I shot upright. “So if I break it, we get them back?”
“Aelie.” Kairos hauled himself up, grabbing my arm. “No.”
I turned to him. “She’s my sister.”
“That’s exactly why he’s doing this.” He pointed at Vaeris, his body coiled for attack. “He’s not offering you a choice. He’s forcing you. Everything he does is designed to push you in one direction.”
Vaeris glanced at Kairos’s grip on me. “I’m forcing her?”
Kairos’s jaw clenched.
“If her sister dies,” Vaeris said calmly, “I die with her. I have no incentive to lie.” Vaeris sneered across the fissure at Kairos. “You, on the other hand, lose nothing by waiting.”
“My best friend is gone because of you.” He stepped forward, mist boiling off his skin. “So don't you dare stand there and tell me I've lostnothing.”
The warriors stood behind Kairos—bloodied, braced forbattle. On the other side, Vaeris’s Runecloaks mirrored them.
“We are wasting time,” Vaeris hissed.
I knelt on the cobblestones, forcing my attention on the seal. The magic hummed under my knees, vibrating inside my bones like a deep growl. A greasy film covered the stones.
The executions had always been so messy. So wasteful, all that blood spilling everywhere, most of it missing the drain. I’d never asked why.
Gods, I’d been stupid.
All those lives. Poured into this rune so the fae could sleep easy and tell themselves it was necessary. That peace had a price and someone else could pay it. Always us. Humans dragged to the platform. Humans ground beneath fae boots.
They’d had two thousand years to build something better that didn’t eat people to stay whole. Instead they built this. And they expected me not to break it?
No.
My fingers flexed inside the dragon gloves. Then I placed them on the rune. My body seized as a lightning rod of power jolted into my arm, freezing my limbs. The pain was blinding, fire and ice and broken glass, tearing through my veins.
I ripped my hands away, gasping. “What the hell did you do to this rune?”
Vaeris scowled. “Rheya can amplify runes. I thought if we fed it more power than it could hold, it would burn through its magic and collapse.”
My stomach dropped. “But it didn't work. You made it stronger.”
Vaeris’s jaw tightened. “Too strong.”
The ground shuddered.
“It’s not breaking,” I whispered. “It’s pulling the city inside it.”
I tried again, gritting my teeth. Blood dripped from my nose, spattering the glowing lines. A male dropped beside me—Kairos. His palm found my back, his panic bleeding through the pain.
Kairos’s mist curled around me, his jaw working. Then he touched my spine and warmth flooded into me—cool and silver, knitting together whatever the seal had torn apart.
I gasped, the pain receding like a tide.
Elwen appeared on my other side, touching my throat. “This is too much even for you. One more attempt, and we might not be able to heal you.”
I dragged in a ragged breath, glaring at Vaeris. “Are you going to help or just stand there?”
His expression flickered, then he signaled his Runecloaks to follow as they hurried to me.
Mist slammed down between us like a wall and Vaeris halted, his shadows flaring.
