VEYKA
Wait.
I’d never been a patient female. But what Arran asked was nearly impossible. It could not have been more than a few minutes, but each one felt like a century as Gwen and I stood on opposite sides of a continent but separated by mere feet. Both of us listening to the screams of our people.
A clash of metal echoed through the corridor beyond Gwen. She tracked it, head tilting to the side as her eyes scanned what I could not see. The rift I’d opened was like looking through a doorway. I could see directly behind Gwen, but the peripherals were mostly obscured.
Voices—unrecognizable, but discernably male. More metal, an entire cascade of it. The heavy clunk of furniture crashing down. Screams.
Then silence.
Gwen’s shoulders twitched, but she did not flinch. Two days, she’d said. Two days she’d spent fighting. The sounds of death must mean nothing to her now. If she let them shake her, I doubted she’d still be standing.
And I couldn’t fight. If I ran to the aide of those voices, the rift would close behind me. Would I be able to be open it again? It had taken me months to learn how to control the void, to move through it with purpose and to eventually bring others with me. But I did not have months to hone this new power. The passageway was open now. I could not risk closing it.
I could already feel the tension building within my body. The cost of my magic had already been paid with Arthur’s death, but that did not make wielding it easy. Maybe one day, I would open rifts like this with the same ease I now moved through the void. But now, when it was most important, it took nearly all of my concentration to simply hold the way open.
I could not fight with my blades, not yet. But I could arm Gwen with information. “They are called the succubus.”
Her golden eyes snapped to mine, widening as she incorporated the information.
The Great War, my void power and its role in the return of the succubus—those were nuances for another time.
Behind me, the music slipping from Eilean Gayl ceased. Arran had command of the great hall.
If Gwen could hear the change, she did not show it. “What else?”
Excalibur’s swirled blade glinted in the white light emanating from the spiraled edges of the rift. “Amorite is the only way to kill them.”
That earned a response. Gwen’s golden eyes widened slightly, her gaze dropping from my face to the weapon in my hand. We’d known it was special, even before we realized why. But now, Excalibur and its brothers could be the difference between surviving the succubus or succumbing to the darkness.
Another crash from behind Gwen. Closer, now. But her stance held firm.
“We’ve been using fire,” she said.
“It will hold them back but only for a time.” And it was a weapon that only the elementals had at their disposal. There were dozens of fire-wielders in the elemental court, Cyara’s family among them.
My heart twisted but I refused to let myself ask. The strain of holding the rift was growing, a low ache settling in my limbs. If I lost control of my emotions it might collapse in on itself entirely.
“I am well aware,” Gwen said.
Of course, she was. Two days since the goldstone palace descended into chaos. But that said nothing of how long it had been under attack.
Guilt clawed its way up my throat.
I should have been there to defend my court. I should have opened the rift sooner, or taken myself through the void, if only to tell them about the amorite. Help could have come sooner. More might have lived.
I wanted to press my eyes closed, to try to quell that internal battle warring to life inside my soul. But I did not have that luxury. As I blinked into Gwen’s gaze, I knew she understood.
The conversation turned silent. Not like Arran and I, speaking into one another’s minds through the golden connection of our mating bond. Gwen and I exchanged sorrows that needed no words to be understood.
Then Arran was back—and not alone.
“Veyka…” Cyara breathed, her voice laced with shock, thick with the emotions she so rarely lost control over.
“Is that the goldstone palace?” Lyrena whispered, her voice utterly humorless. No doubt Arran had given them some explanation, but hearing and seeing were unequivocally different prospects. Even I could not quite believe what my power had done. What I was still doing.
“Form the lines,” Arran ordered from my periphery. “Lyrena at the front.” Because of her fire. “Those with amorite blades on the perimeter. No matter what happens, hold your formation.”
