The words shattered me like glass. “No.” Tears welled to strangle me. He wasn’t dead. I’d have sensed his loss like the destruction of my own soul.
My mate was alive. I just knew it. And no matter the cost, I would find him. But first, I’d need to save myself.
I darted a glance at my surroundings, taking in the devastated landscape. I sat in the center of a pentagram, the earth brittle and lifeless. Everything I touched was dead, as if the life had been sucked away. I gathered my legs beneath me, preparing to run—
The ground quaked, a deep guttural tremor that vibrated through my bones.
Fates. I knew that sound.
Before I could gain my feet, decaying hands thrust from the soil, grabbing my arms and legs. Cruel fingers bit into my flesh, and I roared my outrage. “Release me, you rotting bastards!”
The grip on my limbs grew tighter, pulling me flush against the ground.
“This will be less painful for you if you don’t struggle,” Alaric said, faking concern for my well-being. “May as well save your energy. The Dark One’s army has breached Slyborn’s gates. Carcerem’s king and queen have failed in their duty, their kingdom in disarray. Their magic will be gone before they even register what is happening.”
My eyes burned. No, this couldn’t be true. Carcerem couldn’t have fallen. Alaric was lying. Please let him be lying.
“It is time,” a crackling voice said, the general stepping closer. His rotting stench wafted beneath my nose. He smelled like a grave and broken oaths.
I thrashed against the undead hands that bound me, their claws biting into my skin. “Damn you, Alaric. How could you stoop so low as to aid The Dark One?”
“Surely someone like you can understand the value of freedom,” he said in an emotionless tone, as if removed from the atrocity he was about to commit. “To be trapped by circumstances you didn’t choose. Forced to live a life that is not your own.”
“I was sacrificed, abandoned, and enslaved,” I snarled. “Still, I wouldn’t have saved myself at the cost of another’s freedom. Nor does your suffering entitle you to inflict pain on others.”
“And that is why you will remain a slave.” He shrugged, casual in his cruelty. “I learned at an early age to watch out for my own interests. Nobody else was going to. Why the hell should I care what happens to anyone else?”
“You're wrong. You should care because it’s those bonds that make life worth living. And you’ve shattered every one of them. Your people, your family.” My voice broke. “Thorne.”
“Poor Serafina and her fairy tales. Those bonds never brought me anything of value,” he scoffed. “It was The Dark One who freed me from the arbor’s whispers. From my father’s judgment. He who gave me a choice when Hathor left me none. So yes, twice now, I made a bargain. Because at least he kept his word. As will I.”
His gaze raked over me, cold and covetous. “It only seems right that Hathor’s handmaiden repays the debt that I owe. That it is you who grant him the power to burn it all down—the goddess, her sacred arbors, obsidian. All of it. You will be the key to her destruction.”
The general’s outstretched hands began to glow, his eyes lighting with a haunting gleam. The marking on the surface beneath me burned with an eerie blue light.
“Alaric, please. Don’t—”
Agony tore through my sternum, a searing force that split me apart from the inside out. I screamed as a brilliant sphere of white energy exploded inside of me, pulsing in time with the pentagram, each throb sending shockwaves through my body.
Through a haze of pain, I registered Yaga’s pendant wrenching free of its chain. The stone floated upward, trembling as if it answered an ancient call. A sharp crack rang out, and the pendant split. From its shattered core, a delicate sapling with two tender leaves emerged.
Wh–what was this? Delirious, I struggled to make sense of it. The stone was a seed?
The sprout drifted down to rest over my heart. The moment it touched my skin, warmth exploded outward, not in fire, but in something gentler—richer. Like sunlight filtering through a canopy.
Energy flowed from the sapling. It seeped through my flesh and spiraled deeper. Deeper inside of me, then through me. Searching.Stretching.
Connecting.
Finally. It all made sense.
Carcerem’s sacred arbor didn’t reside in Slyborn Castle; its roots extended throughout her kingdom. Threaded through plains, pastures and mountaintops. Floated in her streams, racing in her rivers. It wove itself into the fabric of the land and her people.
Every one of my nerve endings came alive. I was an open tap connected to the source, and it was glorious. Tears filled my eyes, rolling down my cheeks.
“Beautiful,” I sobbed. “It’s so beautiful.”
“She’s in. Do it now,” growled a distant voice.
