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Draga’s gloved hand closed around my jaw and forced my face toward his. “What are you?”

My wrists throbbed inside the restraints, and my whole body ached.

“I’m no one. Totally insignificant.”

His eyes darkened, and his gaze snapped to the blond Rider. “Why isn’t she out by now? Give her another dose and get her in the cage. We leave before they attack again.”

“If the rogues want to hunt, we drop the cage,” said the blond Rider, who had hurt the boy.

The Rider gripping my arm nodded and dragged me toward the cage. It was much like the ones I had been in before, except this one was dented with use, and the dark brown stains on the bars told me of the horrors it had contained before me. I fought then with chaotic sweeps of my shoulders and an ill-advised kick to the blond Rider’s shin. Every shred of instinct I had left told me to keep going. Because I knew that if they carried me into the sky, I would never see Ember, Thorn, or Aster again.

A Rider caught my hair and wrenched my head back. Searing pain blazed through my scalp as another Rider forced my bound wrists downward.

I tried to head-butt the Rider behind me, but he saw it coming.

“Stop fighting,” Draga said.

This time he only smiled before twisting one finger, and the fire-like chain tightened around my wrists—hotter this time. Pain flooded through me so violently that my ears rang. My mouth opened in a scream, but no sound came out. My whole being became focused on survival. Even the phoenixes towering over me vanished beneath the white-hot agony pouring through every vein inside me. I tried to fight, but the stabbing knife-like threads of fire magic crippled me. I was no match for a Rider, especially on a night of Yule.

As fast as the pain came, it left. “Move.”

I gave in and staggered forwards, barely keeping myself upright. I needed to save what strength I had left to use when their backs were turned.

The Ninth Night of Yule

— The Breaking Thread

On the ninth night, the Fates ask you to name a price. Blood bonds and Earthworld oaths strain beneath the weight placed upon them. Nothing breaks cleanly tonight. There are promises that cannot survive the truth that breaks free.

This is the night of severing.

What has been carried too long weighs you down.

Beware the thread you believe cannot be broken, for it is already unravelling in your hands.

The Ashen Grimoire

36

The cage swung beneath the Fire Phoenix like a butchered carcass hung for display. Bone-numbing wind shook my limbs and set my teeth chattering. Whatever they had drugged me with had filled my veins and fogged my mind, but it hadn’t warmed my blood. My focus slid from one thought to another, and each one was hard to hold onto.

Each violent beat of the creature’s wings jolted the bars hard enough that my skull struck metal every few breaths. Kit and his Ignite Phoenix had been far more considerate, and the cage far more comfortable. They had re-bound my hands in front of me, but it was only a slight relief—I had long since lost feeling in my hands, though the binding still bit into my skin whenever I moved.

Snow lashed through the bars in icy spirals, melting against the blood drying on my mouth and throat. Somewhere above me, the Riders shouted to one another across the storm winds, but their voices blurred in and out beneath the pounding roar of phoenix wings.

The drug they had forced into my neck dulled the edges of things, but it had made my memories vividly real. Like the time Aster had waited for me in the shadows of the ruined arch in Craven City, and slipped into step with me, then entwined our fingers.

The mission into Barren guards’ barracks to steal the maps of where the guards were placed in Annatalia, when I had slid all the way down the roof, and he’d had to haul me up. We had taken a second to catch our breath, and he had winked at me. We had found our way to each other in Craven City, even when his missions kept us apart for weeks on end. And now I had left.

Would I ever get to tell him the truth?

We crossed over the next mountain peak, and the Barren came into view. I curled tighter against the corner of the cage, bracing myself against another blast of freezing air, and squeezed my eyes shut against the nausea rolling through me. Beneath the sickness and agony, my shoulder burned so brightly it almost kept me warm.

A harsh metallic screech tore me from my thoughts, and the cage lurched sideways. Shouting erupted overhead, and I forced myself upright enough to look around. Three rogue phoenixes circled us.

The white Ash screamed as it banked low enough that moonlight flashed silver along its wings. Beside it flew the orange-gold Flame and the smaller red Fire bird, their cries splitting through the mountains like warnings from Otherworld gods.

The tension tightened around us, and every Rider’s phoenix beat its wings faster. The red, black-tipped bird hauling my cage snapped its jaws and rolled in the air.