A low growl rumbles through the trees, and I spot the gleaming, yellow eyes. The carnoraxis are here.
Around us, the veil shatters.
Nadya gasps, stumbling to her knees. The cloak collapses around us like smoke torn apart. The beasts scent us instantly, their snarls splitting the storm.
“Run!” Giorgi barks.
I grab Nadya’s hand and help her up.
We surge forward, running for our lives—but one shadow stays behind.
Sir Holden holds his stance, a heavy brow lowered.
“No!” I choke out, spinning.
He meets my eyes. For a moment, the battlefield noise falls away. His lips curve, not quite a smile, but something gentler. “It has been my privilege,” he says, voice calm even as the beasts prowl nearer, “to serve as your Royal Ward.”
My throat burns. “Don’t—”
But he’s already moving. He charges the carnoraxis with a cry that splits the night, drawing them after him, his blade flashing silver against their dark hides. They swarm, teeth and claws and shadows—but he holds them, buying us seconds. Seconds we can’t waste.
I’m being pulled forward. Tears streak my face as we race toward the cliffs. Dante’s weight drags heavy on Mylo’s shoulders, Aila stumbles beside me, Nadya clutches my hand like a lifeline. We carry on. Because we have to. Because it’s the only way to honor the man who stayed behind.
ChApter
Sixty-One
We follow Giorgi’s lead through thickets and frostbitten branches, down an incline where the snow grows deeper and the air heavier. Mylo grunts with every step, Dante limp against his shoulder.
Sir Donovan’s death weighs on me, his grim resolve still etched in memory, but it is Sir Holden who breaks me. His face, his voice, the way he met my eyes before turning into the dark, choosing to die so the rest of us might live. He was the steady one, the kind one, the knight who never doubted me, always on my side through everything, even when Torbin lashed out at me. He was my shield long before this night, and now he is gone. The ache claws at my chest until I can barely breathe.
But I cannot let my sorrow claim me. Not in this moment. His sacrifice demands more than my tears; it demands that I keep moving, that I carry his faith in me forward. So I bury the grief deep, force it down with every step, and let it harden into resolve.
I can’t lose anyone else.
My eyes go instinctively to Dante. He hasn’t stirred once.
I can’t stop looking at him—at the pale set of his mouth, the bruises at his throat, the blood dried at his temple, the bloody wounds on hisbody. The way his hair clings to his skin, damp with sweat and soot.
He gave everything to save me. He was willing to fight for my freedom.
And now I don’t know if he’ll ever wake again.
I still don’t know what happened in the arena, but I can only guess that the seer—Dante’s mother, if I heard him correctly—took the last breaths of Torbin’s life and pushed them into Dante. Because he’s still alive. But alive doesn’t mean awake.
“We’re here,” Giorgi calls in a low voice.
The cave opening looms ahead, black stone choked in hemlock and frozen moss. It isn’t a wide opening, but it’s deep and swallowed in shadow. The sound of rushing water echoes within, cold and fast and merciless.
The air is thick with the bitter scent of hemlock—numbing, dizzying. My lungs ache just breathing it in. I cover my mouth with my cloak as the others do the same.
“We need to stay low,” my uncle warns. “The air will clear once we’re deeper. And mind the water.”
He gestures to the small, black boat tied to a wooden post in the tunnel, frost cohering to the edges. There’s just enough room for all of us—barely.
As we file in, Nadya and I slide into the rear of the boat, still holding hands.
“I’ve got you,” Nadya whispers.
