And Ashterion?
He would be wherever monsters go when their use runs out. Where broken things are laid to rest. He closed his eyes, focused on his breathing, on the warmth of the fingers wrapped around his.
And he didn’t pull away.
68
They dragged us from the cell together, the cold of our collars biting into our skin, the chains rattling as we were forced through the winding corridors of the palace.
Xyliria waited in the grand hall, perched lazily atop her throne, her nails tapped idly against the carved armrest, but her eyes shone with delighted malice.
Ashterion was absent. I didn’t know why, didn’t care. His presence had never mattered before. But today, standing atop the dais, I recognised a different male.
Merrick.
He was grinning—that lazy, predatory smile I’d seen cut through sky and storm. And strapped to his hip, gleaming like captured moonlight against the dark leather of his belt, weremydamn moonsilver daggers.
The sight of them sent white-hot rage blazing through my veins.
They’d carved through shadow and bone, had whispered death songs in languages older than memory. And now this bastard wore them like trophies, like spoils of war torn from my defeated body.
The collar around my throat pulsed, dampening the black fire that wanted to burn everything in this hall to ash and bone, but it couldn’t touch the rage. That was purely, devastatingly human.
Merrick’s grin widened when he saw me looking, his fingers trailing almost lovingly over one blade’s hilt. The gesture was deliberate, calculated—a taunt wrapped in silk and delivered with such casual cruelty that my vision blurred red around the edges.
“Well, well,” he drawled, voice carrying an electric anticipation. “Look what we have here.”
We were thrown to our knees. The marble was ice beneath my battered legs. My palms scraped as I caught myself. All around, my companions breathed in tight, controlled bursts.
“How the mighty have fallen.” Xyliria drank in the sight of our battered forms like we were a fine vintage she meant to savour. “Once proud warriors, now crawling at my feet like the filth you are.”
No one spoke.
Not Shaelith, who kept her attention fixed on a point beyond Xyliria’s shoulder, her jaw clenched. Not Linc, whose hands had formed fists against the stone. Not even Cindrissian, who somehow managed to look utterly bored by the events around him.
Brynelle knelt perfectly still, her gaze fixed straight ahead, too calm. Fenric looked the most human of all of us—exposed and breaking, his shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear into himself. His eyes kept flicking to me, as though I might find some way to stop what was coming.
Varyth didn’t hide his fury.
Didn’t mask the sheer hatred radiating off him in waves.
Xyliria noticed, of course. She had orchestrated this moment precisely to elicit that reaction.
She pushed herself from the throne and descended the steps, each movement dripping with amusement. “I’ve been thinking.” She trailed her fingers along the hilt of a dagger at her hip. “Your pain, Isara, has been delightful, but it lacks… creativity.”
Ice coiled in my gut and slithered upward, lodging itself beneath my ribs.
She gestured, and Merrick descended the stairs. He grabbed Linc by the collar and hauled him forward. Two guards seized Varyth a moment later.
Varyth snarled, jerking against their hold, but the guards forced him down, pressing him to his knees beside Linc.
I already knew what was coming.
Xyliria sighed. “You’ve been such a good little pawn, Isara,” she purred, stepping closer. “But I think it’s time we push your limits.”
She drew the blade at her belt and placed it in my hands.
The weight of it sent bile up my throat.
