“I should have just flown from Driftspire on Ashen’s back,” I admit, my voice dropping to a quiet murmur. “Instead, I told him to take us home. I never imagined his instincts would lead us to the void.”
“He is a creature of that place. It is written into his bones,” Daed answers, pausing as his boot taps once against the wooden floor. His jaw tightens, the muscle ticking as he weighs his next words. “Amara,” he says slowly, “when I found you in the void, when I saw Emranth reaching for you… was it you who opened the portal to An’kel?”
A shiver creeps across my skin. I remember that wasteland. I remember the cold. I remember how close I came to releasing something I couldn’t hope to control.
“I didn’t mean to. I was thinking of the Grove, but that place appeared instead. An’kel.”
“You used blood?” Zyphoro asks, her voice quieter now.
I nod. “Just a little.”
Daed turns his head toward his sister. “Then the portal was too small. That’s why Emranth couldn’t get through.”
“This Emranth,” I repeat the name, its shape heavy on my tongue. “You know him?”
Daed’s nod is reluctant. “He serves Gygarth. He is an envoy, a lieutenant, capable of walking between realms where the Father Below cannot.”
“He’s a lapdog,” Zyphoro adds, her tone dry. “He scours the ground for his master’s scraps.”
“No,” Daed says, shaking his head. “He is far more dangerous than that.” His attention sharpens on me. “What did he say to you, wife?”
The memory rises, and with it comes the chill of that place. Endless dark. A silence that screamed.
“He wanted our daughter,” I say, the words falling from my lips in a tremble.
Daed’s shoulders sag. His grip on my hand grows fierce. “We must return to Baev’kalath. With the Blades and the thrall houses behind us, perhaps it will be enough. Perhaps we can protect you both.”
Zyphoro hums, unbothered. “It will never be enough.”
Daed moves before she finishes speaking. He is on his feet, shadows carved deep into his face.
“I tolerate your jabs because I owe you a century of debt. Because I failed to save you from that prison. But do not test me. Not on this. Not when it comes to my family.”
The room goes quiet. Reon hides behind his cup, pretending to drink, while Solena and Orios suddenly find great interest in the walls and floor, unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze.
Zyphoro reclines in her chair, arms folded. “Very well, brother,” she says with a faint smile. “We will return to Baev’kalath.” Her gaze finds mine, and for once, there is no mockery in her eyes. “To protectourfamily.”
Chapter 23
Daed
Before her.I storm the stone arteries of Baev’kalath, fury in my wake. Each footfall lands with the weight of judgment, louder than the thunder that shudders against the cliffs, more relentless than the sea battering the fortress walls. The very rock beneath my boots seem to flinch.
The Blades stationed in the halls lower their gazes, not from protocol, but fear. They sense it, the storm in my chest, the wrath thickening the air around me like smoke before the fire.
The doors to the throne room loom before me. I don’t slow. Magic spills from my palms, dark and furious, curling like ribbons of night. With a thought, I loose it, smoke surging like a tide, slamming into the doors and blasting them from their hinges. They crash to the floor with a final, echoing thud.
At the end of the grand hall, my father rises to his feet and steps in front of her. Queen Lanneth. As if his flesh and bone could shield her from the fire he lit in me.
My lip curls. My vision narrows. Then I step into the void.
The shadows part for me, welcome me. I vanish from the ruined threshold and reappear in a burst of smoke and shadow at the base of the dais. The air cracks as the void closes behind me, and still they flinch. They gasp, startled by the violence I wear like a second skin.
“Daedalus,” my father booms, though I hear the uncertainty beneath his voice. “What is the meaning of this?”
I lift a trembling hand, pointing straight at his chest. “You know why I’m here. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
He straightens. “This day was always fated. Zema could not…”
