The ring finger of Lara’s right hand was agony now. The char of burning flesh made her bile rise. The ring pulsed with power. Gold flames danced across its surface.
She tore it off. It was like handling a flaming coal. For an instant, it sat upon her palm, a ring of gold flames now. The burning crown. Ruari’s warning.
Victory or defeat. She stood on the edge of a crumbling ledge. Which would it be?
Four strides. That’s all it took.
The gap yawned before her—a tear in the world that pulled at her chest and made her vision swim. The Fuath swarmed over Alar, hissing and snarling, their webbed hands raking.
Lara’s arm snapped back. TheOrd-ree sealleft her palm, a streak of gold spinning through air thick with smoke and screams, straight into the rift.
She didn’t watch it fall.
Instead, her dagger scraped free of its sheath, and she lunged. The blade punched into slippery flesh at the base of a bog wight’s skull. She felt resistance and then give.Brackish water exploded across her face and chest.
The hum threading through the stone circle twisted into something sharp and high, a whine that drove needles into her eardrums.
White-hot pain lanced down her right arm. A Fuath had just clawed her from shoulder to elbow. Blood welled, hot and fast, but she ignored it, slashing her blade across a lean throat. More foul water erupted, drenching both her and Alar.
“Here!” She shoved her dagger into Alar’s hand and felt his fingers close around the hilt. Two bog wights were left, but he’d finish them.
He did. Iron flashed beside her before water sprayed.
And then, something pulled at Lara from behind.
She swiveled, looking over her shoulder into a swirling vortex.
The rift had changed.
A whirlwind spiraled out from the tear, seemingly tethered to it.
Instinctively, she understoodshe’dcaused it by throwing theOrd-ree sealinto the rift. The veil was healing and creating a twister as it did so. This was nothing like the wind that Mor had summoned. It was stronger. Hungrier. It could take them all.
Lara’s knees buckled. She dropped, palms hitting gravel, bracing herself against the column of air that tried to tear her away.
“No!” Mor’s voice cut through—raw, desperate. “Not yet!”
The vortex caught the final Fuath attacking Fern. The bog wight reeled past where Lara crouched, its mouth gaped wide, needle-teeth gleaming. Webbed hands clawed at nothing but air. Then it tumbled backward into the gap, swallowed whole.
Lara couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She could only hold on.
A scream tore through the circle, furious and terrified at once.
Her head snapped up, and her breath seized.
Not all the wraiths surrounding The Shattered Crown tonight had ended up in the rift earlier. One had resisted Mor’s binding. Until now.TheSlew. The massive solid one with seaweed hair and a melted face. It had wrapped itself around Mor, arms locked, smoke curling between their bodies like a shroud.
Vyr staggered back, flattening himself against a standing stone as the twister lashed through the air. His face had gone taut, his eyes huge.
The cyclone roared louder.
Lara threw herself at Alar. Her shoulder hit his chest. They went down together, hard, his grunt of pain lost in the tempest shrieking around them. She pressed flat against him. His body was solid and real beneath hers while the world tried to tear them apart.
She lifted her head, just as Mor and the Slew, still locked together, spun past. Two figures embracing as they tumbled toward the gap. Lara caught a glimpse of the Raven Queen’s face. There was no fear there, just fury.
Then they were gone. Swallowed by the rift.
Lara’s forehead dropped against Alar’s chest. Her eyes squeezed shut. The whirlwind still yanked at her. It wanted to drag her in with the rest.
