opened my eyes, the inside the cave glowed a faint orange, embers glittering in the air. Miraculously, I hadn’t incinerated myself, though I wasn’t entirely sure how.
Corvus rose from behind the Oracle, little more than a writhing, smoking heap at his feet.
“You want to play, little human? We can play.” He climbed over his sister’s writhing form, heading straight for me.
My entire vision filled with black, twisted skin, enormous black thorns, putrid rot shoving up my nose, bubbling agony raking over me…Then cold punched me in the face and stole away my breath.
It took me a moment to realize…I wasn’t dead.
I was flying, the heavy scent of lilies wrapping around me. I sucked in a breath and instantly regretted it when my lungs froze, sealing in the rich, cloying smell. I didn’t even land—I crashed drunkenly into a bank of snow, arms and legs flopping. If I hadn’t ended up where I did, I would have broken several somethings.
I stared up at Torin, the golden owl shifter alighting gracefully beside her, golden eyes blinking.
“Now you owemetwo favors, princess.”
55
ANARIA
Ilay in the snow, eyeing my savior.
Saviors, I supposed, glancing at the bird.
“Seems like everything wants something from me these days.” The words were barely out of my mouth, and I retched into the snow, wiping bloody spittle from my mouth.
Torin only saved me because I was worth more to her alive than dead, and the fact she’d known where I was—where Corvus was—sent another wave of nausea straight through me.
“Take me back to the Citadelle.Right now, Torin.”
In a perfect world, I would have taken a minute to catch my breath, but Tavion didn’t have a minute. According to the Oracle, he was not leaving that tower alive.
Torin shook her head. “You don’t want to go there. I’m taking you to Zorander.”
“Bull fucking shite. Take me to the Citadelle. Tavion’s there. The Mistress will kill him if we leave him behind.”
I refused to do this again, even though there was some sense of twisted irony to this when Tavion had left Ember behind to save me, but I would never do the same to him.Never.
Torin just shook her head and reached for me. “You’re out of magic.”
I stepped away on shaking legs and patted my knives—my knife—with a confidence I did not feel one bit. “That’s not my only weapon.”
Torin frowned, white eyes staring out into the darkness as if she could see all the way to Tempeste. Perhaps she could. “Just once, I’d like to not end up in that shitehole at the end of the day.”
“And I’d like to not be freezing my arse off, barefoot in the snow. But we don’t always get what we want.”
“Fair enough.” She grasped my arm. “If I could heal you, I would. But I don’t have that sort of magic. Kill the Mistress this time, will you? I’ve been waiting for someone to do that for five hundred years.”
“Will that settle the debt between us?” I asked hopefully.
