Shawth sighed. “Always have to make this difficult, don’t you, Anniliese?”
Ciana screamed, but it was too late.
A fourth guard lunged out from behind a curtain to their left, catching Anniliese by surprise. The fire died in her hand as the hilt of his sword hit her temple. She crumpled silently to a heap on the ground.
Ciana’s hand flew to her mouth, staggering back through the door. A sob choked and caught in her throat. Shawth and Donnet stood, straightening the lapels of their jackets.
“It is actually quite fortunate you found us, Lady Visseau,” Shawth said smoothly. His gaze shifted over Ciana’s shoulder, something brightening in his gaze. “There are some new acquaintances of ours who are very much looking forward to seeing you again.”
Ciana kept backing up away from the building, stumbling over her feet.
Her back slammed into something solid and warm.
She whirled with a gasped sob, tears welling in her eyes. Ydros stared down at her, arms folded behind his back, moss-green eyes unreadable.
He wasn’t alone.
Three familiar figures strode through the ruins of Andburgh. Three people Ciana had foolishly believed she’d never see again—three people she thought she’d escaped for good.
Her fear slid into her stomach like the slice of a dagger, piercing and ragged. Her breath froze in her lungs, her knees buckling.
“Lord Blaise. As you can see, loyalty will always be rewarded under Kol’s reign.” Shawth swept past Ciana, Lord Donnet andhis guards on his feet. He shook the offered hand of Ciana’s stepfather, the two men grinning as if trading a prized mare.
To them, perhaps that’s all Ciana was.
“Thank you for returning her to us, Lord Shawth.” Leon Blaise’s voice prickled at Ciana’s skin, so sharp she worried it would draw blood. “We are so pleased to finally bring her home. We have missed her so dearly.” He scoffed. “And to think we were told to run from this world. Bah!”
Ciana was paralyzed by fear. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, it wouldn’t be real?—
A sob shuddered through her chest. Sebastian. Where was Sebastian? Why wasn’t he here to save her? He’d promised.
He’dpromised.
Ydros faced the Blaise family. “Priam was misguided. But Kol is pleased to earn the allegiance of your esteemed family. He hopes you will remember this kindness and reward him with your loyalty as he builds his new world.”
Ciana would have buckled to her knees, right there in the bloodstained cobbled streets.
Would have, if not for the two guards gripping her arms, holding her to her feet.
They dragged her forward, and she knew she should fight. Mariah would want her to fight. To give them hell all the way to the bitter end.
But all those terrible, ugly memories were rearing their heads, just as they always did. Reality crashed around her, shattering all the happiness she’d found in the past year as if it were nothing but a devastating dream.
It was monstrous, to taste freedom and love, only to have it all snatched away from her as quickly as she’d found it.
The guards halted her in front of her stepfather. The ugly man smiled, showing far too many teeth.
He stepped aside, and his son, dead eyes a picture straight from Ciana’s darkest nightmares, grinned.
“Welcome home,sis,” Lucas said, voice coiling around Ciana like a poisonous serpent. “It will be such a treat to have you around again.” He leaned closer, his foul breath brushing her cheek.
“I hope that Armature hasn’t used you up too much. I’ll be so disappointed if thatnobodyruined my favorite toy.”
Ciana could feel herself retreating. Her mind was closing down, shutting off. She fell into that place she’d spent so much of her childhood, a place in her mind she’d created to survive.
But she wasn’t sure she could survive this. Not again.
And Sebastian wasn’t coming.
