I only felt the wind inside me, finally unbound. The frenzy my bones remembered from a thousand battlefields consumed me, and the howling manor around me faded. It was only me and the bloodlust.
Until—
“Emrys!” A sound so small in the roar and thunder around me, yet it made the world stand still.
I was panting. The walls around were scorched, half-melted. The air shimmered with residual magic, and my fingers… were still crackling. My vision doubled.
Too much. I was going too far.
Focus.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m still here.”
Her breath caught when she saw my face. The savage glow in my eyes. The darkness that clung to my skin like armor.
I saw myself reflected in her gaze—and almost flinched. Not a warrior, not a godling. A monster. Burnt into the air around me like a nightmare made of flesh. And still, she didn’t run.
I touched her shoulder briefly. Enough to make sure she was real and not just smoke and memory.
“Stay close,” I rasped. “You carry part of my magic now. If you stray too far—” I didn’t finish the sentence. I wasn’t sure what would happen. I didn’t want to find out. But there was something else. For a heartbeat, I was speaking to the one I lost millennia ago.
Don’t go there, Emrys.
A shout snapped me back to reality. “They’re breaching the west wing,” Liang warned from the far end of the corridor. “We need to go, now!”
My eyes sought her. Why had she become so important? Because she stole a part of my power? She was simply a tool. A valuable vessel, I reminded myself.
Of course. Like Branwyn was a tool for my small political plot centuries ago. They were just mortals, remember?
I couldn’t let this happen again. It took me centuries to become whole again after Branwyn’s death. To lose another would destroy me.
“Just a vessel,” I whispered, looking at her shivering frame in an elegant riding suit.
A flash of movement, and a Hollowborn lunged from above, claws stretched to her throat.
Her strangled scream unleashed something in me. Aiming a spell, I crushed him with such savagery that the air split. “Stay close,” I snarled. She was pale, breathless, her lavender eyes wide, her short hair tousled. My heart sank as I saw her for what she was. Someone who had seen too much in her short life.
Someone who had too much taken from them.
Oh, dear Daphne, we might not be so different after all.
My bloodied fingers brushed her neck—and time fractured. For one heartbeat, I smelled iron and horses. Heard the shriek of war horns. The wind off the chalk cliffs of Britannia, thick with blood and salt.
She had stood like this once, Branwyn. Her blade raised.
I blinked, and it was Daphne again. Afraid, alive. Not Branwyn. Yet I needed to protect her.
Without a word, I dragged her through the collapsing manor toward the stables. Corridors opened up before us, leading us away from the battle inferno. Duskmere Manor was helping us escape. Maybe it wanted to be rid of us, troublesome tenants, and sink back into timeless apathy.
We ran through the servants’ entrance and the night air washed over my face. My rage sizzled like embers drowned in water.
I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. The air was different. Freedom was here, at my fingertips.
“To the train station, as planned?” Liang asked, swinging onto the saddle of the horse he brought.
I nodded. “We might get the last train to Dover. She rides with me.”
I jumped into the saddle and pulled Daphne, placing her before me. Her scent of lilies and sun-warmed peaches purged the stench of gunpowder and blood. Before I knew it, I was inhaling deeply.
