Bile rose in my throat too quickly for me to stop it, andit was all I could do not to splatter my boots as I bent over and heaved.
Sorsha’s nostrils flared, but the princess was an immovable pillar of fury.
“Why?” I choked, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve. There was no reason — no explanation for the sort of evil at work here — and yet, my mind still groped for understanding.
She shook her head. “Alfrigg is determined to eradicate the Drathen people. He believes the Euroshean fae are the pure ones. Chosen by the gods.” Her voice wavered on the last few words, and I knew she must be thinking of her mother.
“These are my people,” she murmured, her eyes shining with tears. “It doesn’t matter who sits on the throne. It is my duty to protect them.” Her bottom lip quivered. “And I havefailed.”
“You were exiled,” I reminded her gently.
Sorsha shook her head. “I have stayed where my uncle put me out of fear. Cowardice.”
“You aren’t a coward.”
“I failed them, Lyra.” Her jaw clenched. “But I will not fail them again.”
“What do we do?” I asked, my stomach roiling as I beheld the carnage.
The destruction was unimaginable. There was no telling if any villagers had survived the massacre. Any who hadn’t been slaughtered must have fled down the mountain. And the slain . . . There were too many to bury.
But more than the need to lay the dead to rest, I felt a thrum of warning in my veins.
The bodies were fresh, the homes still smoldering. Thisattack had been recent, which meant Alfrigg’s troops were likely still nearby. Perhaps flying to —
“Bijult,” I breathed, terror clawing its way up my throat. “Kaden . . . Adriel. We have to warn them.”
Sorsha blanched, and I closed my eyes, searching desperately for the once brilliant golden thread that linked us. I hadn’t felt even a shred of connection from Kaden since the Demon Woods, but it was the only way I could think to deliver our message quickly.
I found the thread tangled among the thorny brambles that wound around my mind. As before, it felt cold and lifeless in my hands, the connection either dormant or broken. Still, I had to try.
Cautiously, I reached down our mental pathway, feeling it hum beneath my touch. So it wasn’t broken.
Heartened by that realization, I sent a surge of my own essence down the thread, hoping he would answer.
A pulse of what was unmistakably Kaden surged down the bond, and I mentally opened the pathway between us.
The second I did, an electric jolt seemed to course into my mind. I hissed.
Kaden, I growled.I need to?—
But then the connection between us seemed to yawn wider, and I was gripped by a sudden, searing pain.
It wasn’t coming from Kaden. At least, I didn’t think it was. It seemed to be emanating from the golden thread itself, and I released it with a yelp.
My knees slammed into the earth as I fell, fighting the bolts of agony that were still pulsing through me. Though I’d released the thread, it hadn’t let go of me. The pain held me in an iron grip, my temples searing as though someone were stabbing my skull with a white-hot poker.
Distantly, I became aware of Sorsha crouching in front of me, but I couldn’t seem to free myself from the bond.
Belting out a furious yell, I wound my thicket of vines tighter around it, choking the thread until the pulsing ceased and the outside world came rushing back.
I was kneeling in a street blanketed in ash, the scent of burned flesh clogging my airways.
“Lyra?” Sorsha’s voice was panicked, her wide turquoise eyes staring into my own.
“I-I’m fine,” I choked. “But Kaden —” I shook my head.
This didn’t feel the way it had when he’d been trapped in Dorthus and I’d sensed his pain. That time, I’d experienced what he was feeling in disjointed flashes, as if he’d lost control of what he was sending down our shared mental pathway.
