Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Author Notes

About the Newton's Gate Universe

Books by K. Gorman

First Blood

Book One of The Bladesworn Legacy

by K. Gorman

Part of the Newton’s Gate Universe.

Copyright © 2020 K. Gorman

All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author by e-mail at kelly@kgorman.ca.

Cover Design by Covers by Juan.

www.coversbyjuan.com

Editing by Zee Monodee at Divas at Work Editing Services

divasatwork.wordpress.com

Published By:

Noctem Drift Media

1035B Russell Street

Victoria, BC

Canada

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A special thank you to Lorien Chang, whose advice and insights were invaluable to the story.

Chapter 1

Catrin li Ternadon was beginning to hate swords.

Too long, too narrow, with too unwieldy a blade—it felt like her long-fingered elf hands ought to be slicing a beef cow instead of learning some long-traditioned murder art. Especially with the sword Master-at-Arms Severn Treng had given her. Dull, heavy, and awkward, it had been the bane of her all month, and her shoulders, wrists, and back all burned and screamed at her in protest.

He, of course, made it look easy. Elegant. Graceful. A retired Sarasvatani army captain who had cut his career path in the bloody d’Enar revolution and subsequent border chaos, his light eyes, deep skin tone, and smooth, controlled motions stood out against the scenery—like a slash of old-world violence displaced into the peaceful, bucolic backdrop of Pemberlin Castle’s green-edged estate. The effect compounded double for her. At first, she’d thought him elf-blooded. Not full, like her, but at least part. Maybe from one of the northern Mora lines, as opposed to her own Sinya. He had the right build and color for it—lean and strong, his golden-brown eyes and dark skin wouldn’t look out of place among any of her people’s forest dwellers.

Until one put a sword in his hand. And watched him for any length of time.

As he slipped across the grit of the castle’s drive, his alert eyes piercing straight through her, each soft, purposeful step—like the quiet advance of a snake—sent a prickle of unease through her gut and made her itch for the rnari blades currently sheathed in her quarters.

But she hadn’t signed up to train with daggers. She was already good with them. Excellent, even.

She’d come here to learn swords.

And Severn Treng, former captain of the Sarasvatani Third Wing, was the perfect instructor for a rnari royal guard such as herself.

The rnari were an advanced unit, the pride of the Raidt. Part ranger, part bodyguard, almost every forest elf did service with them, though few made it past the first three or four Circles—just enough to give them basic defense, and perhaps pick up a few spells along the way.

The higher levels, like herself, had to cut their way to the top.

She’d been practically born into its ranks, and had fought tooth and nail to get into the elite Twelfth Circle. The evidence of her study showed in the tattooed patterns of several spells that adorned the skin of her shoulders and biceps. Her crowning achievement was the addition of the archaic summon spell that connected her with the ice deity Kodanh and allowed her to channel his power from the fey realm—a contract students of the Raidt hadn’t managed for the better part of a century.

She was also really good at fighting.

Just—not with swords.

Not yet.

She kept her blade raised—short guard, legs splayed in front stance, pommel held out from her crotch, the tip aimed at the exact line of his neck as she rotated, following his movement. A slow breeze lifted across the field beside them, bringing with it the smell of long, clumpy spring grass, wet soil, and tree sap. Goosebumps rose across her exposed skin, trailing under the padding of her shoulder guards and wrist bracers in a tingling wave. The sun, low in the sky, pushed the shadows of the nearby birch stand far over the lawn. It was early spring yet, their branches still little more than a mess of naked sticks, barely pushing out buds, and the glare of the sun, bleary though it was, dropped past the curve of his face and slid across his eyes.

They narrowed at the brightness.

A potential weakness, though she doubted it. He was too skilled for that.

She kept her face impassive. Loose. Relaxed. Giving nothing away as he stalked his circle, continuing to note the differences between them. Though she was taller than him, and physically stronger, each step and balance she made took thought and effort, whereas he held his own training blade as if it had been born in his hand, its tip balanced and precise as it floated a few inches above the gravel, tracking her position.

He calculated an advance, she a retreat, aware of the curve of the driveway behind her and the grass they would likely be crashing over soon. Her muscles shook. His did not. In fact, except for a slight hitch in his left hip—a result of an arrow hit during an early campaign—there were surprisingly few faults in his motion, despite his age.

She, meanwhile, was feeling the sore tenderness of a myriad of new bruises as a result of today’s series of beat-downs, along with a stiffness weakening her off side.

And a spark in her right-hand wrist was threatening to become something more serious.

But she mirrored his position with an exact focus, each step a careful response to his.

He studied her, the consideration and evaluation in his expression the only sign, apart from the dulled and beat-up excuse for a sword he held, that he was about to hand her ass to her as an instructor, rather than just for show.

“Hanging guard,” he directed.

She concealed her wince and switched the blade back to her right, knowing what was coming.

No sooner had she swung the sword down than he attacked.

She smashed her own dull training blade up to meet his, already stepping back, the clang of metal ringing through her sore joints and making that spark of pain flare. Her core muscles screamed.

Quick as a whip, he followed. Gravel rasped as he chased her across the drive, pressing his advantages—given her little experience, he had all of them—with a series of eel-smooth thrusts and cuts, barreling into her defense like a blood-scented Hermani hound after a kill.

For her part, she moved back smoothly. Only once did she slide into her usual rnari instincts, an easy pivot and strike that she cut almost as soon as it began, instead turning the motion into an awkward defense that made his blade rake over her crossguard in a blow that strained the already-battered tendons in her wrists.

