At the snap of Cassiel’s fingers, seraph flames erupted around the Celestial. He burst into ash instantly. So fast, there was no time to scream. Nothing was left but a few cerulean embers and scorch marks in the earth.
Dyna’s chest heaved with a shuddering breath.
He executed him.
Without hesitation.
“How did that one slip through the perimeter?” Cassiel asked, his voice a low growl, laced with a wrath that sent shivers down her spine. It was the same voice she heard from him in Hermon when he discovered the bruise on her shoulder. His glowing eyes fixed on the tree branches above him. Dyna squinted at the spot, but it was too dark to see who he spoke to. “Have the others tighten patrols. I don’t care how many assassins the Valkyrie have stopped. No threat should ever come this close to her.”
Cassiel paused as he listened to a reply. The croak of frogs and the leaves rustling in the breeze muffled whoever answered. Who was he speaking to? Dyna would have assumed Sowmya, but the way he spoke seemed to imply they weren’t part of the Valkyrie unit.
“There is no telling how many were sent after her,” he said. “They won’t cease until they succeed in taking her life, or until I take all of theirs.”
Ice sank into her veins. The menacing statement made Dyna’s heart race, and she was suddenly wary of her surroundings. They could have struck now, and she wouldn’t have noticed. Someone had tried to strike tonight. How many more had come to kill her without her knowing?
Dyna inched closer to hear them better.
“I doubt she would turn back now, more so at my protest. Continue to watch over her and—” Cassiel cut off at a response she missed, and he laughed shortly, the sound weary and frustrated. “No, she wouldn’t believe me. Not anymore.”
Another pause.
He rubbed his face and scowled up at the branches. “Would it change anything if I told her the truth? Or would I condemn her to a life of paranoia and fear?”
There it was. The secret behind everything.
Dyna sensed it hanging in the air, on the tip of his tongue. She inched forward, desperate to hear it.
“Enough,” Cassiel snapped sharply, making her halt. “Do not speak of this again. There are things that should stay in the past, and this is one of them. I will not subject her to that torture. She has suffered enough.”
He still didn’t learn.
Even when Cassiel had the chance to make things right, he still chose to keep his secrets. If he didn’t trust her with the truth, how could she ever begin to trust him again?
Retreating into the shadows, Dyna turned back. Perhaps she should have confronted Cassiel, but she chose to walk away.
From him and any possibility of them.
CHAPTER 57
Rawn
Before Rawn opened his eyes, he knew where he was. The arid, warm air felt suffocating against his skin. It dried out his lungs and coated his mouth with sand. Thirst clamped his throat, making him cough. He winced at the pain throbbing in his jaw.
He didn’t want to look. Because he knew when he opened his eyes, he would no longer see the waters of Naiads Mere, but the barren sands of the end.
Rawn had to blink several times to clear his vision. Elon sat across from him, his hands and ankles bound in chains and with a blackened eye. His amber gaze had fixed on something past the bars with dread on his face.
“We are here…” Elon said under his breath.
Those three words sent a chill through Rawn. He gathered his nerve and looked up at the Erdas Mountains, which marked the border of Red Highland. The sharp peaks rose like red fangs against the sunset, lipped by a massive wall of stone the color of clay.
“The West Wall…” Rawn rasped, his eyes growing wide.
That meant they were in the Covenant Pass between Red Highland and Greenwood. A barren stretch of land with nothing but rock and sand. The only place elves were protected beneath the law of immunity granted by the covenant between their kingdoms.
“Don’t look,” Elon warned next, but Rawn couldn’t restrain himself.
He turned to the east, catching a hazy glimpse of another wall on the horizon. Constructed of gray stone, coated in a hint of green. He might have cried if not for not for his thirst.
