Page 81

• Alessia •

MY FEET BARELY touch the ground as we move through the warehouse.

I don’t know if I’m walking or being dragged. Kylian’s grip is locked around my wrist. Every time I stumble, he yanks me forward harder, reminding me exactly how little my body matters in his hands right now. And gods, I can feel his fury rolling off him in waves.

I keep my mouth shut like he ordered. The stench of unwashed bodies clings to the air, seeping into my skin until I feel marked by it. I will never forget the smell of human misery.

Even now I keep seeing Sable’s face in those cages, knowing she could be here somewhere. Her voice, the one I’ve soothed through nightmares and illness, calling my name as the ship moved further out to sea. But I searched every cage I passed, peered into every frightened face, and she wasn’t there. Instead, I found the Demon King, or rather, he found me. Now I have to face Kylian’s wrath, and I’m worried that I won’t get the chance to keep searching for Sable.

I fucked up.

I risk a glance down at Kylian’s hands. They’re burned, not fully blackened, but raw in places. The skin is darker, thicker, roughened like scorched leather. His nails have lengthened even further, and I’m very aware of the beast he’s suppressing.

He came for me in the daylight. He told me the sun weakens him, but he came for me anyway. A king risked his life for a servant. I don’t know if I should feel gratitude or if I’m even more terrified of him than before. He made his point: nothing will stand in his way when it comes to me, not even the curse that binds him to the shadows.

“Please,” I whisper. “I just wanted to find my—”

“Silence.” His voice cuts above mine. His fingers tighten around my wrist until the bone throbs, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out.

We reach a heavy wooden door at the back of the warehouse, far from the main floor where cages are stacked three high in endless rows. King Xavian leads us into his office, and the heavy door thuds shut behind us.

Even though we are away from the cages and the stench of human misery, nothing about this room feels safe. The danger isn’t the Demon King, whose hand was locked around my throat only moments ago. Kylian would never let him hurt me, but he can’t protect me from himself, not when his rage is white-hot and his need to feed is turning him half-feral.

King Xavian reaches for a bookshelf, his palm pressing flat against one of the edges. The entire structure shifts sideways with a hidden mechanism I never would have noticed. The wall behind it reveals a narrow corridor of stone that exhales cold air into the room. The chill carries the smell of dust, old parchment, and dried ink, but there’s a faint scent that’s familiar and unexpected.

Magic.

“After you.” Xavian gestures to the narrow passage.

Kylian pulls me forward roughly, and we step through the opening together. I hear Eagan following behind us, but something tells me that if Kylian lost control and ripped into my neck, there would be little Eagan could do.

The passage is narrow enough that my shoulders nearly brush the walls, and the ceiling hangs so low in some places that the men have to duck their heads slightly to pass. My ears pop as we descend the corridor’s stone steps.

Torches line the walls with pale blue flames that seem to pulse, not flicker. I keep my eyes forward as the corridor spirals down, revealing a huge bunker that steals the air from my lungs. Not because it is beautiful, but because it is impossible. The room is vast and carved into the earth itself like someone hollowed out a mountain.

Layers of maps cover the walls, pinned and stacked over one another. Desks sit buried under blades, pots of ink, and scrolls weighted by stones. Shelves rise high with books that look old enough to crumble if touched. The stone floor has intricate symbols carved in circles that overlap, patterns I’ve never seen before yet recognize deep in my bones, in the place where my magic lives.

My skin prickles, and I feel my magic stir in response. It’s a faint ripple beneath my skin that I desperately try to suppress before either king notices.

Kylian’s grip on my wrist loosens a fraction as he peers around the vast space, and his claws scrape my skin in a way that feels like a reminder to behave.

“You knew the mages still existed.” Kylian’s voice is dry and raspy.

“I suspected.” Pale flames shiver along the walls as if they are reacting to the weight of the king speaking. His eyes glitter in the strange light, and for a moment something about them makes me want to shrink away.

My gaze catches on the largest map on the wall, and my breath stutters. The maps I have seen are of our five remaining islands, but this is a whole world—land so wide it seems impossible. Coasts. Rivers. Mountain ranges. Forests. All drawn in sprawling detail. Continents—that’s what they’re called in the old books Madam Dahlia kept locked away. Vast stretches of land that could hold hundreds, possibly thousands of kingdoms.

I stare at it like it is a lie that someone made beautiful enough to believe. In all my twenty years, I’ve only ever known the Mage Isles, tiny fragments of land in an endless sea. The world on this map is impossible. A fairy tale come true.

Kylian’s grip falls from my wrist, and he braces himself against a carved wooden desk with both hands. I reach for the map, but my fingers freeze midair. Grief overwhelms me. It’s like reaching for something long dead. The map shows borders and kingdoms and cities with names I’ve never heard, places where millions of people must have lived.

“Is this real?” The question slips out, and I tense, waiting for Kylian’s punishment for speaking without permission, but he seems transfixed by the burned skin on the tops of his hands and the visible veins that seem to darken.

“It was real,” Xavian says, watching my face. “Once.”

Kylian’s heat is at my back again, and his breath fans across my hair. I hate that my body registers him before my mind does, and it wasn’t until being caught by King Xavian that I realized how safe I feel with him. Which seems almost irrational given how badly he terrifies me.

His finger lifts and points to a vast stretch of land on the map. “That used to be my kingdom.”