Pain flared up from below her right hand again, angry at the abuse.

She recovered swiftly—he let her—and they resumed the swift chase-and-retreat across the drive, swords ringing and clanging, him driving her back as fast as she could without stumbling. They hit grass, swerved around the oval garden of the center, ground back onto thin gravel again.

Just before she was to hit grass once more, he sidestepped, brought his sword up, made for a different strike.

A signal.

She moved in as he crashed his blade down, snapped her sword to meet his. Metal screamed, then rasped as she thrust upward, catching his blade with hers. Her strained shoulders burned with tired pain as she forced herself through the unfamiliar motion, sliding the hilt up and then around until she cradled the edge of his blade in her crossguard, struggling to bring his sword along the outside of her shoulder and trap it.

He fought her, pressing her with his size and strength. She resisted the urge to turn in, instead shoving forward with her lower body—her legs, at least, were conditioned to this.

But, just as she was about to bring the sword back out, threaten him with disarming, the pain in her wrist erupted, the spark bursting into screaming, white-hot agony.

The hold collapsed inward, smacking his blade into her shoulder and knocking her to the left. She yelped, turning in with her left to relieve the strain, teeth gritting.

The pressure came off almost immediately. He backed off, disentangled their blades with a quick slide, and gave a formal-looking salute—hilt down, flat toward her, upright to his temple, a Sarasi instinct to him—to signal the end of the spar.

She reversed her sword to her left, held it in a casual grip, and, at a gesture from Treng, lifted her right wrist for him to inspect.

“You’re getting better. Less knife tactics this time.” He had a smooth accent, clipped, but spoke Janessi with a fluency similar to hers. The blunt shortness of his sentences was a result of his character, not ability.

He took her hand and prodded the bumps of her wrist with military efficiency. She stayed still, breathing through the pain. After thirty seconds, he let up. “Broken.”

She snorted softly and extricated her hand from his, giving the injured wrist a cool appraisal. It throbbed steadily, the pain only spiking when she moved it. “I’ll get Doneil to do his dark elf magic on it.”

Doneil, the only other elf on the estate, was actually a forest elf, like her. But the joke slid easily.

He grunted. “Steal some bread, too. You’re skin and bone.”

She resisted the urge to contradict him. Right now, when he wore his serious expression, they were master and apprentice.

Plus, he wasn’t wrong. She’d been pushing herself. Pushing farther than she’d ever gone before. Though the muscles specific to sword use would need quite a few more months before they developed properly, she could already feel them filling out, and the rest of her was a taut, iron-clad package of hard muscle. Each morning, she practiced through three full sets of rnari drills, and each evening saw her run the lap of Pemberlin hold’s twenty-acre inner border. All the exercise had eaten away her curves into a straighter, long-packed figure. As a result, some of her bones stuck out more.

Which was fine. She was training.

If she wanted to be among the rnari bladesworn, those that served royalty, like her parents, she had to be lean and mean. Anything more was a distraction. A sign she hadn’t worked hard enough. A symptom of laziness.

And the dark hells knew she didn’t need that. Not right now.

“Abiermar tonight,” he reminded her. “Wear your rnari dress.”

She nodded. Abiermar, made for the spring god, Abier, marked the beginning of spring planting season. Although a god who saw a broad range of worship, presiding over fertility and wealth, local tradition called to him as a pacifist. No one could carry arms—technically, the actual edict was against drawing weapons, but a few centuries of both common and political sense had decided to remove drunken temptation and put a ban on carrying, at least in court-held celebrations—on the night of his feast. Instead, they all got drunk on special triskan wine, made from the tiny, star-shaped flowers traditionally picked on the first moon of spring, tied ribbons around the boughs of castle courtyard trees, and held a night-long series of dances that came with their own subset of courting traditions among the peerage that she had paid little attention to.

Still, no weapons. For the humans, anyway.

As a bloodlined warrior of the Raidt’s court, the edict clashed immediately with her rnari tradition that she be armed at all times.

She got a pass. A pass that Lord and Lady Stanek wanted to parade around.

It wasn’t often that one hosted a bloodlined royal guard in such a minor castle.

“Do elves…” Treng hesitated, a frown deepening the lines of his forehead. “Do you celebrate Abier at all?”

“Some do. Those closest to human lands and those with… lowland farms.” She tilted her head, considering. “There are different, more specialized deities for forest and tree field cultivation and the spirits that live therein. We have hienma on the—” She did a quick calculation between the two calendars. “—twenty-eighth.”

Treng also did a calculation. “The full moon?”

“Yes. The light plays a factor in rituals.”

He nodded.

“How about you?” she pressed. “What’s springtime in Saras like?”

“Very hot. We like to sleep during the day.”

“Lots of night-time dances, then?”

He slashed a wry smile her way, his eyes and mouth crinkling with memory. “One could say that.”

Some things remain the same across cultures.

Her lip curled as a memory slipped through her mind—the last time someone had wanted a ‘night-time dance’ with her. She tightened her grip on the hilt of the training sword.

His eyes tracked downward, noticing immediately.

Fortunately, before he could ask, an awareness flitted across the back of her neck and pressed like a shadow against her spine—her woodcraft sense. She stiffened when it the warning touched her mind, her head turning toward the source.

Southwest. Approaching along the road.

Beside her, Treng gave her a quiet glance over, then elected to dismiss the tight hand around the sword to cast his gaze curiously toward the far-off strand of trees where she was looking.

“What is it?”

