Gods and stars. That’s what Neri meant when he said to tellhimthat hedidsave me. He wasn’t speaking of Colden. He must’ve made a deal with Alexus—his freedom from Alexus’s prison in exchange for my safety.
The prince sets his eyes on Rhonin and Hel. “And oh, how I wanted this God Knife once I knew it existed. And now I have it, no thanks to you two, thief and spy.” His gaze slides to Colden. “Then there’s the infamous Frost King. A pawn in a game I plan to win.” He arches a brow. “I want you, too, though I sense no power inside you anymore. Just useless immortality.” There’s a pause, that same tension between them pulsing wild. “What’s the point in living forever if you’re boring?” the prince says. “Do you even have skill?”
Colden scoffs, a deadly grin forming on his face. He stands rigid, ready to lunge at any moment. “Let Nephele go, and I’ll show you just how much skill I still have, you pathetic piece of shit.”
The prince laughs and jerks Nephele’s head back. “I can’t do that because, you see, I need power. The mage whose life has fed me for quite some time is fading quickly. I require a new source of life. It could’ve been one of my own.” He glares at Alexus again. “Un Drallag, the mighty Eastland sorcerer, would’ve provided enough power to make me something next to a god. Sadly, all that magick is dormant for now. Isn’t it, Alexi of Ghent?”
Alexus clenches his jaw. “It won’t be asleep forever, know that, and when it awakes, I swear you’re going to regret ever coming here—if you even live through this night.”
Damn it. There’s not enough power in any of us to keep this moment from escalating.
“I need a source of life who’s young,” the prince says. “Someone who will thrive longer than the old mage. Someone with enough magick in her veins to enchant an entire forest.” The prince looks down at Nephele, caresses her unmarked cheek with the God Knife. “Don’t even pretend that vast magick wasn’t all mostly you.”
Heart hammering, I take a step. The prince’s mage is dying, which means the eastern lord is in a weakened state. HeneedsNephele—not just later, butnow.
I peer into my sister’s soul. The threads of her life glimmer golden, but a bloody infection creeps along their edges.
He’s siphoning her magick. He’s going to tangle the vibrant threads of her life with his poisoned, decaying tatters, use her up until she’s nothing but a shell chained to a stone table in a tower or a disregarded husk of spirit floating in the night sky.
I cannot let that happen.
The prince’s eyes are on Nephele, but her wide and steady gaze locks on me. After all these years, I can still read her face, but I refuse to answer the stern glint in her watery stare, the pinched determination in her mouth. She’s telling me to end her so that he cannot use her.
But I just got her back. Over my dead body will I lose her again. We’re smarter than this. Better. Stronger.
Faster.
With a slight shake of my head, I arch my brow and let my thoughts radiate from my face to give her a warning. I’ve been stealthy all my life, and my aim is sharp, so I slip the tiny dagger from the loop at my waist and bolt toward her, leaping over bodies, my arm primed for a throw.
In that sliver of a moment, so many things happen. Hel screams my name, and Alexus reaches for me. His fingertips slip off the bloody fabric at my elbow.
I fling the blade down the path with all my strength.
The Prince of the East looks up. Leans left. Flares his shadows.
My blade sails right through them, then he and Nephele vanish in a plume of red smoke.
The crimson shadows remain, though, and I’m moving too fast to stop. They fling out, monstrous tentacles latching onto me.
An arm clamps around my waist, yanking me to a halt. Whoever has hold of me twists, trying to pull me in the other direction, but the shadows wrap around my ankles and tear me away, slamming me to the earth, knocking the wind from my chest.
When I look up, Colden’s wild stare meets mine. After everything—after all the nights I lay awake thinking of how I would one day kill him—the Frost King tried to save me.
Scarlet shadows whirl up and fall, wrapping around him like a fist, dragging him toward a blood-colored cloud. In a blink, he disappears.
There’s a hard tug on my body, and I dig my fingers into the ash-covered path at the exact moment that Alexus runs and slides, calling my name, reaching for my hand.
But I’m sucked away into a red mist.
There’s nothing. Nothing but darkness. My murky vision corrects—ortriesto correct—the blurry world around me. I blink into focus. The world isn’t blurred; it’s filled with moving shadows.
Wicked pain crawls up the base of my skull. I’m on my hands and knees on black, rocky ground, surrounded by souls, like the husks that floated above the wood. There are thousands, billowing against a dismal, cloudless slate-gray sky. Even if they don’t have eyes, their attention pierces me.
Keeper,they hiss.Seer. Healer. Resurrectionist. Murderer.
Witch.
Beyond them lies a craggy mountain that goes on forever. It’s guarded by a gate, a massive creation, neither steel nor stone, but something my mind can’t give name to.
