And I’m powerless.
“I know who you are, Un Drallag, and what’s inside you,” the man who must be General Vexx says. “The prince knows, too.”
“That’s impossible.” But obviously, it isn’t.
“You’d be amazed by the tales wraiths are willing to share of their homeland. Like Un Drallag traveling into the Nether Reaches when hemeantto journey to the Empyreal Fields, and coming out with a god weaved into his soul instead. It took the wraith tasting you and entering your memory to be sure it was right about who you were. Itwasthree hundred years ago. The prince sensed something unusual on your lady friend, but once the wraith was certain about you being Un Drallag, it made sure the Prince of the East knew exactly what we were dealing with. The dead tell all, my friend.”
The Prince of the East knows about me. About Neri.
All because of a damned wraith.
The general leans close. “I wonder what storiesyou’llreveal once you cross the Nether Reaches’ dark shores. Because that’s where you’re going. You know that, I’m sure. The prince has a plan, and it does not include your interference, nor does it include Neri being set free. We need him back where he belongs. In the Shadow World. Thankfully, he’s still caged, becauseyousomehow survived the prince.” He jerks up the side of my tunic. “Without any wounds, I might add.”
My mind sticks on two parts of what he just said. When the prince spoke to Raina about needing the thing he sensed on her back where it belongs, he wasn’t talking about the God Knife as I’d believed. He was talking about Neri. He sensed Neri all over Raina because of me.
Second…
“What plan?” Again, I spit blood onto the ground, my mouth beginning to refill instantly.
He smiles, like he knew I’d ask. “The plan for the prince to harness the magick at the City of Ruin. The gods’ remnants must be reunited with their bones. We’ll resurrect them from the Shadow World and keep them contained, all while the prince siphons their power. Their spirits can’t be mucking about all over Loria’s creation, or we’ll never capture them. Which is why we must send Neri back to the Nether Reaches. For now. Thereisa method to the prince’s strategy. Also, we will soon have the Frost King, a way to weaken Fia Drumera. The citadel will fall, the Prince of the East will claim the Grove of the Gods, and Tiressia’s broken empire will have one all-powerful ruler.”
“One ruler with the power of Thamaos, Neri, Asha, and Urdin?” I say mockingly. “Are you so foolish as to think that this is possible? And even if it somehow is, that it’s wise?”
I figured the prince wanted to raise Thamaos from the dead, but notallof Tiressia’s gods, and certainly not because he thought he could rule them. How the fuck does the prince think he’s going tocontainfour gods? What an utterly ignorant notion.
“I’m no fool,” Vexx replies. “A fool would believe that Tiressia can thrive divided. The prince means to unify the lands.”
I spit blood again and force a laugh. “Or so he tells you. Power corrupts, and he’s already corrupted as it is. If he manages this, and I can’t imagine how he can, what do you think he will become without limits?”
After a weighted moment, the man stands, ignoring my last words.
“Get him up. Let’s find the woman and get this over with, once and for all.” Only half-seeing, I spot the red-haired man—Rhonin—striding my way. With the camp and Vexx at his back, he reaches into his collar and pulls something from behind his bronze leather jacket. Something that dangles from a thick chain around his neck.
Our stares meet, and he winks.
An iron key.
“If this was a favor,” I whisper, “don’t ever help me again.”
Rhonin lets a smile tempt his mouth, but then he kills it and stuffs the key back to its hiding spot. He and a woman grab me beneath my arms and haul me to my feet.
Nearly choking from the iron band around my throat, I vomit on the snow. It’s impossible not to once the world tilts. I don’t know how many times Vexx kicked me or what he did to my knee, but he made certain that I wouldn’t forget him.
And I won’t.
Some warriors keep their seats near the fire while others take up swords or hatchets. A few reach for torches that lie tossed in a pile. Most of the pine knots have burned down to half their original size, but they’re the very ones the Eastlanders used in the vale. They’ve been conserving.
They set the torches alight in the campfire’s flames, hand one off to General Vexx, and a small band of us walk, Vexx leading the way. His tall, slender form moves like a phantom, his ashen hair whipping in the wind, blending into the wintry landscape.
If I survive this, I’ll have his head.
With Rhonin at my side, we make the trek in silence, save for the awful clangor of my chains. The snow muffles the sound when I stumble, which is nearly every step, thanks to the sharp pain stabbing my knee. My chains are burdensome, but I’m no god and thankfully feel no burning agony searing my skin. There’s only an unsettling vibration in my chest, a trapped windstorm whirling around my heart.
I summon energy, my magick,anything, but the iron smothers Neri’s power to ashes and my magick along with it. After all these years, the two are so entwined that I can hardly tell them apart anymore.
There are eleven warriors and their general—if I don’t count Rhonin—headed to find Raina. I’ve no means to fight them. No recourse. And they know it. There isn’t an ounce of trepidation in their midst as I’m led deeper into the ravine toward the caves.
Eventually, the smell of woodsmoke tints the air. I force myself not to react, but it doesn’t matter. Vexx throws up a fist, nose to the wind, and we come to a halt.