“Magic. Artifact.” She frowned. A growl could be heard now, crackling like thunder in the trees, and the runes on her skin prickled in response to the approaching artifact. It felt like a line of ants had dipped their feet in ice and crawled over her shoulder and bicep. Several flocks of birds lifted off in the distance, marking the spot. After a few seconds, she began to see quick flashes of red past the skinny trunks and winter-bare undergrowth. She raised an eyebrow.

“Ah. Motorcar,” Treng rumbled. “I’m surprised he made it past Tindale, the roads the way they are.”

Her other eyebrow tipped upwards. “He?”

“Yes. Prince Nales Cizek, out of Lorka.”

She froze.

Yes, she’d heard of him. She’d heard of all of them. It was hard not to, running in the circles she did—her parents functioned as a bit more than court guards; she’d been groomed all her life to run in the courts, to look for nuance that might hide a threat. Lorka was the capital of the Teilan, the human kingdom that both sat next to and partially encroached on Raidt elf territory, and the Cizek line had held its reign for close to a thousand years with a combination of deep familial loyalty, cutting ambition, and brutal enforcement.

And blood magic. That was the story they were most famous for.

Andalai, a demon-cursed sword that answered only to the chosen of the Cizek bloodline. It had once subjugated the Raidt elves. And they were still paying that price in servitude—superficially, anyway.

Given that the demonic plane had been sealed from their world, Gaia, for two hundred and fifty years, she doubted the sword was of much practical use now.

Its legend, however, proved enough.

Treng smiled at her look of shock. “Yes, that Nales Cizek, second son of King Drahomír Cizek. He comes out here every Abiermar. Lady Stanek is his mother’s sister.”

An aunt of a royal heir. Well, that explained how Pemberlin Castle kept so many connections with other kingdoms. It had taken her father only six letters to find this place for her—and he’d been looking at elf steads first.

As far as she knew, Pemberlin was only one of two human steads he’d contacted, and had been the first to respond back.

And she wasn’t the only elf it housed. Doneil had arrived nearly a year ago.

Her mood darkened as the growling red monstrosity drew close enough for her to spot the distinct forms of two people in its seats. It was open-air, similar to a chariot, except for the second set of wheels under its back—placed like a horse’s legs, she thought, albeit a very elongated horse. Narrow, too, with a series of half-exposed pipes and mechanical bits that looked to her like thinner, more delicate versions of train parts. She discerned that the artifact she felt—either goblin or human-made, definitely not fey—was seated at its front, where the contraption extended in place of a horse.

Most likely a power source.

She immediately spotted the prince in the passenger’s seat at the back. The man driving looked more like a guard. Tall, buff, with a dusting of sand-colored hair currently mussed by the wind, the gray and black monochrome of his double-breasted royal guard coat standing out against the deep red of the car’s siding. A wide grin split his face as he turned the vehicle in through the hold’s wide-open gates and crunched onto the pale gravel drive, and his teeth flashed as he said something to the back seat, belying a certain friendship between the two.

The prince, for his part, looked more subdued. Alert, she thought, though not unfriendly. He wasn’t as tall as his guard, and held a slighter frame—not weak, but certainly not that of the career soldier sitting in the front seat. He held a leaner, more compact build. Sat balanced in his seat, his posture at ease and correct, subtle beneath the coat he wore. With his dark clothes, black hair, and the deep olive tint to his skin, he provided a distinct contrast to his companion, and, from afar, reminded her a bit of the small, wiry, gray-feathered nuthatches that picked at the forest floor.

The distance made his expression hard to discern, but she got an impression of smooth, quiet features.

She felt the exact moment his gaze found her across the space, likely drawn to the unusual sight of a forest elf in training garb standing next to the castle’s Master-at-Arms. Between her height, darker skin, and the fact that she was a woman in practice armor, she stood out even more than Treng did. He, at least, was human.

Plus, her reputation had likely preceded her. No one gossiped like the courts did.

Their eyes momentarily locked, his far bolder than she had expected, and a shock ran through her. Anger. Aggression. A flash of memory, quick and dark, never far from her mind. A slice of torchlight against the shadows of a wall.

Her grip tightened on the training sword, but she forced her features to remain smooth and neutral. She dropped her gaze to the vehicle again and received some satisfaction to see that the shiny red paint along the motorcar’s sides had been marred with splattered mud.

As Treng waved to the two men, and the growling car began to slow—Elrya, it looked like they were stopping to say hi—she gave his elbow a quick tap, lifted her injured and now visibly swelling wrist, and gave a slight bow.

“I better go heal this.”

He gave her a pitying look that she knew had only a little to do with the broken wrist, then bowed his head and offered the traditional Abiermar greeting. “Merry and bright, Catrin.”

“Merry and bright, Master Treng.”

She bowed a second time, deeper, then left.

Chapter 2

“There’s something on the way. I can feel it.”

Catrin cocked her head and lifted an eyebrow, not bothering to look up from where she leaned against the wall, out of the way in the busy kitchen. “What—are you a weather hag now?”

The castle’s kitchen thronged around them, a hive of activity that expanded across two small rooms and spilled out into the back courtyard for the feast preparations. The air buzzed, a frenetic, happy type of chaos that spun lighter and faster as the sun sank toward the horizon. A clash of scents—herbs, meat, raw dough, cooked rice; fresh, wet leaves for the traditional Abiermar sticky dumplings that she spotted partially made in the far corner—mixed with the closer wood-smoke aroma of the hearth and two ovens.

