Goddess. Thatisacid, and it’s swallowing my escape route. The tree sinks another inch, a gap opening between its end and the shore.
I scramble down as quickly as I can without losing my balance, my pulse chanting a panicked refrain.No, no, no, no, no.
I reach the midpoint, half-sliding, half-scrambling now, the tree sinking steadily into the burbling marsh. I’ll have to jump, near the bottom. Clear a two-foot gap.
Well, three, now.
Four.
Oh, goddess.
I slide the last few feet and push off the tree with all my strength, launching toward safety. Air whistles past, acid bubbling beneath me as I sail toward the bank, but…
Nope. Not going to make it. Yellow ooze rushes up, promising to eat me alive.
My eyes squeeze shut. My fingers clamp around the gyre, my mindflooding with thoughts of Velindra. Of pink and green light. Branches forking across stone walls. Dancing fireflies, Ravenna braiding my hair, red and blue blood spilled on the floor of a majestic hall.
And…Amriel.
My mate.
My tormentor.
My salvation.
My—
Thunk. Squishy ground slams into me, catching me in the legs, the belly, the face. For a moment, I lay frozen, my eyes rammed shut, my nose scrunched as I wait for acid to flood my nostrils and liquify my skin.
But nothing happens. And when I draw my next breath, clean air courses into me. Moss itches against my cheek.
I crack open an eye and catch glimmers of pink and green. The other eye opens. I find myself face down in my room in the castle, my gyre humming in my hand.
An icy laugh rattles my ribs, emerging from somewhere so deep I can’t find its bottom.
I didn’t die. I should have, but I didn’t. Instead, I’mhere.
I bring my gyre to my face. Three rings have melted and turned black, now. The other three spin, their glow slowly fading.
I laugh. And laugh. And register no surprise when my laughter morphs into sobs, so relentless it hurts to breathe.
I asked my goddess for one thing.Onething. But Ishanna abandoned me. Again. Now I’m only alive because of Amriel, because of the gyre he gave me. Not only that, but because he took a blade for me. Because his Shadow saved me. Carried me. Murdered everything that tried to hurt me.
Now I can’t seem to escape that truth. No matter how far or fast I run.
I cry until I’m spent, then heave myself off the floor, tucking my gyre away. Filth and dried blood cake my skin, but I don’t care.
I stomp over to the door and rip it open, pleased that someone repaired it in my absence after Amriel broke it down. I burst into the corridor, nearly slamming into a passing fae woman in my haste.
She leaps back, the silken bits of her dress flying. “Sorry,” she squeaks, in a way that tells me I must look even more frightful than I realized. But I only step past her, headed toward the main part of the castle.
I’ll have to face Amriel, at some point. Talk to him. Fight with him, probably.
But first, I’m going to get myself some damn dinner.
Chapter 20
To my surprise, I find the fae king at the table.
