Steam shot up through cracks in the ground, its power sending them flying, landing on their backs. Long splinters of rocks fell, missing them by inches. Boiling water sprinkled them.
Christ!Leya groaned, pain strumming through her. Every bone in her body hurt.
As if the boiling water and projectiles weren’t enough, massive flames shot up from the wide opening in the ground, brightening the immense belly of the cave.Oh, shit!She gaped at the missiles. Rocks fused with iron had embedded near her head. They could have been impaled several times over!
“Leya?” Aerén rasped.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she croaked, able to see him now in the orange glow of the flares. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” He grimaced, dragging himself to a seated position. “Maybe an underwater volcano. And a trap, with all the damn iron in the rocks raining down. I didn’t even sense the danger.”
“We’re still breathing is what matters.” She scrambled to her knees and crawled to him. He was bleeding from cuts to his dust-covered face.
“Fuck.” He gingerly pressed on his shut eyelids. “The damn flare nearly blinded me—”
“What?”
“I’m okay. Need a minute.”
Her gaze snapped back to the eerie seam a short distance away, and her heart crashed in her ears.Crap!Not a seam, but a damn abyss, and she could have fallen over the edge, plummeting to a fiery death. The flames had receded, but its orange glow lit up the massive cavern.
Her heart thudding, she braced a hand on the rock and shoved to her feet. The cavern—no, avolcano—soared far up to the blizzard above, the white storm obscuring the opening in the ceiling. The crackling flames soared again—
Oh, dear lord!Her breath caught in her throat.
There, amidst the chaos, where the flames roared up in a fiery hiss to meet the snowstorm midway up the towering volcano…
A tall cage was suspended in the air.
A figure hung in the middle, with nothing holding him up. His arms were splayed, his head lowered.
“Aerén,” she breathed, stepping back, bumping into him.
His hand settled on her waist, and he blinked his red-rimmed, watery eyes.
She grabbed his arm and pointed up. “Look!”
CHAPTER33
Aerén swipedhis eyes and lifted his head. His mouth opened, then shut.
Rage tore through him.
He shuffled toward the abyss, the fucking spell still gripping him, slowing him down. And he hit an unseen blockade. He stumbled back, pain blasting through him, rattling his bones and piercing his skull. “Fucking wards!”
“No!” Leya grabbed his arm, the tingle in her hands prickling through him. “Don’t go any closer. They’ll know if someone’s trying to breach the wards, right?”
He stared up at his sire, anguish fisting him in the heart as snow fell over his parent, coating his lank hair and thin shoulders, the rest melting as it hit the warmer layer where they stood, sprinkling them with hot water. “I can’t leave him there!”
“I know. But we have to think this through. Can you sense anyone around?”
Stars!He rubbed his throbbing brow. “No, but it could be an illusion. My abilities are shot to hell right now.”
“What? But you blitzed those asses in the cave,” she said.
“Leya, I couldn’t even stir dust right now. Whatever happened, it wasn’t me.”
“I felt you…” Her brow furrowed, and she scrubbed at the ash streaking her face. “Something happened back there.” She lowered her hand, her fingers flexing, and glanced at the abyss. “Well then, since we have nothing to lose…” Her chin firmed, and she was gone, easily passing through the wards unnoticed.