The heat flushed right over her skin. Doneil and most of the cooking staff were visibly sweating. Even with the expanded room, the kitchen was pushed to its limits. No less than five roasts filled varying surfaces, the two hogs halfway through their cooking cycle and due back on the outdoor spits, while the other three—the largest birds she’d ever seen, either living or dead—were undergoing some strange ritual of carving and herb-stuffing that created lines like waves in their surfaces. A set of assistants with serious, concentrated expressions lined the ridges with herbs and spices.

Doneil had been relegated to the corner nearest the door, the flour-coated counter in front of him overloaded with pieces of shaped and braided dough inlaid with apple slices, cinnamon, and fir tip jelly, a distinctly elven flavor that had drawn her like a crow to silver. She’d wedged herself into the slight nook created between the edge of the counter and the door, keeping herself out of the way.

It said something about the busyness of the kitchen, and the approaching deadline of the feast, that she and Doneil only drew a few curious looks from the steady stream of people in and out of the door. One elf was sufficient to warrant a second glance—two together, speaking their own dialect, usually turned a few more heads, especially since she was a blooded rnari.

With her broken wrist, it had hurt, but she’d done a quick cleanup, the cool water of the basin in her room washing off the sweat and dirt and easing the hot shake of her muscles after the day’s training, and had changed into a simple belted shift over a pair of leggings and soft shoes—quick and easy, enough to zip down to the kitchens and heal—but there was no hiding the darkness of her skin or the cords of muscle that flexed on her arms. Or the distinct curling pattern of tattooed mercari runes that ran down her shoulder and bicep.

Doneil grunted.

“Nah, it’s just a pressure thing, I think. Broke my wrist when I was in smetlina, before I got my rune. Took a few days to get to the healer, and it’s been wonky ever since.” He glanced up long enough to wave the wrist in question at her and beam her a grin so broad, she saw a flash of his canine teeth. “Gets twingy when there’s something up. And it’s twinging mightily today.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Doneil was many things, but a soothsayer was not one of them. And his wrist looked fine, albeit smudged with flour from his work on the counter. Though he carried the stereotypic lanky frame of an elf from the Raidt, his was a skinnier build. Wiry and strong, but not packed with the hard slabs of muscle she’d beaten into herself. He was a bit of a Jack, she’d learned. Had even managed a few entry levels in the rnari before taking a greater interest in the outrangers.

Then, eventually—oddly—cooking.

Despite the eyebrow raise of a career choice for one who used to ride with the rangers, he was interesting to talk to. He had a loose, comfortable manner and a quick, easy smile. As the apprentice chef, and a castle outsider to boot, he made a perfect bridge between the lower staff and the castle management. If anything was going on, he was swift to find out about it. Especially since he kept pieces of ‘failed’ cooking experiments in a bribe bag next to the spice cupboard by the outer door. She’d seen everyone from the blond-haired stablehand to Geneve, one of Lady Stanek’s ladies-in-waiting, walk out of here eating something.

His frown of concentration grew as he leaned forward, nimble fingers slowing as they rounded the dough on his latest ginnri bun into what would soon form the delicate points of a limbis flower.

When he finished, he carefully slid a bakery skiff underneath it, picked it up, and deposited it onto a long, skinny tray where four others already sat waiting.

Then he turned to her, wiping flour off on his apron and making a gesture to her injured wrist. “Now, let me see that.”

She lifted it, hiding the wince as sharp pain shot through her nerves. It had swollen, but not badly, and the cold water of her washbasin had taken some of the heat from it, though it was quickly coming back. With the swelling, and the discolored splotch of bruising around the joint, it was hard to tell precisely what was wrong with it, but the healing rune on Doneil’s wrist flared gold under the coating of flour and he grunted, confirming Treng’s diagnosis.

“Broken. Hold still.”

She breathed carefully, her own senses sharpening as magic slid between them. It felt like a colony of ants had crawled into her skin. The bones in her wrist stiffened, energy humming into them like a rapid drum beat. She tightened her other hand into a fist as they knit together, the swollen throb from before tempering into a slow, grating sensation.

After a few minutes, he released her hand and stepped back to his counter, returning to his work.

“Thanks,” she said.

He grunted again. “You should be easier on yourself. You’re not indestructible.”

She flexed the hand, feeling only the dull pull of tired muscles and tendons. No pain, sharp or otherwise.

“And you should eat something,” he continued. “Can’t be a good rnari if you starve yourself.”

She shot him an annoyed look. “Can’t be a good rnari if I’m fat, either.”

“It doesn’t matter if you make yourself rail-thin or fat as an elephant. He would have still come for you, just like he did the others. You’re only punishing yourself.”

Her jaw locked, and her entire body went dead still. Memory slammed through her. The small touch of his hand when he’d stopped her in the corridor, the seize of surprised breath catching in her lungs. Panic as his gaze had slid over her, touched with languor from the table wine, but not drunk. Calculating. Purposeful. Amused. Seeing straight through her rnari armor as if it were thinner than wet reed paper. His scent, like dry maple wood and worked steel, had filled her senses.

Her spine tightened like a bowstring.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she snapped, the words clipped and precise, though faster than she’d liked. “I don’t have the luxury of changing loyalties at a hat drop. Rnari are weapons, nothing more. A weapon needs to be capable.”

He gave a soft snort, not looking up from the bread. “I don’t think anyone would call you incapable.”

She was about to snipe something back, anger singing in her blood like a fiery torrent, when the mood in the kitchen rippled. A few heads turned up, attracted to a spot of fluttering yellow that had just come through the open window.

