The grail did not appear.
Cyara did not wait for the surprise or disappointment, because she had not expected Percival to be successful. If either of the siblings was capable of earning the grail, it would have been Diana. But the chalice had not come forth—they had not been judged worthy.
The only thing that Cyara felt was panic.
If they were not enough, then she certainly was not. A year ago, she would have felt differently. Before she’d lost her sisters and her father, before the harpy had awoken within her, before the soft, pure parts of her soul had withered away to darkness.
Her mind began to jump ahead. When she failed, she would have no choice but to use the communication crystal and admit to Veyka that she’d disobeyed her orders. She would beg her queen to come here, to this cursed isle. Maybe if she begged, Veyka would listen. Maybe if Veyka understood what her death, her obsession with sacrifice, would mean to those who loved her… maybe she would be willing to try for the grail herself.
Veyka would never regard her the same. But Cyara could bear that shame. She could not bear her friend’s loss.
One hand slid into the pocket sown into her gray tunic, finding the thick shape of the communication crystal and closing around it.
Neither Percival nor Diana had been able to retrieve the grail. Cyara had thought that their witch-blood would give them an advantage, a natural affinity. But maybe the opposite was true. Maybe it would only answer to a non-witch.
Or to someone whose soul had fully descended into darkness.
There was only one way to find out.
“I have poisoned, betrayed, and lied in service of my queen. My first truth is that I do not regret any of it.”
Cyara’s voice shook, but somehow she managed not to trip over the words. That precious elemental calm deserted her completely, replaced by every emotion she’d kept carefully suppressed for the last year. They gnawed their way out, insistent, demanding, until her lips trembled and tears spilled down her cheeks.
“My second is that she did not ask it of me. Every action I have taken has been of my own free will.”
No one had forced her to become the harpy. Gawayn murdered her sisters. But when the harpy awoke inside of her, Cyara had welcomed her. She’d been fire and light her whole life. When the darkness came, she let in willingly.
She lifted one hand—the one that did not clutch the communication crystal—and laid it on canter of the sandstone altar. Her lids lowered until they closed. A thousand truths swam behind her eyes, each more terrible than the last. Each a fragment of a broken soul. But there was only one worth giving.
“I will sacrifice everyone on this island to get the grail and save my queen.”
She felt Percival shove Diana behind him. Heard the woman gasp as the female she’d considered her friend gave voice to the betrayal that had become a part to her. But Cyara did not move.
She did not have to.
The altar did—bathing her in a blast of warmth, lifting her hand.
Cyara did not dare to open her eyes, afraid that what she felt under her fingers was another trick. But the gasps of the two humans told her the truth. The rim she felt beneath her fingers was real.
She opened her eyes to watch her own fingers curl around the grail.
53
GUINEVERE
Too late.The dark lioness ran fast—faster than any two-legged beast, human or fae. Faster than the Brutal Prince’s wolf. The only beings faster were those that ruled the skies. But as her stride stretched out, eating up the mountainous dirt and blurring the scrubby trees around her, she felt certain that even the fastest winged shifters would have struggled to keep up.
She had to be fast, because already it was too late. The succubus had come. A horde of them crawled across the valley, ever closer to the humans and elementals waiting unsuspecting in Eldermist. The patrols did not go this far; they would not see the enemy until they were too close, too late. There was nowhere to run. Through the rift into Baylaur there waited only more death.
The communication crystal—Gwen had to use it now.
Not now. Soon.
She had to know how many. How fast. How soon. She had to get all the information she could, even knowing that it would come too late. Who knew what other horrors Arran and Veyka had encountered in Wolf Bay. If it came to a choice between saving their own realm or the human’s, she could not fault themfor choosing Annwyn. They were its anointed rulers. But Gwen would stay and fight here. She would diehere.
But not just yet. Not until she had the information she needed.
The sand shifted beneath her paws, sending her sliding down the side of the mountain. She turned it to her advantage, let the momentum carry her to the next outcropping of stone, used it to brace her footing, and leapt over the next dune entirely.
