The thread pulsed.
My vision blurred.
The world dimmed at the edges.
My fire guttered out completely.
“Aurelia!” Slade roared—but it wasdistant.
Heliconia lifted her hand, fingers glowing with stolen power. “Goodnight, Summer ember.”
This is it.
My consciousness slipped. The floor groaned beneath me as frost crept up my arms.
“Rydian,” I breathed. Not a call, not a spell—just a thought. A prayer.
The pressure shifted.
The room filled with smoke.
No, not smoke at all. Shadow.
A cyclone of shadows ripped through the aisle, tearing apart Heliconia’s frost as if it were made of vapor. Chandeliers overhead rattled violently. Courtiers screamed, hurling themselves against the walls.
Heliconia’s siphon against me finally broke—violently—sending a backlash of power crashing through me like lightning. I choked, collapsing sideways.
Night pressed in from all angles, swallowing torchlight, swallowing sound.
A nightmare come to life.
And at its center, cloaked in shadows like a god of horrors?—
Rydian.
Shadows burst from him in a violent shockwave, spiraling up columns, along the ceiling, ripping through frost and ice.
He moved before anyone could breathe.
In a single motion, he lunged, grabbed me by the waist, and yanked me backward into his shadows just as Heliconia’s killing strike slammed into the marble where I’d been kneeling.
The floor exploded.
Heliconia screamed her frustration. More ice flew at us, but Rydian didn’t stop. He wrapped me in his coat, pulling me against his chest. His heartbeat thundered against mycheek—alive, alive, ALIVE—and the room vanished behind swirling darkness.
We reformed ten yards away, halfway behind a pillar.
Air rushed back into my lungs in a violent gasp.
His shadows flared, roaring around us in a vortex that made silk banners tear free of their mounts.
He cupped the back of my head, forcing my face up. “Breathe.”
“I—I can’t?—”
“Yes, you can.” His voice was hard steel and rough edges. “Look at me.”
I did.
