Thorn turned slowly, brushing dust from his coat with deliberate care. "Double the search parties. Triple them. I want every street, every alley, every rat hole in the city turned inside out."
"Yes, sir. And... and Master Tehvan?"
Thorn's gaze flicked back to his brother's body. "Collect the corpse. Keep it intact. I don't want so much as a finger damaged. Have it preserved and transported back to The Institute immediately."
The guard blinked in surprise. "Sir?"
"You heard me. There's research to be conducted. Even in death, my brother will serve a purpose." Thorn's lips curved into something that might have been a smile if it had contained any warmth.
The guard nodded hastily and moved away to carry out the orders. Thorn remained standing over Tehvan's cooling body, his mind already racing ahead to the experiments he could conduct. Death magic was a delicate art, but with the right preparations, even a corpse could yield valuable information.
He spun the ring again, feeling Elora's heartbeat flutter against his finger like a trapped bird. The enchantment was his now—Tehvan's final, unwitting gift. Somehow, he would use it to track her down. The magic that bound her life force to the ring would be the very chain that dragged her back to his laboratory.
It was almost poetic.
The shadow elemental had taken more out of him than he cared to admit—that level of dark magic always demanded a price. His hands trembled slightly as he reached into his coat for a restorative vial, downing its contents in a single swallow. The bitter liquid burned his throat, but it steadied his nerves.
By the time he made it back to the royal lodging, disappointment had joined his fury. Tehvan would never witness Elora's inevitable fall, never see her spirit finally broken and her defiance crushed. That seemed almost wasteful.
But his revenge extended beyond his dead brother now. It encompassed Elora, the humiliation she had heaped upon him, and the damage she had done to the Thorn family name. If the Empire would even allow him to right this wrong—if they didn'tstrip him of his position for this very public failure—he would prove that his control was absolute. That no one, not even his most prized specimen, could escape him forever.
The ring pulsed against his finger, and Thorn smiled. The hunt was just beginning, and now he held the perfect compass to guide him to his prey.
Chapter 48
Rell
It had been three days since the arena.
Three days since Elora stopped speaking. Stopped blinking like a person. StoppedbeingElora.
Rell sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, watching her with the same helplessness since he brought her there.
She hadn’t moved. Not really. Not on her own.
She lay curled on her side beneath a coarse blanket, still streaked with dried soot and ash. Her eyes were open, glassy and unseeing. She didn’t react to his voice, his touch, the food he left by her side every few hours. She hadn’t even flinched when a pipe burst in the hallway two nights ago, sending half the hideout scrambling.
She wasn’t asleep.
She wasgone.
After Thorn summoned thatthing—that shadow-twisted nightmare of magic—and crushed Tehvan like his bones were made of glass, Rell had scooped her up and ran. He’d carried her through the Kilfaire sewers in silence, the stink of rot and alchemy thick in the air, her body limp in his arms. Even the rats kept their distance.
By the time they reached the Hive’s Kilfaire hideout, she was ice cold and barely breathing. He’d wrapped her in blankets,pressed water to her lips, sat beside her in this goddamn room until his back ached and his patience splintered into something close to fear.
Three days.
He’d done this with trauma before—watched Violette spiral after losing a squad, held Symond back from putting a blade through someone who looked too much like someone from his past. But Elora? She’d fought monsters. Snatchers. Fane. Thorn.Herself.
Now she just lay there.
And Rell had no idea how to bring her back.
He shifted against the headboard, the wood biting into his spine. Elora’s back was still to him. The soft rise and fall of her breath was the only proof she was still here.
Three days of silence. Of this fragile shell, when she used to hiss and spit and fight even when she was losing. When she used to meet his smirks with fire in her eyes. When she used tolook at him.
And he couldn’t decide what was eating him more—the aching need to stay by her side, or the pull to slip out into the streets and gut the scumbags who did this to her.
