Selene ducked a crossbow bolt and buried a knife in the gut of a charging man. She pivoted, dragging the blade free, and looked up again.
Turos chased the Vorash low across a nearby rooftop, setting fire to the rotting wood. Flame surged.
Little Gus slammed into the Vorash, knocking the beast into the burning rooftop. Turos dove after them. Shingles exploded. All three vanished into the smoke.
Selene staggered toward the burning rooftop, heart hammering, as her bond filled with fury—and searing flashes of pain. How much more could they go on against this beast, who was more death itself than capable of dying?
“Vorash don’t favor the sea.”
Thorne said that weeks ago, on the deck of his ship. Odd, wasn’t it? For this beast to be so loyal to Tristan Thorne, but never brave enough to join him at sea?
Maybe…
Selene reached for that bond to the dronsian. She’d never spoken through it. Didn’t even know shecould. But as she forced that one memory toward them and her thoughts about what that could mean, she felt them still, their minds unguarded.
“Lure it to the sea,” she said. “We have to try.”
Little Gus and Turos burst into the sky.
The Vorash followed, screeching in fury and showering black feathers.
The dronsian soared by her and banked, then disappeared over the dune. Taking their battle to the sea.
Selene climbed after them. The beasts were dark specks now—but the bond still surged. Gus snapping at the Vorash’s heel. Turos slamming into it from above. Wings locked. Claws buried deep.
And the sea, that glorious, beckoning sea. Thorne’s fleet nothing more than shattered remains.
The Vorash banked at the water’s edge?—
Turos and Little Gus seized itin their claws.
A scream ripped into the sky that should have cleaved it in two.
The dronsian plummeted toward the waves with their writhing, furious cargo.
Selene felt as much as saw the impact.
The ocean shattered like glass as they hit, silencing the Vorash’s scream. The water scorched like acid, but the dronsian bared through it. The Vorash was rot and bone and shadow, but they were fire and myth and everything the gods forged them to be.
The Vorash’s wings disintegrated first. Then its limbs. It was born from grief and vengeance, but the sea was its sacred cleansing. Too pure. Too ancient. A god’s power still lived within its depths and wouldn’t suffer such contamination.
Turos let go first—with its wings gone, the Vorash could do nothing.
Little Gus held on. Selene’s face flashed across his mind. Augustus’s laugh. A thousand flickers of memory. Grief, and love, and the ache of what was almost lost. Gus held on forthem.
His family.
From the height of the sand dune, Selene pressed a hand to her heart. The bond between them still thrummed, quiet now, but alive.
“You did it,” she whispered down that bond, sending it with all her deep, aching pride. “Now, rest. We’ll handle the rest.”
Then, with smoke rising behind her, she turned.
And strode back into war.
Augustus couldn’t get to his father.
For every body that fell, another rose to block his path—each one a reminder that time was running out. Even with Lili and Blaze fighting at his side, the battle had them pinned down.
