Callum was still absent. Gods, let him be with Elva. Let Wells and Nezra be with them too.
Ronan’s body barely shifted at my side as his blade rose and fell, no wasted motion. A cold shimmer hissed at the sight of him, and I cursed, too, at the gleam of sweat across his arms. At the sculpt of muscle flexing beneath his clothes.
At the way the killing wasn’t just easy for him, but how little he took from it. Just barely, his eyes lost a hint of color at every soldier he struck down.
But he kept moving, turning away the moment they fell, as if stopping would mean feeling it all.
My dagger sank into the collarbone of a round-eared male, his cry cut short as he collapsed. Pivoting, my arm bent, driving my elbow back, sending it smashing into another’s face. He stumbled, nose breaking with a wet crack.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
My arms snapped out, voice raising sharper. “Whereis Elva?”
Ronan slammed his fist into a soldier’s jaw, sending him straight to the ground. “How am I supposed to know that?”
“She’s the princess!” This time, a Bright got one glimpse of my blood-streaked face and ran away himself. Ronan’s smoke didn’t let him get far. “They’re afterher.”
His peer cut past me, landing on Killian as he sprinted toward us, sword spinning in his hand. “Elysian took her,” he said. “Hid her with the other pixies.”
A rush of air left my lungs. Thank the gods, thank the fates. Thank even Elysian.
My grip slackened on the dagger. “So, she’s safe?”
Killian’s nod came with the weight of his hand clamping down on my bare shoulder. I hadn’t even had time to armor myself, my skin still exposed, slick with sweat, blood, fate knows what else.
“But...” His sword tipped toward the mayhem ahead, where a tall, blond man stood, holding a pixie woman aloft by the throat. Her legs thrashed, eyes wide in terror.
My blood stilled, suspended, every vein pulled tense.
Reve.
Ronan wasted no time, wisps of black slinked from his palms, lurching across the air and twining up Reve’s arm, searing as it went.
The pixie fell, her face gone from deathly blue to flushed red, chest heaving as air rushed back in.
Twisting, Reve hissed at the burns eating into his flesh. Killian stalked closer, a devilish smile across his face, until Ronan blurred past him, both men bearing down, their steps thundering in unison.
Reve’s teeth grit, his face contorting under the pain as his gaze snapped, locking on me. He smiled, the rings around his fingers pulsing violet fire as smoke and steel closed in. When they were only a foot away, the rings flashed, and he was gone.
Not fallen or beaten. Gone.
What the fuck.
The ability to sift wasn’t granted to ordinary Fae. It belonged only to those who held the most dominant power.
And Reve, he hadn’t awakened like the rest of us. His magic was not born. It was bought, bartered, in trade for any goodness left in him. That was the only other way to harness it...
Those rings, gods, I had seen them before. On Obrann’s hand. On Perseus’s—
The puzzle slammed into place. A coven of corruption, a bargain steeped in blood and soul. One powerful enough to lend such assets.
But Deimos was still chained, bound beneath the mountain. Which meant this power had been harvested elsewhere. From the only other breed capable of weaving such diabolic magic.
It was all coming together, all starting to make sense—
“Verena—” Callum’s ragged scream cut through the thought.
I whirled, searching. Where was he?
