His image blurred and took on Lucenna’s face once more. Whoever Dyna spoke to now, it wasn’t the sorceress or her father.
“Why are you here?” she—it—repeated.
Dyna searched the frozen landscape, surrounded by darkness. It didn’t mean this place. She stood on her shaky feet. “I’m here to save my sister.”
“Why are you going to Mount Ida?” Lucenna pressed as she circled her. “Why did you leave your safe village and risk the unknown?”
Dyna frowned. She had already answered those questions. “I left to save my sister.”
A cold smile touched the sorceress’s lips as she leaned in close and hissed in her ear. “Liar.”
A crackling growl sounded within the forest. Two red eyes blazed in the darkness, watching her from the trees. Dyna lurched backward and fell. Her heart thrashed in her chest, crushing the air in her lungs. She crawled on her hands and feet through the snow. Terror seized her as the dark form approached in wisps of smoke and shadow, horns extending from its head. It rose to its full height and shrouded the moonlight. Its molten stare held her prisoner, turning her to ice as tears froze on her cheeks.
She had died this death a hundred times. What was a hundred more?
The Shadow sprang for her in a burst of black, swallowing her screams.
Chapter 22
Cassiel
Cassiel gripped his head as Dyna’s cries rang in the night air, passing over the clearing in a haunting wail. The sound echoed in his mind, and her terror wrenched through his chest. She had been trapped in her nightmares for two days without him there to ease her free. If he could only hold her hand, he could guide her out of it. He had done it before.
He whirled around with mad rage. “Let me go to her!”
The wolf standing guard in front of Lucenna’s tent snarled, baring its glistening teeth. Cassiel moved, but it lowered in a threatening crouch, claws digging into the ground. The werewolf would attack him if he took another step.
“What is the matter with you?” Cassiel snapped. “She needs my blood. Let me heal her.”
Zev growled low and deep, his fur expanding. He’d woken in a feral mood. As soon as he realized what happened at the fjord, he refused to speak to anyone and shifted.
“Her fever has gotten worse, Zev.”
“But why did Lady Dyna not heal herself?” Rawn asked.
Cassiel rubbed the tension from his brow. “She can only use it to heal others, not herself.”
And now the wounds she’d gained by those wretched creatures had become infected. The gash in her knee oozed with foul-smelling puss, the skin around it swelling mottled red and purple.
Lucenna wasn’t knowledgeable in healing magic, and Rawn had already used the last of the Dynalya flower to help her. Cassiel felt like a fool for hesitating to give her his blood, not wanting to cross any further boundaries that she may despise him for. But when her health became worse, Zev refused to let him go near her. He allowed no one inside the tent but Lucenna.
“Is my blood not good enough for her anymore? You thanked me the last time it saved her life. If she dies, the blame will fall with you.”
The wolf snapped its teeth, vibrating with an undeserved fury.
“There, Prince Cassiel.” Rawn took his arm. “Come sit by the fire while we wait.”
He allowed the elf to guide him away to the campfire where Fair rested. The Elvish horse had reunited with them yesterday.
Cassiel sat on a log by the fire and placed his shaking fists on his lap. The flames burned high, but it did nothing to warm his bones. He was so cold—and afraid. Gooseflesh prickled his arms as if the shadow of Death stalked him. No, it hovered over his bond with Dyna.
It was thin and frail.
Everything had gone so completely wrong. He never should have agreed to this stupid detour. But when he had been presented with a chance to right his wrongs, he blindly grasped onto it. All he wanted was to ask the Druid how to free Dyna from their Blood Bond. He thought getting the scales was the answer.
Whatever the reason, it was all for nothing. There were no scales found within the charred corpses left on the fjord, and the ones hidden within those depths were not worth another attempt. Not when his bonded’s screams continued to beat against his skull. A phantom pain lingered deep in his right knee. The sensation had been with him since the grindylows attacked her, but he refused to think about that now.
Cassiel ground his teeth. Overgrown eels, he’d called them. He’d been an arrogant idiot. Those creatures had been vicious monsters, and in such numbers, they never had a chance. Without Dyna, some of them would have died, if not all of them.
