I feel no guilt as I let down the walls I’ve guarded carefully for centuries.
Vargrún howls. The cracks at my feet deepen. Some of the men scream.
Run, Iridias. Fly to our emberling. I wish to see her unmade.
“Raido,” I command, and take off through the halls. The Council is forgotten as I follow my instinct to my Bonded.
Morvane screamed as he ran, glowing red at the seams, the metal whining from an overload of mana. His runes thundered with barely restrained power. Pain gnawed at the edge of his awareness, but he could see nothing aside from the corridors ahead.
Could think of nothing but closing the distance between them.
The moment he saw her, Kailorien froze. Her hair was mussed, her braid loose against her back. Her eyes glowed golden, brighter than the sun. With a gasp, he surged forward, grabbing her shoulders, cupping her face, searching for wounds.
His lips moved.
He called her name, steadied her as she swayed.
Her mouth shaped words.
“Silari...How long will you wear the shape of a man? How long will you deny what you are?”
That voice again. Identical to the one from the field in the Moores, and then again at Stonewake. That strange, eerie cadence that wasnothis Auryn. But this time—this time—it rumbled with anger and accusation. With pain. With fear.
“How could you? You let me go to him. Unprotected. Unshielded. Ill and weak.”
A familiar scent teased at his awareness. He hugged Auryn against him, breathed in, and nearly recoiled. It washisscent.
Seravael.
Shu’Khan.
His Voids-damned brother.
“What did he do?” he rasped. “Hetouchedyou. I can smell him on you.”
“Touch would have been mercy,”the voice said.“You felt it. Surely. How he violated my lungs, my mana, my essence.”
Kailorientried to steady the quaking of his anger, but it bled through his defenses. Vargrún pulsed at the back of his neck. Growling. Howling. Furious.
Kailorien flinched as a throb of agony stabbed into his skull.
HE DARES.
The creature's voice was dark. Twisted. Bestial.
WITH HIS HANDS, HE DARES.
The corridor trembled as though an earthquake shook the Lattice. Cracks splintered in the nearby crystal fixtures. The walls around Kailorien bowed with pressure. Just imagining Shu’Khan’s hands on her. Him imitating Kailorien’s voice like he had the day of the Estâr. The way he’d held her. Called herilphara.
RIP HIM APART!
The image of Shu’Khan near her was enough to bleed his vision with splashes of raw crimson.
And then—as suddenly as it caught fire—his fury stilled when a single small hand touched his cheek.
Auryn.
He looked down.
