At first, his bondheart didn’t respond. When at last he did, it was accompanied by carefully tamed emotions from Ariadne’s connection to Almandine. No doubt the dragon was just as bombarded as Madan. “Do you think that’s a wise place to begin?”
Madan turned to Phulan, who read over what he’d written down from the ritual. Her magic surged through the air, palpable and familiar to a part of him caged by the curse of night. “He’s the only one we can try it on.”
“Whelan?” Brutis suggested.
But a rumble of discontent made its way through the vinculum, and Oria chimed in at the same moment she touched down beside her dhemon bondheart, “I won’t have anyonetestinga god’s ritual on him.”
Before Whelan could climb onto Oria’s back, Madan hurried to his partner—no, his mate—and wrapped his fingers around the curve of a horn, bringing the dhemon’s perfect face towards his own. “You don’t have to go. Not after—”
“He is my King,” Whelan murmured back and shook his head. “I’m pissed at what he did to you.” His eyes flickered to Madan’s neck, and a fire burned in their depths. “But I also understand that in his right mind, he never would’ve done that.”
“He won’t do it again,” Razer promised, and Madan briefly wondered if the dragon kept Azriel from overhearing their conversation. “We’ve come to an understanding.”
Oria’s interest piqued. “Is that so?”
Images of Razer throwing Azriel into the air and letting him plummet down deep valleys before being caught again flashed through Madan’s mind. His brother, trapped in a circle of endless dragonfire, popped up next. The dragon literally shoving him into a cave and sitting in front of the only exit as he taunted him followed.
Madan couldn’t help but laugh despite himself. Of all the dragons, Razer was the one who would actually act on each of those threats, and there was no doubt in his mind that Azriel knew it, even if he pretended his bondheart wouldnever.
Giving Whelan’s horn another tug, they both refocused on each other. “You come back to me.”
“Alhija…” Whelan pressed his lips to Madan’s. When he drew back, his lips curled into that heartstopping smile. “I would crawl back from the depths of the Underworld for you”
Without giving Madan a chance to reply, Whelan stepped away and swung up onto Oria’s back. He adjusted the sword strapped to his back, winked down at Madan, and disappeared behind his bondheart’s wing as she launched them both after Azriel.
Madan watched as Oria’s deep green scales caught the earliest signs of morning light before flickering out of sight over the trees. Their respective vinculums tying them together had him aching to follow, but he knew better than to call Brutis back from his post flying over Lake Cypher just to turn around and expect him to go into battle. The dragon was exhausted and had to keep Almandine close by in case Ariadne needed to communicate out.
“We need to move quickly,” Phulan said. Her words dragged his attention back to the present, to where she had the ingredients they’d gathered dancing through the air around her. Each item—black leaves from the Keonis Tree, Anwenja’s spring water, the moonlight flower petals—turned on a current of unseen magic as her amethyst eyes swept over the page again and again. “Help me, boy.”
Stepping past Emillie to look back at the page he’d scribbled on, Madan grimaced and shut his eyes tight, trying to summon the words from the page that he hadn’t yet gotten to write down. “We know it’s a tattoo.”
“But which parts need to be together?” Luce pressed.
He shook his head, opening his eyes again. “All of them?”
Zeke raised a brow at him. “You need to be more specific. How much of each?”
“It didn’t say!” Madan gestured at the page. “This was most of it. All we’re missing is…” He reread his words and cursed under his breath.
“Is what?” Emillie asked, pushing up next to him to read it.
Glaring at the sky, Madan shook his head. “Is the incantation to evoke Keon.”
To his utmost surprise, Luce laughed. When he turned to her, incredulous, he realized with a jolt of shock that her laughter was actual mirth—not her usual disdain, to which he’d grown accustomed over the past few nights. She stepped forward, rolling her shoulders back as though preparing for a fight.
“There is no one way to evoke a god,” she said to him before turning to Haen and Pol. “Make the leaves and petals into a paste.”
Without question, they used their fae magic to pluck the two items from Phulan’s rotation. The mage’s eyes lit up in surprise as they did as they were instructed, without batting an eye, turning their respective ingredients into floating pools of sludge. While they worked, Luce took in the rest of what Madan had written.
“Phulan,” Luce said, “add the springwater slowly until it’s the consistency of…well…”
“Ink?” The mage’s lips curled with amusement, and she nodded. “Very well.”
The water shifted through the open space between them, picking up the leaf and petal pastes and weaving them together as Luce spoke, “Silve, grant me grace as I call upon Keon, Lord of the Underworld and God of the Damned, for his children. Father of Dhemons, hear me.”
Madan held his breath as the magic-wielders worked together, combining each ingredient with care. He opened his mouth to ask how they would know if Keon listened, but Emillie jabbed her elbow into his ribs and gave him a single shake of her head.
“Hear us all,” Luce continued, the excitement in her eyes never dimming. “Come forth as we honor you with this ancient practice. Let us reignite the hearth fire that links our worlds so that we may shepherd your children back to the light cast upon us by you and cherished Anwen, the Mother.”
