I dumped the tea leaves and smashed the porcelain dish that held them on the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces, cracking the tile beneath it as well. A sliver of satisfaction curled my lips. But I did not have time to savor it. Breaking the dish was a necessary risk. If there were guards posted outside the bathhouse, they would have surely heard it. Fae senses were even sharper than those of witches.
I brushed through the shards, finding the largest and sharpest, a curved slice of porcelain that resembled a crescent moon. Without hesitation, I drove it into the pale, vulnerable flesh on the inside of my forearm.
Blood welled up instantly, bright and thick. I half expected it to be frozen. But it trickled down the side of my arm, then flowed as I dug the shard of porcelain deeper. I did not have time to waste on a clean cut. I was too focused to feel the pain, anyway.
I stepped to the edge of my cell, dropped the makeshift knife, and cupped my hand beneath the wound. I collected my own blood until it filled my palm. I could not step over the line, I needed enough…
The scent filled my nostrils, drawing me right back to the blood fountain in the temple. The Seven Gates—specifically, the Mercy Gate, the first. Where it had all begun. Janessa’s bloody death with the fae-made diadem. The same one I’d seen on the fae woman’s head in the gorge after the Memory Gate.
I flung my hand out. My blood splattered the floor, creating a line of crimson across the tiles, across the line of tinted salt, and over it.
My body tried to pause, warning me to be wary. But now was not the time for caution. I reached out and toed my foot right up to the line of salt, through the blood, waiting for the invisible force of Maura’s spell to push me back. My toe touched the first granule of salt, then I pushed through where my blood had stained the already pink granules even darker, my chest seizing, bracing for the impact of pain.
And then my foot was outside the cell.
My sister witch’s blood had been used to create the spell that modified the salt’s power, allowing me to move within the cell. Her blood had also been used in my resurrection. We were bound by covenants of blood. Which meant my blood was enough to alter the power of the spell—and provide a way out.
I expected the flood of power. I sucked in a breath as I kicked aside the salt to make a wider path and stepped free of the cell. Frost flooded every sense, cold and frigid, and oh so welcome. I’d spent so much time hating my power and the lack of control I had over it. But its absence had ached. I knew that if I looked down, I’d see whorls of frost dancing over the acres of pale skin left bare by my meager shift.
But I did not look down. All of my attention shifted inward, to where a sensation of light and warmth bloomed inside my chest. It should have been at odds with the frost spreading through my body, but it sang with harmony and rightness, filling the hollow ache.
It felt… familiar.
I took my first truly deep breath since waking.
Isanara.
CHAPTER 8
KORYN
You’re injured!Isanara cried.
I’d expected her first words to ring with accusation, but not quite like that. The sound of her high-pitched voice was so dear that tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and my frost didn’t even have the courtesy to freeze them in place before they escaped and trickled down my cheeks.
Did they hurt you?
My shift did not have pockets, but I’d managed a belt by tearing off a few inches around the hem. I shoved the large shard of porcelain into it, still slick with my blood. My power was my best weapon, but I wasn’t going to abandon anything that might be of use. The four-leaf clover was secured at the end of the makeshift belt in a tiny pouch I’d fashioned by looping and knotting the fabric.
Isanara scoffed.As if they could. Have you seen my claws?
They could,I said bluntly. I’d spent too many hours imagining the ways. But they hadn’t.Where are you?
They tried to keep me in darkness. As if my eyes face the same puny limitations as their own.
Wherever she was, there were no windows. An interior room in the palace somewhere? That seemed unlikely. Any room bigenough to hold her would have windows. She was nowhere near as large as the tales I’d read about full-grown dragons, but she was too big to shove in a broom closet. Unless…
Can you extend your wings?I asked.
Yes, she huffed, already annoyed with me.
The space between the ring of salt and the edge of the nearest pool was no bigger than the width of my hand. I threw my arms out to either side, walking carefully but as quickly as I could manage. No guards had appeared through the single archway exit. Either there were none—Maura’s hubris—or they’d run for help. Fae cowards.
Still, I exhaled a breath when I reached the end of the rectangle outlined in salt and stepped onto the wide, solid path of tile.
Tell me everything you can about where you’re being held.I tried to soften the command, knowing how she loved to be told what to do.I am coming for you.
Pride that did not belong to me surged through my chest.
