“Good girl,” Vexx says to me. He stands with Hel, craning her head back at a painful angle against his shoulder. The God Knife’s tip is pressed to her throat, ready to open a vein. She’s alive, for now, and that sends a trickle of hope through me.
The general thrusts his chin at two of his warriors. “Must I tell you every time? Weapons. Hold her. And somebody check the cave.”
They kick away my only defense and bend my arms behind me. One of the now-dead Eastlanders that Vexx’s warriors are about to find had managed to stab my arm. With my biceps wrenched like this, I can’t help but cringe from the pain.
“Raina!”
I follow Alexus’s deep voice, and our gazes meet. He stands closer to the bottom of the ravine, straining against iron binds while warriors hold him at bay. Iron stifles godly power—Neri’s power. I don’t know what that means for Alexus’s magick, but if he could access it, he would’ve already done so.
The general releases Hel and sheathes the God Knife at his hip, watching me closely as he moves my way. Behind him, two women take hold of Hel, forcing her to her knees.
Vexx isn’t an overly large man, not much taller than Hel, but his presence is like that of a rising storm over the vale, something I feel more and more the closer he gets. His eyes hold a deathly gleam, sharp and silver as a sword’s edge, and his stone-like face—with its weathered skin—has seen many battles, decorated with the scars to prove it.
“All of this”—the general gestures to the Eastlander-dotted hillside—“is because of you and your friend.” He angles his head, staring at me past the falling snow like he’s puzzling me out. “A Witch Walker who can’t speak and can’t sing. That must’ve made you quite the disappointment among your people.”
“Youpig!” Hel shouts, wriggling against the woman pressing her down. “She has more magick?—”
I stop her with a warning glare that could cut ice.
Vexx laughs, curiosity glinting in his eyes. “Oh, does she, now? Interesting.” He pushes my hair aside and trails a fingertip down my neck and along my collarbone, tracing my witch’s marks.
After a moment, he seems to slip that nugget of information to the back of his mind, then he grabs me by my hair and forces me down the hill. Behind me, the horses nicker and Hel grunts, likely enduring the same fate as me.
We’re heading straight for Alexus.
Gods, I want to run to him. His eye is swollen shut, and bloody blooms speckle his dirty tunic. He stands at an odd tilt, like something is wrong with his leg.
Vexx and I are two strides away from the bottom of the ravine when the whole world flickers. It’s like the light in a room at night, when a draft has kissed a candle flame.
The snow stops falling, Vexx stops walking, and we all look up. Hel said a storm was coming, but this is no storm.
Like before, when Alexus and I entered the ravine, white lightning splinters the sky without a single sound. This time, there are a thousand jagged arcs of light shattering the red-tinted atmosphere, spreading like cracks through thin glass. That constant feeling of the construct’s magick, the sensation that’s been with me for days now, disintegrates, and the glaring light of day breaks through.
A cheer erupts from the Eastlanders, but it takes several moments for my eyes to adjust and my mind to absorb what’s happening.
What’shappened.
My stomach sinks. Is Nephele under attack? Is that why she and the Witch Walkers couldn’t hold out any longer?
“It’s about damn time,” Vexx says. “This little expedition is all but over now.”
I don’t get a single moment to bask in the warmth of the sun before Vexx shoves me forward, still holding onto my hair. His elation is evident in his quicker footsteps and the tightening of his grip, the pain and sudden sunlight making my eyes water.
I trip and fall, and a hunk of my hair rips from the roots before I land in the snow. Someone—who is not Vexx—hoists me up, pinning my wrists at my back. I shake my head, trudging forward, blinking away the snow from my lashes.
And just like that, I’m standing there, panting, an arm’s length from Alexus.
The light of day brutally illuminates his injuries, and my body aches to be near his. The chains holding him bound are so solid and thick that I don’t know how he’s still standing.
The way he looks at me almost ends me. I see his fear, and I know it isn’t for himself.
It’s for me.
“I’m so sorry, Raina.”
I shake my head, hoping he knows I don’t blame him. I just want to be back in that cave, curled with him near the fire, listening to his stories.
Gods, I wish I’d never let him leave.
