Erwin?I croak through the pack link.
His answering silence echoes as loudly as Cian’s the night Lorcan allowed him to pass to the next realm. Where my brother had desired nothing more than to die, Erwin just found his mate and is about to become a father.
Please let it be an illusion.
Please let it be a spell.
Home!Lorcan roars.We fly home, now!
The Crows rise like smoke toward the stars.
Imogen swoops over me, then under.Where’s Zendaya?
What do you mean,where is she?I twist my head.She’s on my?—
My mate isn’t on my back. How could I not have felt her weight vanish? Fucking,how?! Did she fall off? Did she jump off? She may be immortal, but a fall from this height…
Daya?I roar, whirling on myself, my feverish gaze scrolling over the dark land.Daya!I shout again, before yelling at Lorcan to draw back his clouds so I can fucking see something.
But Lorcan doesn’t listen, and land and sky keep trembling.
I dive through his thickening clouds, only to spot him doing the same.Lore?
He turns toward me, his golden stare lambent like the lightning-veined night, but that isn’t what arrests me…
Where’s Fallon?
She vanished. Just…vanished. And now she’s not… She’s not…
I’ll go find them. You stay up here.
My mate is down there, Cathal. Not up here! Down. There!He dives.
I arrow past him, then swerve into his path. He breaks into his five crows and streaks around me.
Lorcan Ríhbiadh!I rage.Our obsidian curse may be a thing of the past, but if they turn you into a forever-Crow, it’ll probably affect us all.I’llgo find our mates.I’llbring them home.
Immy and I will stay with him, Cathal,Aoife says.Please be careful.
Propelled by razor-sharp raindrops, I dash back toward the land, toward the eight petals of stone that shape my mate’s palace. Except…except they’re gone.
So is the moat.
The scooped land.
The Shadow Forest.
The fortified walls.
The whole of Shabbe isgone.
Did Lorcan drown the queendom, or is this the Cauldron’s punishment?
My mate’s a Serpent. Water is her element. But what of my daughter?
Daya?I rasp.Where are you? Is Fallon with you?
I can’t have lost her again. I can’t have lost my child. Not again.