“Sun’s bright tits,” Doneil swore as the butterfly dipped lower in the room, either dragged down by the humidity and warmth or blasted by the confusing assault of smells it had wandered into. His flour-coated hands came up, and he took half a step toward it before glancing down at them in disgust. “Hells. I can’t get it.”

Her jaw slackened at his reaction. It loosened even more when she realized that he wasn’t alone in it. Several cooks and assistants had turned their attention to the insect, their expressions a mix of concentrated scowls.

Despite herself, her eyebrow twitched.

All this over a butterfly?

“It’ll get into the food,” Doneil said, as if reading her thoughts. He turned to her with an irritated sneer, the disgust plain on his face. “Plus, it’s one of Abier’s Own. Incredibly bad luck if it dies.”

She hid a soft snort. She had no idea how this particular butterfly had managed to get onto the list of things sacred to the agriculture god—it was the type whose caterpillars were usually found munching the beekeeper’s lettuce—but it explained the attention it was getting. The butterfly had turned nearly half the kitchen now, and no one seemed pleased to see it.

“Catrin—could you…?” Doneil grimaced, baring a flash of white teeth. “My woodcraft isn’t very good.”

Now, she didn’t bother hiding the lift of her eyebrows. “You want me to call the butterfly to me and take it outside?”

“Yes. Call it repayment for the heal.”

His tall, lanky figure had hunched, arms bowed with restrained irritation at his sides, fingers unconsciously flexed into claws.

Her earlier anger faded, replaced by a quiet spark of amusement. She loosened her arms and stepped forward, eyes on her target, mindful that her next action was about to clash with the serious, deadly set of spellwork inscribed into her skin. The butterfly had swooped close to the main oven, a jittering dart of pale yellow against the sooty brickwork. An entire kitchen’s worth of eyes settled on her.

Well, she thought, lifting her arms. This will change their view of the deadly rnari warrior.

She drew her mind down, focusing. A trickle of energy fluttered up from inside her being, like a quiet ripple on a pond. Unlike the mercari runes that marked her skin, which focused on magic outside of the body and soul, this magic called from within her, a talent natural to the forest elves, though one she didn’t often use—at least, not in this context. She connected with the deeper part of her, then reached out across the space to the tiny flutter of life that was causing so much anxiety in the room.

Come, little sister, she called. I’ll take you to safety.

The butterfly jittered to the side, as if spooked, skirting over the arch of the oven’s roof. Then, like watching a windblown leaf, its jerky movements pitched her way.

It landed in her outstretched palm, feet light and delicate, a contrast of pale yellow against her dark skin. She immediately caged it with her other hand, brought it to her mouth, and pressed her lips to her fingers, muttering a few words in elven to calm its heart.

She slid a sly look to Doneil as she turned to the door, making for the pale glow of sunshine on courtyard stones. She shed the shadows of the kitchen like a cloak, the sunlight striking her skin with heat, its radiance entering her eyes and obliterating all sight. The air changed, cooled. She made her way several paces from the door, then let her fingers go, opening the cage. The butterfly sat on her hand, soft and delicate, its pale-yellow pattern marked with tiny gray lines as subtle as spiders’ silk and an indigo-colored spot on the arch of its upper wing. The sun caught on the soft powder of its wings and gleamed on its antennae as the breeze shifted, blowing it to the side. She relaxed, waiting.

After a minute, it shifted on her hand, angled itself into the wind, and fluttered up. It struck a jerky trail through the air, skirted over the table of unlit paper lanterns, and rose up among the ribbons and glass ornamentation that hung across the courtyard. She breathed out as it climbed up into the sky, and rolled her shoulders back, flexing the fingers of the wrist she’d injured.

“Are you the butterfly queen?” an amused voice asked.

She glanced up and back. The prince and his guard stood at the thick stone railing of the castle’s wrap-around, staring down at her. The guard leaned forward over the railing, a teasing smile on his face. As she’d seen before, he had a tall, buff frame. Filled out, not lanky like her and Doneil. The uniform he wore tried its best to hide it behind straight lines and stiff fabric, but it was like trying to contain a bear. His fingers were thick and rough where they gripped the stonework.

The prince had only put one hand on the stone, keeping his back straight. Now that they were closer, she saw that his eyes were light blue, not dark like she’d initially thought—striking against the deeper tint of his skin and his black hair. They watched her carefully, his expression neutral, as if drawing to some kind of conclusion.

“Only when the food’s threatened,” she answered.

“You eat butterflies?” the guard said with mock incredulity.

Her gaze flicked back to him. Stayed. Then she turned and made to step away.

He was quick to apologize.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry—come back! My name’s Bellfort Lange, and I’m an idiot.”

Bellfort?

“Was your mother an architect?” she asked, turning back to face the castle.

“Funny. No, actually. She was a nun.”

Orphan-raised, then. She’d heard of that happening. Castles picking promising children out of convents and monasteries to raise as guards, ensuring loyalty and servitude from a young age.

“Catrin,” she answered.

He beamed her a grin from the railing, leaning forward even more. “Can I call you Cat?”

“No.”

His laugh was loud and infectious, a shout of jubilation. His grin exploded across his face, filling his eyes and cheeks with a vibrant light. He leaned forward even farther, practically vibrating with happy energy.

Then the prince spoke.

“What’s a rnari elf doing at Pemberlin Castle?”

