Break the seal.
Kairos caught my eye, his brow furrowed. “Dragon?”
I nodded. “He wants us to leave now.”
Kairos bristled. “Tell that overgrown lizard that he can go fuck him?—”
The screech sharpened and Kairos staggered, blood trickling from his nose.
Tell him this: I tolerated your ancestors. I will not tolerate you.
I repeated Tazurel’s words, and Kairos spat on the ground.
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t antagonize him.”
You carry conflict in your scent, runebreaker, Tazurel murmured.Your heart reaches for the fae king, even as another part of you strains against the cage binding us—against the debt you pretend not to feel.You would save your lover and your sister and still insist you’ve paid no price.
Heat rose in my throat, sharp and unwanted. I wanted to say that he was wrong, but the seal waiting in the Square pulsed at the edge of my thoughts, and the lie wouldn’t hold.
Uther helped one of the warriors upright and Kairos gripped the pommel of his broadsword, grinding his teeth.
“We can’t reach the city,” I whispered. “There’s an army.”
I’m aware, Tazurel said coolly.I will kill as many as possible.
“Aren’t you and Vaeris on the same side? Why don’t you just…order him to withdraw?”
Only two of you hear us. You listen. The other does not.
My stomach dropped.The other.
“Rheya? She hears you, too?”
The cold presence withdrew so sharply it felt like a door slamming shut inside my skull. My sister, alone with this voice and Vaeris. What had he made her believe?
Uther lowered his hands from his ears.
Kairos turned to me. “What else did he say?”
“He’ll help kill Vaeris’s army.”
“I don’t trust anything he says, but we should go while his army is in chaos.” Kairos scanned the battlefield again. “What do you think? Cavalry charge?”
“No,” Uther said. “That needs an enemy line, and anyone riding in tight formation will die from that lightning.”
“We’ll ride through it,” Kairos grunted. “Light and loose. Rely on your mairen, they’ll sense the danger before we do.”
Uther nodded. “Speed over force.”
Kairos faced us all—Elwen, Uther, the four warriors, me. “Listen closely. We take the Square, figure out what Vaeris is doing, and we stop it.”
Lightning clawed across the sky, the wind tearing at his hair.
“I don’t know what we’re walking into.” His impassive gaze swept the warriors. “If you get a clear shot at Vaeris, take it. Whatever he's doing with that seal, we stop it. Move.”
The warriors scattered. Kairos stepped toward me.
“The deal. How bad is it?”
