The inescapable tangle of thorns made up Lotrennia’s prison, Pyracantha. While the rest of the continent seemed all life and beauty, the prison was a thing of nightmares. Black and gray branches wound up and around the space so tightly that no light seeped its way into the maze of tunnels. Needle-like thorns covered every inch of the branches, making any misstep bloody, if not deadly.
Ronan had been wound tight since our arrival the month prior. He insisted on marching on Aedrialis by the end ofspring for reasons he’d shared privately with me in Odessa. I understood the moment he told me. The need to get back, the fear, the worry. But he held it together, and the Rising forces still clung to his confidence, his calm determination.
And I’d kept his secret, from everyone except Tiberius, my winged miracle of a horse, who seemed to have almost unlimited access to myself. I could rarely keep him out without his cooperation.
And it had killed me to keep it from Bayne. He had been so busy playing a dangerous game of politics with the queen. I’d barely seen him, even before he left for the Waters of Ascendiel to search for answers on how to defeat the dark king and dethrone Saros.
If it hadn’t been for the strange connection that linked us, I would have struggled to keep it together after everything that had happened in the last year. The loss, the death, the trauma…
I reached down that strange link to Bayne and slowly drew back the curtain, allowing the smallest bit of disappointment to seep through, letting him know the outcome of this most recent attempt. Was it simply a bond created from our link as Bellators? Or was there something more there? Moments later, warmth surged in response.Comfort.Love.Forgiveness. More than I deserved.
We were trapped here. All six hundred of us who arrived from Odessa. Negotiations with Queen Antares on the timing of our return,howwe would even return, were constantly underway. The Juniper Sea was a death trap. Lotrennian mages had used so much power to get their forces and ours back safely to Lotrennia. The queen couldn’t justify sending us back until the seas had settled.
The abrupt change in the pattern of Ganmira and Renova, our two blue moons, and the unexpected twin eclipse, left theseas in a wild, unruly state. Nobody knew how long it would take to return to normal, if ever.
And weneededto get back. Needed to remove King Saros from his tainted throne. Needed to stop the tribute, the vile sacrifice Saros made of his own people, sending them to the dark king, where they lived as slaves or were transformed into undead, mindless killers. We still didn’t understand why he allowed it. Some deal struck long ago, the reason for which we had yet to unravel.
The terrified murmurs of the Sultirans on the tribute ship I boarded months ago often echoed in my mind as I stood before the ashen in Pyracantha. The snap of the soldiers’ whips on Kayj, the dark king’s forsaken island, rang in my ears as the ashen shrieked. And their faces… The slaves in the Crystal Castle, on the island of Kayj… They were there when I closed my eyes.
We had to get back.
I strode after Ronan through the dark tunnels, shuddering as I passed cell after cell. The moans of their occupants crept through the vines that imprisoned them.
The space behind my eyes ached as we stepped outside Pyracantha and were met with a blinding white light. I blinked, allowing them a moment to adjust to the bright, green forest. We were several miles southwest of Ayla, the capital of Lotrennia. Massive trees covered in mossy growth rose hundreds of feet into the air. The twitter of orange, native songbirds swelled and swooped above. My shoulders eased as we stepped away from the miles of black thorns.
A flash of bright open sky and hard air gripped my consciousness as Tiberius’s view, hissenses, merged with my own.Casting. That was what Bayne and Nerissa called it. Their giant seahawk, Aquila, could communicate the same way with the brother and sister Bellators. The icy breeze of Tiberius’s altitude made me shiver, and the hot burn of muscles workinghis wings raced down my back, as if they were my own. I could see the forest in front of me, but also from above as he scanned the trees below, feeling for our bond. I cast my response, taking in my surroundings, every sense, every thought, every feeling, and sent them down the tight connection.
The bond between Bellator and caeluma was overwhelming. It was like splitting, or rather,sharingconsciousness with another being. But Bayne had insisted Aquila wasn’t a caeluma. Or if he was, he lacked some key elements.
Tiberius had become more than a mount. His soul had changed when I’d used the Transcindiel power to save us. I hadn’t intended on turning him into my caeluma in those last, panicky moments as we hurtled off the cliffs of Odessa. It had been instinct, a last-ditch effort at self-preservation in the face of certain death.And it worked.
Ti landed nearby in a small clearing. Ebony, velvety wings tucked in tight as the massive horse made his way through the thick trees and ferns, twisting elegantly around the mossy boulders. The agrippa were enormous, but ever since Ti’s transformation, he had eaten and grown and eaten some more. My thoughts drifted back to that burial chamber I’d discovered last year. Tiberius was now as large as Enya’s steed.
I hopped on a boulder as I waited for Ti to approach, Ronan slowing and waiting next to me.
You don’t need a babysitter, Ti grumbled in my mind. If he’d had a human face, it would have been drawn up in a sneer at the Rising commander. Instead, his ears flattened, and he bared his teeth as he approached. Ronan had the good sense to step back.
It had taken a month for Ti’s voice to sound in my head. The shock of it sent my heart thundering as fast as his hooves. He sounded exactly as I would have imagined. Young, fearless. Perhaps a tad reckless. The friend I’d always had, but one whose intelligence had been shut tight in a box that hadslowly unlocked since his transformation. He was a different being entirely now. And the only one of his kind—a sad, lonely thought, but one that we shared.
You’ll be glad he was here after I fill you in, I replied, my mind’s voice defeated. His hooves clomped on the mossy ground as he placed his velvety nose on my cheek.
“Are you talking about me?” Ronan paused, turning toward us with pinched brows.
“No.”
Tiberius huffed a snort and bobbed his head.
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask for another ride,” Ronan muttered.
Tiberius sent a wave of amusement rolling down our bond as we recalled the one time he’d allowed Ronan atop his back. The ex-queensguard had vomited after our descent.
I made to leap on his broad, inky back when the thunder of horses rose from the forest to the north. I paused, waiting, as a party of elves atop gray Lotrennian steeds broke through the trees.
War Slayers, I realized, noting the fresh black paint that stretched across their faces from temple to temple and the matching inked wolf skulls on their shoulders.
The group split, and my heart stopped as I took in the bloody figure at the center of their party.