Her gaze flicked back to him. Though the low sun should have lit up his eyes, he’d angled his face so that his brows cast shadows over them. He still held a cautious, subdued posture, features a careful mask, but she detected genuine curiosity behind his tone—and a touch of suspicion.

Anger flared like an old wound.

“Broke a princeling’s hand when he got too close,” she said, curling her accent around the words, making them clipped, pointed. She folded her arms over her chest and let a slip of teeth show. “They don’t like that sort of thing.”

The prince stiffened. She held his stare.

“Aren’t you supposed to protect princes?” Bellfort pressed, his grin still evident—as if she hadn’t just inadvertently threatened his charge. “That’s a strange way to go about it.”

She didn’t answer, only stood. After a few moments, her gaze switched back to Bellfort.

“I’ve never seen a woman with so many muscles,” he continued. “I’d love to get my hands on them.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “Sure. Tomorrow morning, on the front drive.”

Pemberlin Castle was so modest, the drive was the closest thing they had for a training ground.

His face sobered briefly, slipping into a more careful expression for a moment—but still managing to keep a remnant of his easy grin—and a small, tense part of her relaxed as he nodded in acknowledgment. “I’ll be there.”

He knew what she’d just invited him to. Sparring, not courting. Though she had a feeling he might throw in some of the latter, anyway.

She’d quickly disabuse him of that.

“You look skilled,” Bellfort said. “Tenth Circle?”

Her gaze drew back to his, arms still crossed. After a moments’ study, she gave him a nod. “Twelfth.”

His eyes widened briefly, but he hastily hid the surprise—or, rather, channeled it straight into his grin. Her skin prickled when his gaze dropped down again. “Are those spell runes? What do they do?”

“Spells,” she answered shortly.

He made a sputtering noise in his throat, and his mouth formed an unhappy downturn.

Beside him, she noticed the prince was still watching her.

The old anger sparked again.

Princes. They just took what they wanted without thinking of the consequences.

Her fist clenched.

Fuck it.

Ice pricked through her skin, and a breath of snow split the air. An image of the ice lizard came to her as she drew out his magic, cold and blue in his cave, eyes a pale white, the frill of his crests like the jagged pieces of an ice shelf, the translucency of a glacier crevasse glowing a million shades of blue and silver around him. She gathered it into herself, let the power build.

With a few short, practiced movements, she stabbed five thick spears of ice into the yard in front of her, fissuring the ground.

Bellfort’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ of surprise.

They stared at each other across the space. Then, she returned her gaze to the prince.

His expression had shuttered. Closed. He stared at her, face neutral, though his back was stiff and straight.

Good.

Touches of frost sparkled on the ground. The breeze picked up again, and the coolness of the approaching evening, and the ice, pressed into her skin, along with a touch of pain as Kodanh took his payment—the deity preferred blood above most things. She stepped her weight back, lifted her hand in parting, and made to turn again.

“I’ll see you at Abiermar!” Bellfort called at her retreating back. She gave an extra wave in reply.

As she strode away, her lanky steps eating up the courtyard, she heard his voice, not as quiet as he likely thought it was, follow her in a low tone.

“Man, she is going to kick my ass.”

Chapter 3

Catrin tipped a small, exquisitely carved crystal goblet to her lips and sipped, a contented gaze wandering around the room as she enjoyed the stark, cutting taste of triskan flower wine over her tongue. For the first time since she’d arrived at Pemberlin a month ago, she felt happy. Relaxed.

At ease.

Part of it, she thought, was the dress. Every aspect of rnari ceremonial armor was designed to intimidate. Leather harness, dyed several shades darker than her skin, replaced her normal breastplate, strapping in pieces of actual armor to protect her hips, waist, back, and shoulders and sitting over a double-banded gambeson made of strips of thinly quilted cloth that fit snugly against her body and tapered down in chevron patterns, forming vertical panels of deep silver and forest green and a skirt that parted past her hip armor into three straight, similarly-dyed leather pieces that swayed when she walked.

Her blades were a comfortable weight at her hips, and a decorative leather waistcloth hung snugly from her abdomen, deeply imprinted with stylized mercari and tooled with silver, gold, and copper highlights. A pair of leather greaves strapped in over a set of strong-soled boots and thinly-quilted leggings, running from the tips of her toes to just above her knees. A strip of curved metal ran straight down their middles, matching the lay of her shin bone and gleaming in the hall’s subdued light.

To top it off, Geneve, one of Lady Stanek’s ladies-in-waiting, had surprised her an hour before the ceremony, just as she was buckling into her greaves. Together, they’d brushed out, organized, and gotten to work on her hair.

She’d stridden into the great hall with a full set of warrior braids, looking like some fierce, exotic animal.

Elrya. She felt like some fierce, exotic animal.

And every time Lady Stanek’s gaze slipped her way—she looked striking in her bright yellow dress, like a daffodil among lavender—the woman hid a contented, mischievous smile behind her goblet.

She liked having a warrior around. Especially a female warrior.

Women weren’t as common among Teilanni military ranks, she’d heard. Which certainly explained Bellfort’s reaction to her earlier.

And, truth be told, she liked it here.

It was nice. Peaceful. Untouched by the negative aspects of either Teilanni or Raidt politics. A place that seemed removed from the world at large, happy in its stead. Far enough away that any upheaval and war wasn’t likely to reach much past its borders, but close enough, and welcoming enough, that even a Cizek prince was comfortable visiting with just one guard.

