I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw the echoes of the people who came before me. People who died screaming. Alone.
What if that was my fate too?
A warm hand slid across my waist, pulling me back against a body I’d already memorized.
I sighed and leaned into Devin, letting his presence anchor me. His shadow magic curled around me like smoke, dark andprotective. Familiar. Possessive. I should’ve been terrified of that. Once, I was. Now?
He was the only thing that felt solid. Real. Safe.
“You’re too quiet,” he said against my ear.
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
I smiled faintly. “What happens when we reach The Spire?”
He stilled. “I present you to the king.”
“The Knight Eternal?”
“That is one of his titles.”
“How old is he?” If Devin was nearly two hundred years old, I couldn’t imagine the power and might of someone the Death Mages consideredeternal.
“Only the archivists know.” He leaned in and nuzzled my neck with lips I was already addicted to. “And I know better than to ask.”
I placed my arms on top of his and leaned into his heat. His warmth. A future I hoped would be as magical and full of passion as he’d promised me this morning when we boarded the ship. “So, we get to The Spire. We see the king. Then what?”
“We perform the binding ritual.”
“Like… a marriage?”
“Not quite. Deeper. A fusion of magic. Of souls. Your fire, my shadow, woven together to reinforce the Veil’s runes.”
“Sex?”
“Yes.” He turned me just enough to kiss me senseless. “And this time I won’t hold back. We’ll complete the bond. Our magic will strengthen the spell that seals the rift.”
I kissed him back, my body melting. “We’ll be alone?”
“Of course.” He kissed me again. Harder. A punishment. “I don’t share what’s mine, and I would never ask you to expose yourself in such a manner.”
I relaxed instantly and smiled at him.
His expression turned serious as he held my gaze. “It’s not required... but without it, the seals won’t hold much longer.”
I didn’t think about it too much. I didn’twantto. I stared out over the water and focused on calming the pounding of my heart under my ribs. Something—something—was clawing at the edge of my awareness. A chill against my spine. A wrongness in the wind. My fingers twitched over his arm, digging into his flesh. “Devin,” I whispered. “Something’s off.”
He pulled back just enough to look into my face, his silver eyes narrowing. “What do you feel?”
“I don’t know.” My voice shook. “But it’s wrong. It’s?—”
A sudden gust of wind ripped through the sails above us, snapping the fabric with a deafeningcrack. The ship tilted. Shouts rang out across the deck. The fae wind-caller—a tall, white-haired fae in crimson robes—let out a high, musical cry that vibrated with alarm. “Shadows on the water! They’re coming!”
The clouds overhead darkened. The sun vanished behind a curtain of gray. And from the depths of the sea—they rose.
Creatures made of slick, glistening darkness. Long, eel-like bodies with too many eyes and mouths that split their faces in unnatural ways. Webbed claws. Translucent wings. Some swam. Some flew. All of them moved like nightmares dragged from a drowned world.
