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Tharion helped Lidia limp along, a band of living water wrapped around the hole in her thigh. Chasing down the satchel and antidotes, he’d found both bag and Hind on the stairs, right before they’d heard the Hammer snarling.
Only two vials had made it. The rest had burst, thanks to either the impact or the volatility of Athalar’s lightning. But Lidia had been shot—by Ruhn, she’d told him. Tharion didn’t know whether to admire or curse Danaan for it. The idiot had done it to keep her from harm, so he’d face Pollux alone.
Tharion hadn’t needed to ask what she and Ruhn were doing down here in the first place. Why they’d risked everything to be here, why they’d separated from Bryce and Hunt.
Pollux had gloated about Lidia’s sons to Ruhn, how the mystics had been ordered to lie about where they were, leading her into a trap. But that meant her sons remained captive elsewhere in this palace—and Pollux knew how to find them.
“Lidia …,” the Hammer crooned. “Lidia …” He practically sang her name.
Lidia gritted her teeth. With a surge upward, she launched for the hall, for the Hammer, but Tharion grabbed her, hauling her back down beside him.
“We need to regroup,” he hissed.
“I need to get to my sons,” she hissed back, and tried to move again. They spoke so quietly that their words were barely more than whispers of breath.
Tharion held her still. “You’re in no shape—”
She tried once more, and Tharion decided to Hel with it. He willed the water band around her thigh to push in tighter, to send a tendril into the hole in her skin for emphasis.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, swallowing a scream.
Tharion pulled back the tendril, hating himself for the pain he’d caused, but he held his magic in place to keep any hint of her blood from showing where she’d gone. Her eyes widened, surprise replacing pain as the water eased up at his command. A simple, normal bit of magic, but he knew his eyes blazed with power—with the raging rapids of the Istros itself.
He said, low and swift, “Hypaxia managed to develop an antidote for the parasite. It temporarily returns the magic the Drop took from us—more than that, actually.”
Tharion could have sworn something like pride gleamed in her eyes. “I knew she’d figure it out,” Lidia murmured.
“Here.” He used a plume of water to free the case of antidotes from his pack. He lifted one of the precious two remaining vials. “Take it. You’ll black out for a sec, but …”
But to face the monster in that hallway, she would need to be fully healed. Need that wound gone. Lidia didn’t hesitate as she grabbed the vial, uncorked it, and drank.
She swayed, and gold flashed in her eyes. He caught her as she blacked out, counting the breaths: one, two—
Her gunshot wound healed instantly. Lidia’s eyes flew open, blazing gold. She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers. “I knew she’d figure it out,” Lidia repeated, more to herself than to him.
Tharion gently set her down and motioned for her to keep quiet as steps sounded once more, far closer than before.
“We do this slow and smart,” Tharion warned, and helped her to her feet. She rose without a grimace or wince, all traces of pain now gone. But she nodded.
On silent feet, with Tharion’s magic sending little particles of mist to evaporate the trail of their scent, they descended the steps.
“Lidia …,” Pollux crooned again.
A glance between them, and they halted at the bottom of the stairwell. Tharion peered around the corner to the long hall beyond, where Pollux held Danaan at gunpoint in front of him.
“Lidia …,” Pollux sang again. “I found your companion, so you can’t be far away …”
Tharion withdrew. Lidia shook with rage and power. Tharion could feel it shuddering around him, rising up like a behemoth from the deep.
What had that antidote woken in her? What had been taken during the Drop? And what had lain dormant, all this time? His water seemed to quail at it—like it knew something he didn’t.
“You’re here,” Pollux said. “I can sense your soul nearby. It is entwined with mine, you know.”
Lidia’s teeth flashed, her power growing around them like a physical presence. Tharion sliced his hand in front of them, indicating that she should stand down. Until he had a clear shot at the Hammer, they couldn’t give away their position—
“Very well,” Pollux said. A whistle through his teeth, and a door down the hall groaned open. Footsteps sounded, approaching them, approaching Pollux.
Tharion dared risk another glance around the corner. Two angels in imperial armor had stepped out. And between them …