Tonight, the great hall had been dressed up. Though nearly seven hundred years old, its stone walls were kept clean and scrubbed in the modern century, its old flagstone floor covered over with checkered marble tiles that gleamed under the pale glow of the many Bureni torches, a staple of festival nights. Rich, dark wood arched across the ceiling in struts and trusses, draped with strings of flowers and leafy garlands. In concession to Abier, the hall’s normal display of ceremonial and historical weapons had been removed, replaced instead with landscape works showcasing local valleys, hills, and farms. Bowls and wreaths of flowers, always trimmed by the tiny, star-shaped breaths of triskan—which also adorned the wine-serving trays—sat on small pedestals around the room.

The front of the great hall was taken by three dark, arching gateways of fir and cedar branches. The two smaller ones sat behind the lord and lady’s throne chairs, while the largest curved over an ancient, decorative copper bowl that jangled at her woodcraft like a particularly bright but distant light.

Some sort of artifact. Not fey, but perhaps goblin. Maybe even human.

She was just contemplating a second trip around the feast tables—the roast hog was being slowly decimated, along with the platter of sticky dumplings next to one of the birds—when she spotted Severn Treng watching her from across the room.

He looked dark and striking, the black dye of his double-breasted jacket Teilanni in tone, along with the full-length dark pants, but the bright red belt sash, like the flare of a poppy petal, was distinctly Sarasi.

She lifted her goblet in his direction. He returned the greeting, a wry amusement lighting his eyes and turning the corners of his lips.

Her eyes narrowed.

He looked a little too amused.

Not good.

His eyebrows slid up, and his gaze moved pointedly to the side. She snapped her head around just in time to see one Bellfort Lange, royal guard to Prince Nales Andres Cizek, break through the nearest cluster of tipsy, gossiping nobles and stride her way with a broad, determined grin on his face.

All former comfort turned to ice in her veins.

She shot a piercing look back to Treng, who lifted his goblet higher—damn the man, he was having far too much fun at her expense—then Bellfort was grabbing her arm, heedless of her armor, weaponry, or gritting scowl, and directing her toward the wide-open doors leading to the outside veranda, the same one he and Prince Nales had been watching her from before.

“Catrin, Catrin—are you sure I can’t call you ‘Cat’? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

She sincerely doubted it. In a room full of upstanding nobles and gentry, she was not hard to find. Everyone gave her a wide berth.

His voice bubbled in her ear, fingers alive and flexing into her bicep. For a moment, she entertained the notion of stopping dead, letting him either thump straight into her or swing around at his awkward angle—and perhaps he sensed it, because his spine stiffened—but she resigned herself to be led.

She could use the fresh air, anyway.

“Do I look like a cat to you?”

He stopped them and regarded her, brows drawing down in sudden seriousness as he looked her over.

A slip of panic shot through her skin. She sucked in a short breath, caught herself, and hid it. Held herself still. Resisted the urge to stiffen, instead curling her fingers more tightly around the neck of her goblet. The grip of his hand became a keen awareness in her mind.

His eyes danced above hers, glittering in the pale glow of the nearest Bureni torch. Light brown, like cedar bark.

“If I said yes, could I call you ‘Cat’?”

She let out a breath, her features going flat. “No.”

“If I said no, could I call you ‘Cat’?”

“No.”

His mouth formed a flat, unhappy line, and his brown eyes implored her. “You’re not giving me many options.”

“You seem to come up with them just fine on your own.” She pulled forward, and they started walking again. “Where are you taking me?”

“Princeling wants a word. Conversation. Please don’t break his hand.”

The night opened up through the doors, the humming echo of laughter and conversation shifting to the clear ruckus of revelry from the courtyard below. While the castle’s great hall housed the gentry on Abiermar—and most of the more-wealthy local merchants—the courtyard was open to everyone else. Farmers, servants, market vendors, all three cobblers that lived in Tinedin, the nearest town, smiths, fletchers, flower arrangers, lower house staff, everyone. Though it lacked the impropriety of other celebrations, namely the drunken, behind-the-bushes romping that occurred at the town dances, they bribed a fair crowd of people out on food alone. The second hog was down there, along with the other two birds and enough feast food to fill two entire horse stalls.

Prince Nales stood by the castle wall, close to the door they exited through. Though a torch burned on the wall just behind him, his features were cast in shadow. He wore the same dark coat he’d arrived with. Double-breasted, in a similar style to what Treng wore, albeit with a richer, more elegantly expensive cut. Thick trousers covered his legs, also black—military dress, if she had to guess—with pointed boots that gave a subtle gleam. The only concessions to his rank and title were a small gold pin in his collar and a signet ring on his finger.

She made a pointed glance from him to the happy laughter, drifting music, and roaring conversation inside, and back. A soft snort puffed through her nose.

“Bit of a loner, aren’t you?”

Bellfort patted her shoulder armor, dry sarcasm entering his tone. “Yes, he is. You two should get along swimmingly.”

She gave his hand a soft shove, and he backed off with a fluidity that surprised her, pivoting like a boat on water. His broad, toothy grin bared her way as he drifted a few paces away. In the torchlight, his sandy blond hair flickered with copper and gold.

“We were interested in elves,” he continued. “Wanted to ask you.”

“About the court?” she guessed, gaze sliding back to Prince Nales, who watched her.

“Yes,” Bellfort said, with more than a hint of exasperation. “Though I, specifically, want to know more about you breaking princes’ hands.” He jerked his head to Prince Nales, eyes flashing white as they rolled toward the night sky. “Feel free to give a demonstration if he doesn’t start talking.”

