My throat tightens. I shake my head.
“Then. Open. The. Cage.”
“Amara,” Solena hisses, her warning clear as my hand moves toward the handle.
But I can’t stop. We need to escape Baev’kalath, and I’ll just have to take my chances with this specter. My fingers wrap around the handle, and I pull. To my surprise, it opens effortlessly; the door creaking as it swings wide.
The woman steps out, her entire form cloaked in black leather fitted to her like armor. Tall and statuesque, she exudes a presence that’s both intimidating and captivating. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, dangerous and untouchable.
“Why didn’t you just open it yourself?” I ask, still shocked. “It wasn’t locked.”
Her smirk deepens at the corner of her mouth. “It was enchanted. Only I couldn’t open it.”
She steps across the threshold as if testing the ground beneath her, her excitement barely contained. Her foot lifts, then a pulse of power ripples through the room, strong enough to send Solena and me stumbling backward. The walls crack, splintering apart like shattered glass. The illusion is breaking, crumbling away, and for the first time, I see the truth of this room—the mirror-like glamor dissolving into nothingness.
“Time to go,” the woman says with a thrill of finality. She grabs my hand, her fingers curling around my broken ones, and I bite back a whimper of pain.
“She must come too,” I say quickly, nodding toward Solena, my voice tight with desperation.
The woman’s eyes flick toward Solena with clear disdain. “Fae cannot be trusted.”
“You’re Fae!” I yell, my voice filled with pain and frustration.
“Exactly,” she sighs, exasperated, but relents. “Fine. She comes.”
She takes Solena’s hand too, and in a swirl of smoke and shadow, we’re pulled into the void, slipping through the cold nothingness. Moments later, we land with a hard thud in the courtyard, the rough stone beneath our feet grounding us back to reality.
For a fleeting moment, hope blooms in my chest—I convince myself I’ve made the right choice. This stranger, this woman who walks with the void, must possess the power and will to free us from Baev’kalath. But that hope shatters the instant I realize we are surrounded by Blades.
From the balcony above, Lanneth emerges. Arax dangles from a tendril of smoke, his face bruised and bloodied, his arms bound. The queen is calm as ever—until her gaze locks onto the woman who now stands beside me.
So this is what Lanneth looks like when she’s afraid?
“What have you done?” Lanneth screams, her voice cracking with fury. “Kill them! Destroy them! But spare the human!”
The Blades draw their swords and close in. Solena and I instinctively backpedal, but there’s nowhere to go, only the jagged rocks and crashing ocean below. The courtyard is yet another cage. My heart races, panic rising like bile in my throat. But the woman beside me... she’s still smiling, as if this is all part of her plan.
Her eyes flick toward the docks, where the Mordorin ship bobs at the far end of the wharf, repaired and good as new since the Stormwyrm’s attack. She glances at Solena.
“Are your little wings strong enough to fly you both to that ship?” she asks, her voice dripping with mockery.
Solena bristles, insult flashing in her eyes. “Yes. I can get us there.”
“Then go,” the woman groans, exasperated. “Must I spell it out for you?”
Solena clenches her jaw, clearly biting back a tirade, but then shifts her focus. Her wings unfurl and she hooks her arms under mine, lifting me off the ground. We soar into the air, the ship in sight as we rush toward it.
But before we can breathe a sigh of relief, several Blades summon their own wings, launching into the sky to pursue us. Panic grips my chest again, the sound of their wings beating like thunder behind us.
We’ll never outrun them.
Suddenly, a wall of smoke erupts from the ground, surging upward like a black tidal wave, towering so high it vanishes into the clouds. The Blades falter, gasping in shock, while the woman's laughter echoes through the courtyard.
“Surprise,” she giggles, flicking her wrists with a devilish grin. “I. Am. Free.”
The Blades reel back, their flight cut short as the smoke consumes them. Solena flies harder, her wings straining with the effort as we near the ship, leaving the chaos behind.
The Blades recover from their shock; they waste no time setting upon the mysterious woman, swords raised, their wings slicing through the air with deadly precision. But she doesn’t flinch. With a flick of her wrist, tendrils of smoke burst from the ground like serpents, wrapping around the legs of the nearest Blade and yanking him to the earth with a bone-crunching thud.
