“Gods, I wish you were both here to see this,” I whispered, closing my eyes, sending the thought up into the stars, hoping that somewhere out in the universe, they could hear me. That my father would know he hadn’t died for nothing. So my mother would know she hadn’t suffered in vain.
That the Butcher would finally get what was coming to him.
My hands trembled as I spoke the beginning of the incantation, the Old Fae tongue sounding foreign yet familiar, after practicing these words my entire life. A deep well was opening up inside me, waiting to either unleash a great flood of power…or swallow me whole.
"By blood and bone and binding deep,
By ancient oaths my fathers keep,
I call Rooke magic homeward now,
And seal this sacred, solemn vow.
By thorn…”
My eyes flew open as an unholy scream ripped through the castle, the sound of someone suffering pain—or incredible fury.
“Give them to me,” a sneering male intoned from down the hall and fear stole my breath, every thought from my head, the knife slipping in my sweaty, blood-slicked hands.
Gravelock’s voice. He was here.
All I could picture was Lyrae, her broken body lying before the Butcher’s army as the marched over her.
Bleeding. Dead. Gone.
I was a fool.I should have sent her away, sent her back to Tempeste where she would have been safe. I should have…
I took one lurching step, just one, hand outstretched. One word and this circle would fall, a word and everything would be for nothing, but what did it matter if she was gone? Nothing mattered, because why save a world that didn’t have Lyrae Antares in it?
That word was on the tip of my tongue, my fingers sizzling where they brushed the magic barrier.
Then Ariel was outlined in the opening to the throne room, silver hair floating around her like a cloud, eyes burning with light, an aura of power outlining her body in a pale glow, and I realized Gravelock was the least of my worries.
44
LYRAE
Squinting through the snowy darkness, I barely made out the two tiny specks racing through the air toward us, until they were right in front of me, landing softly on the ledge, tipping their little feathered heads at me like I somehow spoke crow.
“Well, I hope you have news. You’d better go and talk to Rooke. I don’t understand…”
“They’re here.” Ryland pointed, and the little beasts took off, flying over our heads, presumably to tell their master Gravelock had arrived.
I couldn’t see the enemy yet—Ryland’s night sight was even better than my own—but I heard them coming, even over the roar of the wind. Armor rattling, the steady stomp of boots on the ground, the way the storm seemed to pause at their approach.
They sounded…like they were running.
Dark forms poured down over the hill, a mighty host blurred together into one solidified form by the blowing snow, moving down the embankment like water flowing over a waterfall, and there, interspersed with the oncoming army…
“What am I even seeing right now, Ry?”
“Holy gods, look at all the Grimbeasts. There have to bea hundred of them,” Ryland breathed. “It’s a slaughterhouse out there.”
The beasts dove into the tight formation and dragged out one Fae soldier after another, screaming as they were torn apart by each group of hungry creatures. Flashes of magic—red fire, sizzling electricity, black smoke—broke through the haze, but for now, the entire army was focused not on us, but on their right and left flank.
I never thought there would be a day when I rooted for a Grimbeast victory, but here we were.
“Maybe they’ll all get eaten before they reach the ice,” I muttered, eyeing the set of ice-covered steps that led down to the ground. “At least the beasts will have full bellies for a while.”
