Ire took a long swallow of the wine and sat comfortably against his chair, eyes roaming over the way the wet fabric clung to my body.
“This is your grand plan?” I snapped, irritated with his silence.
He smiled lazily. “And if it is?”
“You’re dead. The second Blake realizes I’m gone, he’ll be looking for me. And Flame can—”
“Her Bond to the others is gone at the moment, just as is her Bond to you. Isn’t that right?” He looked at me knowingly. “I’m making sure to keep her that way.”
I couldn’t stop myself declaring, “It won’t matter. Blake, Jace, Quinn, Calla—Iknowthey’ll come. You’re a fool to think you can get away with this. Blake will kill you if the demons don’t kill usboth first. Don’t you care about the Raveling? Your dominion needs us.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged, as if my words were inconsequential. “Perhaps not. There is another card to play.”
He leaned in then, his hand gripping my chin and arching my body toward him. I struggled, but only managed to pull at my arms, the pain immediate and intense enough that I froze and went pliant in his grasp.
Ire’s other hand activated something on that cursed collar I was wearing. The smell of smoke and rotting wood invaded my nostrils, a piercing headache sharpening against my skull as my vision blackened.
Edith.
It was Edith, bound in chains and bathed in a pulsating bright light, stone at her back—
My breath locked in my throat, nausea curling in my gut, seeing what had Edith.
It was a demon, but far, far worse than the Thirst demons. Something entirely different.
It loomed in front of her, at least nine feet tall. Its body was a twisted husk of bone, an insectile nightmare. Its movements were jerky, too fast and unnatural. Its ribs jutted outward, overlapping like the plated armor of a starved locust, its spine exposed, vertebrae ridged and ending in hooked barbs that seemed to twitch even in stillness. Its head was dominated by one vast, yawning maw, an abyss of unhinging jaws lined with jagged, shifting fangs.
An eerie, inhuman voice rang through the air: “Give us the woman of prophecy and our hunger shall be sated. Give us the woman of prophecy, and this creature shall go free, unharmed…”
And then the vision disappeared. As my eyes cleared, that samesmell of smoke and rotting wood made me cough as Ire released my chin.
“Where is she?” I shouted, yanking at my chains in spite of the pain. “I swear if you don’t—”
“Born of passion and the silencing queen,” Ire began. Not a song. Spoken, whispered like a dark promise.
“A light shall rise where none have been.
Through her, the dawn will banish night,
If the dragon’s heart grants her might.”
Something raw twisted in my gut, mouth parted as he spoke the words of the song I’d sung for Edith. The one that haunted my dreams.
“Should the hollow one consume her power,
Darkness will reign in the final hour.
Let the serpent’s heir stand by her side
And storms shall rage and kingdoms die.”
“You’re reciting poetry now?” I spat.
Ire smiled. “It’s not just a song. It’s a prophecy.” He relaxed back in his chair then. “What do you know about it, Rubi Morningtail?”
“Nothing. And I don’t care,” I shouted. “Take me to Edith. Whatever you want, it’s yours, just let her go.” I felt my voice hit another register—longing and power, but nothing happened.
His chuckle was dark and smooth.
