I’d been born fast. All fae were blessed with deadly speed. But I had spent twenty-five years of my life without a single flicker of power in my veins. I’d trained myself to be even faster, even deadlier. A weapon to defend myself. Now, I used that weapon to defend those I loved.
My fingers closed around one throat. A second later, I grabbed an arm, slick with black bile. I dug in my nails and took them with me into the void.
But I did not emerge at a different location in Eilean Gayl. Or Annwyn. Or the human realm.
I brought those monsters back to where they belonged—in hell.
99
CYARA
It took a while to determine where the story began. It was a circle, after all.
But eventually they found it. The upper reaches of the stone that faced the white cliffs depicted two kingdoms at war. One elemental—an upright triangle for fire, an inverted one for water, a bisected one for wind. The other kingdom was represented with curving vines and fierce monsters. The terrestrials. This was the Great War as she had been taught.
But it was only the beginning.
The stones depicted many battles. Outlines that looked like Annwyn. Mountains that could have been the Spine or the ones that bordered the Effren Valley.
Cyara wanted to look at each monolith in detail. Maybe there would be time later. She would have to bring Veyka and Arran here to see the sight for themselves. But for now, they spread out, each taking a stone, moving between them as needed to make sense of things.
Lyrena spoke first, from across the clearing. “I think this is meant to be the Tower of Myda,” she said, tracing her fingersover an engraving. “It stands alone on a flat line, and there are levels inside, just like the ones we fought through.”
Percival cleared his throat a few minutes later. “This is the ceremony we saw in the fire. Three figures—one elemental, one terrestrial.”
Cyara came to look closer. “What about the third?”
He shook his head. “There is only an inverted triangle.”
“The symbol for water,” Cyara murmured. So, the third figure was a water wielder? Why was that important?
Too many pieces. Even her clever mind was struggling to fit them together.
She returned to the stone she had been examining. “Keep looking.”
100
ARRAN
Veyka vanished.
My heart stopped beating.
The pressure in my chest intensified, so suddenly I staggered forward. Got my dagger up just in time to protect myself, but only dealt the succubus a glancing blow.
She was gone.
Away. Not in the void for a second. She’d gone far—farther than ever before.
I was her tether.
I wrapped ever bit of my iron will, my love for my mate, around that golden thread that connected us andyanked.
Veyka crashed into me, hard enough to send us both sprawling.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
She was already rolling to her feet. “If the succubus can come to our realm, there is nothing to stop me from going to theirs and dumping their kind back where they belong.”
