Renwell had found me.
A shiver rattled between my shoulder blades. I reached for my mother’s knife, but only grasped air.
“Where are we?” I demanded.
He smiled. “At the Abyss, my dear apprentice.”
My heart stilled. I glanced away from him to the pit of blackness. The Longest Night. Legend said demons waited at the bottom for those who couldn’t cross.
I peered at the other side of the Abyss, but it was empty. Barren.
“She’s not waiting for you on the other side,” Renwell said softly. “No one is.”
I closed my eyes tightly. “You’re lying. My mother would never leave me.”
“But she did. She chose death over you.”
Pain ripped through my heart, and I gasped, my eyes widening. I reached for my chest, but nothing had struck it. I felt only the thin scar from the Shadow-Wolf’s sunstone knife.
Renwell watched me, his pale face devoid of emotion. He gestured to the Abyss with a gloved hand. “You can either jump and meet your father at the bottom. Or...” He extended his hand out to me. “You can come with me, and you’ll never be alone again.”
I ground my teeth together, my breath coming in short bursts. “The only way I’m going into the Abyss is if I take you with me.”
A spark of excitement lit his eyes. He beckoned me. “Come try, then.”
My sunstone knife suddenly appeared in my hand. I leaped at him, stabbing toward his chest. He blocked me easily. His sword swung at his hip, but he didn’t reach for it.
Enraged, I swiped again and again, and met only air. He tripped me. My ankle gave way on the uneven, rocky surface, but I scrambled back to my feet, limping.
He grinned, his expression fully coming alive as it only ever seemed to in training.
I switched the knife to my other hand, the hilt growing slippery with sweat. I lunged, my movements slow and sluggish. He evaded.
On and on it went. For hours. Days. I didn’t know. I was too weak, too slow. I could never defeat him.
Without warning, Renwell seized my throat and swept me over the edge of the Abyss. Immediately, screams and howls rose from the darkness. As if the demons within sensed their next victim.
I gasped and struggled, my legs flailing over nothing. Renwell didn’t react, as though he were stronger than ten men.
He stared at me, contempt twisting his mouth. “You will never see them again.”
Then he let go.
I fell with a scream.
Falling, falling into darkness.
Then somebody was shaking me, calling my name.
My eyes flew open with a gasp. Yarina’s tired blue eyes stared back at me. She grasped one of my arms with her usable hand.
“Put the knife down, princess,” she commanded.
Still panting, I glanced down. Mother’s knife was clutched in my sweaty fist.
I swore and dropped it onto the rumpled blankets.
Yarina slowly released me, sitting next to me on her bed. Her braids were mussed, and she had a crease on one cheek as though she’d just woken up.
