Nyri scrambled from the floor and was off without so much as a look back.
“Lyriat,please. Tell me where she?—”
He raised a stilling hand. “She’s here. Come with me.”
The worst of his rage instantly abated, the panic of urgency draining away.
Lyriat led Brand and his brothers through the winding corridors towards Luna’s chamber. “She called in our deal, demanding her payment. I stalled her—foryou—by fiddling with the terms. ‘Displeased’ doesn’t even begin to skim the surface of her ire.” He nodded as they passed a wall of guards blocking entrance to that wing of the castle. “She immediately barred herself in there.Thisstarted happening shortly after, and none of us have been able to get in since.”
“Weeping fuck.”
Magic was bleeding into the hallway from beneath both her door and Fern’s—prismatic wisps dancing with tendrils of black in the afternoon sunlight, flowing up the stone walls, little bits floating away to dissipate.
Brand ignored his brothers’ murmurs and inched forward. The closer he got, the more volatile the wisps and tendrils. The darkness snapped out at him, angry, while the pieces of Luna’s magic lashed out to block their attacks. So similar to the chasm.
He called to his power, ready to bring the castle down to get to her, but Lyriat placed a stilling hand on his arm.
“We’ve tried, but the stone isn’t listening,” he said. “Can you feel her through the bond at least?”
Shite. That bloody damned wall.
Never again.
His lids slid closed as he reached inside and tore it all down, opening himself up to her and?—
Agony. Biting, writhingagony.Hers.
“Lunara!”
Brand didn’t think. He sprinted to the door, a male possessed—bloodying his knuckles. Ramming his horns against it. Bruising his shoulders, his knees, his feet.
Something was very,verywrong.
“Lunara! Let me in!” His voice echoed around him, every word emphasized by a slam against the panel.
He summoned his greatsword from the ether. Brand had meant what he’d said last night—he would go to fucking war with her for the rest of their lives, relishing every second, if that’s what it took to make her see reason.
He’d sure as fuck go to warforher.
“Help me!” He bellowed, calling to the others.
As he hacked and hacked, Brand was transported once more to the chasm depths, when she’d left him on the wrong side of the shield and he’d been forced to watch her mutilation. To feel her life draining away until she was?—
Muffled shouts reach him, and he spared a glance over his shoulder between punishing swings. Lyriat and his brothers were waving their arms, their words lost on him.
That’s when he noticed the wisps of her magic. Clinging. Shielding. They caressed over his skin, forming a protective enclosure around him and pushing the shadows out into the surrounding area.
“Please.” Brand pressed his forehead to the door, begging it to hear him. “Let me in so I can help her.Please.”
It almost seemed to whisper in answer. A strange song that hummed in his his blood as it drew closer, tightening, tightening…
Release, just as the door clicked open. He could wonder about it later.
Brand barreled into the hazy room. The magic was thicker, but he could see her chamber was packed to the brim with crude wooden crates and overflowing sacks. Blankets and pillows in more colors than he’d ever seen had been tossed on every surface.
But no Luna.
He leapt over the piles nearest the door and through the opening into Fern’s side—and stopped dead.
