Was my mother okay?
‘Run, run, run!’Val screamed so loudly inside my head that it chased everything else out.
The illusion shattered around me into driftingshards as I stood, backing away from the blackness and running.
I reached another door; this one was filled with runes I did not recognize. A deep exhaustion pulled on me, and my eyes went half-lidded.
‘The train attack drained you, combined with using my power here. We need to stay focused and finish strong,’Val told me.‘I can cut through the runes.’
‘You’re doing a great job. Don’t worry about me,’Kaelric said softly in my head. I was relieved to be able to hear the real him again.
This place was a nightmare. I’d long lost track of where Kirk might be. I no longer cared. I was just trying to survive myself. Like Cassian said, this trial was designed to kill me, magicless and separated from my wolf. Oh, how I prayed he was okay.
I dragged the tip of Valkaryn’s blade through the first two runes and then made a loop, going through all of them. It broke whatever magic held the door, and it popped open with a hiss.
The next space opened into a courtyard, colder than the passage before, the air laced with the metallic bite of magic. My steps echoed, each one drawing me toward the figure waiting in the center.
Corvessa Solvaris.
There was no dais, no armed Watchers fanned in a display of power, no fluttering cloak designedto command attention. She stood alone, sleeves rolled to the elbow, hair braided tight against her head, sword slung at her hip. Without the trappings of authority, she was smaller, more human. It might have pleased me, if not for the way her gaze locked on mine. Her eyes were shards of polished obsidian, black yet gleaming, and the faint blue-white glow from the clock above caught her cheekbones like a blade’s edge.
Her mouth pulled into a slow grin.
“Hello, little rat,” she said, her voice silk over steel. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here.”
I lifted Valkaryn. My arm ached from the weight, every muscle sore from the labyrinth. “Is this the final test?” My eyes scanned the courtyard’s shadows, certain her Watchers would spring from them.
She nodded, stroking the hilt of her sword with idle confidence. “And I assure you that you willnotbe able to pass through me.”
Her hand snapped out, and a bolt of lightning, raw and jagged, ripped through the air toward me. Valkaryn reacted faster than I could think, magic flaring into a shield. The strike hit with a thunderclap that jarred my bones and left the scent of burned ozone in the air. I stumbled backward, lungs seizing. She had just tried to kill me.
Above, the dais loomed. Cassian’s chair was still empty. I swallowed hard. If I was going to die here, Imight as well do it knowing the truth. “Where is Cassian?”
Her smile deepened, but it was a cold thing that did not touch her eyes. “With his brother.”
The words slid under my skin like ice water. Dead? No, that wasn’t what she meant. It couldn’t be.
Corvessa drew her blade with a hiss, stepping forward. “You know,” she said lightly, “it was terrible about that fire. I hope your family made it out.”
The sweetness in her tone was false, cloying. My breath hitched.
“You lit the fire,” I said. “In the Dregs.Youdid it.”
I had to know. I couldn’t die not knowing.
“We all do what we must to keep rot from the beams, little rat,” she trilled. “Far better one street smoke than a whole city collapse.”
The fatigue I felt earlier reached fever pitch. I didn’t shout or roar. I simply moved, Valkaryn gripped firmly in my fist as I lunged for Corvessa’s throat.
We met in the center, steel to steel. The collision rang through my bones. Corvessa fought like she spoke, clean, deliberate, without waste. But she didn’t rely on steel alone.
The air around us dropped in temperature so sharply that my lungs ached to breathe. Frost coiled across the stone beneath my boots. She swept her hand, and the frost surged upward, ice lancing fromthe ground toward my legs. I sprang backward, but a shard caught my thigh, tearing fabric and skin.
‘She tried to murder your entire community,’Valkaryn said, her voice low and edged with hunger.‘Do you want me to kill her quickly, or slowly?’
A pulse of heat from the blade kept my blood moving despite the cold. My eyes darted up to the clock. Kaelric hung blindfolded over the chasm, seconds bleeding away. Kirk’s wolf still hung bound, which meant somewhere Kirk was still trying to free him, to win the mountain’s favor. As much as I wanted Corvessa’s life in payment for the flames that had consumed the Dregs, I wanted victory more.
‘Quickly,’I told her, too tired for anything else.‘And I want to do it.’
