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The beast’s growl filled the cavernous space, building into a crescendo that couldn’t be contained. I hardly noticed the shift. It didn’t matter now. Male and beast were one and the same.
The others shifted too, into bears and foxes and ravens. Some threw up walls of ice or summoned tearing winds. But none of it was enough to stop me.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
My mate had been taken.I must get her back.
There were too many bodies between me and the exits. Too many between me and her. My beast searched for her scent on the elemental winds, trying to pick up any trace of her to chase down. But there was no whiff of primrose and plum to find.
She was simplygone.
So instead, I tore through the flesh of those in my way.
3
VEYKA
The cold water hit my face hard. I didn’t land on my feet this time. No, I was face first on my stomach, drenched in water so frigid I was completely unsurprised by the wall of snow-capped mountains I spied in the distance.
I’d never seen a body of water bigger than the courtyard pools of the goldstone palace. But it was just my fucking luck that I landed in water not once, but twice.
It wasn’t the Split Sea, I realized as I clambered to my knees. The water was still, but I could see the other shore. A ring of emerald hills, peppered with rocky crags, loomed above water so still I could see the reflection of the undulating hills clearly.
It wasn’t sand beneath my knees this time, either, but rocks. Some smooth pebbles, but also sharper ones. My palms were bleeding as I dragged them up, noting the scrapes. I tried to wipe them on my gown by reflex, realized that was filthy, and thought better of it.
Thinking—I was actually thinking. My body was being torn apart from my soul, hurled from place to place against my will, and I had the ability to think.
I supposed years of torture had its advantages.
Where was I?
The Split Sea had been distinctive enough to identify quickly. I ignored the frigid water lapping against my knees and looked around.
The green hills suggested the terrestrial kingdom, a supposition reinforced by the high peaks looming in the distance. The Spine. I knew such mountains existed beyond Annwyn, though details of the continents beyond my own were sketchy at best. But thisfeltlike Annwyn.
More than that, it felt… familiar.
A tug in my chest pulled my eyes away from the looming mountains of the Spine, twice the height of those that surrounded Baylaur. But something compelled me to look away, in the opposite direction. To the opposite side of the lake.
I hadn’t noticed it before, the gray stone blending into the rocky lake edge at this distance. But then the mists shifted and I could see it clearly. A castle floated on the glass surface of the lake.
How was that possible? Without an elemental water wielder… maybe there were some plants holding it in place, strong terrestrial magic would be required to keep it there, but why…
Yet as I stared, my mind swirling with possibilities, a new feeling coalesced in my chest. One that I hadn’t felt before, or had only just begun to contemplate as a possibility.
Belonging.
It felt like coming home.
Suddenly, the need to reach the castle overwhelmed me. It suffused every pore in my skin, every thought in my head. If I got to the castle, everything would be alright. I couldfeelthat assurance in my soul. I knew it to be the truth.
I reached out a hand even as I tried to drag my weary legs underneath me. I willed my body to movement.
But instead of taking a step, a different sort of movement took me.
That dark, greedy push and pull had me in its grasp.
What is this? Why, why, why?
