Veralin hissed, shielding his face as raw lightning snapped from my fingertips and arced across the ceiling in veins of blinding silver-blue.
I didn’t wait.
I turned and ran.
The massive doors were already half blown off their hinges from the blast, and I sprinted through the ruined entryway,heart pounding, magic still sparking across my skin like an untamed storm.
Blood Fae scattered. None dared touch me. Not with Kaelith’s power roaring through my veins and my eyes burning with fury.
I hit the courtyard, boots slamming against the cracked stone path.
“Kaelith, do you see them?” I panted, breath ragged from the sprint down the crumbling path of blackened stone. “Where are Elara and Veyna?”
They are right behind you.
I spun.
Two figures in guard’s cloaks barreled down the road toward me, heavy boots kicking up ash. Then the air shimmered like heat rising off fireglass, and their forms unraveled.
Elara’s hair whipped across her face, her small hand outstretched. “Ashe!”
Relief surged, hot and dizzying. I motioned frantically toward the beach. “Come on! Kaelith’s waiting!”
Be ready, Kaelith,I pushed through the bond as I picked up Elara and sprinted toward the glimmering edge of the wardline.We’re almost there.
I am ready,she answered, the deep certainty of her voice like steel in my veins.
We broke free of the Blood Isle’s poisoned land, the dying trees behind us giving way to sand and sea and sky.
Kaelith was already lowering herself, wings spread wide as her massive body curled toward the shore. Her violet scales caught the moonlight, and for a moment, she looked like hope made flesh.
I scrambled up her side as her body dipped, muscles flexing beneath me as I hauled Elara up beside me in one smooth pull.
But Veyna—she stopped.
“Veyna!” I called, stretching out my hand. “We have to go!”
She stood just shy of the wardline, one boot in the cursed land, one in the untouched sand. Her brown hair tangled in the wind, her lavender eyes locked on Kaelith with uncertainty, and fear.
“I can’t,” she whispered, taking a half-step back. “Your dragon—she won’t want me near her. Not with what I’ve become.” Behind her, the last remnants of the Blood Court loomed like a dark mouth waiting to devour her again.
“Get on!” I shouted, my hand stretched back toward her.
“I can’t!” she called, panic cracking in her voice. “I’m too... changed. She won’t let me near?—”
She will,Kaelith said into my mind, sharp and certain.
Veyna’s breath hitched, and for the briefest second, her lips trembled. But then the shouting started behind us—real guards now, not glamoured illusions.
I reached farther, nearly losing my balance as Kaelith’s wings flared to steady us.
“You’re not staying here, Veyna. Not again,” I growled. “You’ve protected Elara, it’s time to go. Let me help you.”
Her lavender eyes locked with mine, and something shifted in them. A flicker of the girl she’d once been, maybe.
She lunged.
I caught her wrist and yanked her up with a grunt, muscles screaming as she scrambled against Kaelith’s scales. She landed hard behind me, arms shaking, and Kaelith screamed—a furious, soul-deep sound—as her wings beat once and we shot into the sky.
