I sighed. It still hurt to think of him dying like that, just so he could give me a chance to kill Oberon. In the end, I’d done it, but I had failed him that day.
“I’ll find a way to fix it.” Silver didn’t meet my eyes, so I ducked to the side so he could see the determination in my expression. “I swear it, Silver. One day soon, you’ll be able to change into any form you can dream of.” I gave him a sad smile. “But in the meantime, I need you to stay here and wait.”
My words seemed to encourage him, for now. He stood aside and let me walk through the crumbling city gates. I took my time picking through the rubble. Without the fires to light the way, it was difficult to find the mountainous pile where Kalen and I had confronted his mother.
But soon, I reached the base of it. I quietly moved up the hill, rocks crunching beneath my boots. My heart thumped painfully, and my jaw tightened with every step. When I crept over the ridge, I braced myself to face Bellicent or a slew of angry shadowfiends. But the top of the rubble pile was eerily silent and empty. Even the onyx pillars were gone.
The only thing to mark Kalen’s presence was the dried crimson stain where he’d fallen on Andromeda’s sword.
I walked over to it and knelt. My fingers traced the outline of his blood, following the path. Dark red ribbons stretched to where I’d been held behind the pillars, though none of it got that far. It was as if his lifeforce had tried to reach for me in his dying moments. And now he was gone.
Anger pulsed in my veins.
“Where the fuck is he?” I whispered into the darkness.
I half-expected an answer. Bellicent would emerge from the mist, flanked by Andromeda and Orion. They’d tell me they’d killed Kalen, destroyed the traitorous Perseus and Sirius, and now they’d come for me.
But the only answer was the wind whistling through the rubble. I glanced up at the sky, trying to read the shape of the clouds. I swore it felt like rain was in the air. If a storm hit now…I had nowhere to take refuge. No matter. I wasn’t done here yet.
I continued onward, exploring the ruins for any sign of Kalen. There was nothing much to find. Life had abandoned this place. And for whatever reason, it seemed Bellicent had abandoned it as well.
Perhaps she’d decided this dead city wasn’t worth the effort it would take to rebuild it. Had she taken Kalen with her? She must have.
A distant roar echoed in the distance. I tensed and swung toward the sound. It echoed again, somewhere beyond the city. My breath fled from my lungs as if the sound called to it, pulling it from the depths of me. A rush of emotion welled in my chest, filling my eyes with tears.
He was here. He was alive. And nothing, not even a vow with a god, could keep me from him.
I shuddered. The relief nearly buckled my knees.
“Kalen!” I raced across the rubble.
A roar rent the night again, though this time, it sounded nothing like the man I loved. This roar was wild and animalistic. It was a sound I knew far too well.
I’d found my husband, but the shadowfiends had found him first.
Fifteen
Ruari
We’d managed to evacuate Dubnos before the enemy invaded the city streets, but it was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The mists beyond the mountains were full of beasts, from the eerie wraiths to the bloodthirsty shadowfiends to the monstrous oversized scorpions that punched their way out of the dirt without a moment’s warning.
We were facing such a creature now. It crouched between us and Endir. Only half an hour more, and we’d be safe behind the city gates. But it was as if the enemy had known we’d come here. It had been waiting for us.
Toryn paced at the front of our party, his eyes locked on the beast. The citizens of Dubnos and the storm fae refugees spilled out behind us. Faces were coated in dirt and fear. We’d lost several in our last fight, and it was still on everyone’s minds.
Beside me, Nellie flicked her tail. I could tell she wanted to fight, but Toryn had tasked me with keeping her safe. He seemed to think the fact she hated me meant she was more likely to take my warnings seriously. It was strange logic, though I could kind of see his point. If evenIwarned her back, then the threat was real.
“Don’t pounce on that creature,” I told her. “It’s ten times larger than you. You’ll be dead before you can even draw blood.”
She growled at me.
“Toryn won’t be happy if you bite off my head,” I said.
Roisin scowled from where she stood on my other side. The captain of the guard looked even more eager for a fight than Nellie did. “I’m tired of running. Let’s kill the damn thing and get it over with.”
Her voice carried toward Toryn, who stopped his pacing. Without taking his eyes off the beast, he backtracked and joined us on the front lines. “Why hasn’t it tried to fight us yet?”
“I would guess because there are hundreds of us and only one of it,” I said wryly. “Doomed odds, if you ask me.”