Prince Nales shot an irritated glance his way, and his arms came up to cross over his chest.

“I can speak, Bell.”

“You don’t usually. Not until you get some wine in you, leastwise.” He eyed her goblet with a sudden seriousness. “Maybe I should go find one of those trays.”

“You wanted to know about the court?” Catrin prompted. Her own arm had come up, slipping across her chest to grip the one that held the wine. “General, or specific?”

General was one thing. As a prince, he likely knew a great deal about elven court workings. Specific, however, landed close to revealing secrets.

He was lucky, though. She wasn’t bladesworn.

Court secrets were not hers to keep.

She smiled a slow grin and took a sip of her wine, gaze flicking over him in a new light.

In fact, with a bit more wine and a friendly attitude, she would be happy to tell him every bit of court gossip she could remember. Especially about a certain asshole prince and the family that protected him.

Instead, however, his gaze dropped to her shoulder. He unfolded his hand and made a gesture. “Those are mercari, correct?”

She glanced down. Though he could have been indicating any part of the ancient script that adorned her uniform, it was the dark lines of tattoos on her bicep that caught his attention—the ones that had glowed when she’d summoned the ice earlier. They unfolded like a branch, curling in eddies and spirals to form distinct squares of mercari—like having a page from a prayer book embedded in her skin.

“Yes,” she said, bringing her arm up closer to the light. “Can you read it?”

“A little,” he answered, shifting against the wall. “We were taught kimbic.”

“And rentac?” she guessed.

Like goblins, human magic skewed toward the earthier planes, but his specific bloodline—the Cizeks—would delve into the demonic. One kept to the local energies, while the other, like some of her fey-born mercari, tapped into another world.

Considering the demonic plane had been sealed for about two hundred and fifty years, she doubted many studied rentac anymore, but his family would undoubtedly keep up the tradition.

Elven magic also split between worlds. While some of her runes worked with the natural world like her instinctual woodcraft, others tapped into their fey origins for power.

He inclined his head.

A chorus of yells and hoots came up from the party in the courtyard below, interrupting the relative quiet before sliding off into peals of laughter. Across the way, lit in torchlight along one of the battlements of the castle’s outer defensive wall, a guard peered down at the carousing locals, his expression relaxed but neutral.

“So, I’m guessing you’re hugely scary and strong with those?” Bellfort’s stare focused on her bare runes like a hound with the scent of a wolf. “Able to really mess up someone’s day? With more than just ice?”

Her eyebrows twitched. She took another sip of wine. “Don’t need them to land your ass in the dirt.”

He bared his teeth. “I look forward to it, Cat.”

Cat.

Her gaze narrowed over the lip of her glass. Despite herself, she could actually feel the irritation twitch up within her—like the tail of the namesake animal.

She didn’t say anything, only stared.

“Ah,” he said with a mock wince. “I have a feeling my ass will hit the drive gravel a little harder tomorrow.”

Soft steps came from the doorway close to them, followed by movement. Geneve appeared, looking like a spring crocus with the pale blue, effervescent flow of her dress. Her seeking gaze found Catrin first, and she started forward, a determined stride in her step—then halted when she noticed who shared the veranda with her. Dark eyes darted first to Prince Nales by the wall, then Bellfort leaning casually against the railing, watching her like a golden eagle.

She appeared to come to some decision. She rolled her shoulders and strode forward, lifting her arms, the trail of her dress drifting behind her. Belatedly, Catrin realized she was clutching something in her hands.

“Here,” Geneve said, pressing a warm, wrapped sticky dumpling into Catrin’s surprised hand. “Even warriors need to eat.”

“Hey,” Bellfort said after a few seconds, his voice quiet and plaintive. “What about me?”

Geneve’s dark eyes slid to him, and Catrin felt a slight hesitation in her hand—a subtle pulling back—before a sharp look entered her gaze. Her shoulders dropped, and her head tilted. She gave him a more-obvious glance-over, one eyebrow twitching up.

“What about you?”

This close, Catrin caught the scent of lavender and rose from Geneve’s perfume. The hair at her crown twisted in a dark, rippling weave, threaded through with tiny darts of triskan flowers, matching the pearls in her ears and necklace. The rest hung in ringlets around her neck that bounced and shook with her movement, accentuating the delicate sharpness of her chin.

“Don’t I get a dumpling?”

This time, both brows shot up. A half-smile quirked the corner of Geneve’s mouth, quickly hidden. Her features smoothed.

“Perhaps you should get one yourself.” The smile came back, ghosting onto her lips. “Or two.”

And, with a parting touch to Catrin’s pauldron, she strode back into the hall, dress flowing elegantly around her.

Catrin gave a soft snort, examined her procured dumpling, and made a show of picking apart the wrapping. “Guess you aren’t warrior enough.”

Silence filled the space between them. She frowned, noticing that both men were still looking toward the door. Bellfort had a serious expression on his face, brows furrowed, contemplating the open doorway as if it were an advanced mathematics problem. The prince had a smile on his face.

She blew out a breath. “I missed something, didn’t I?”

“Sticky dumplings are used in Abiermar courtship,” the prince said, humor light in his tone. “She just invited him.”

Ah. That explained why she’d seen so many people wandering with dumplings.

She glanced between them, then back to her dumpling.

“Her name’s Geneve,” she said. “Comes from a merchant family in the capital, here to receive training on the noble circles.” She paused, inhaling the scent of sauce and sweet-meat from the steaming rice, and reconsidered the gift—though, if Geneve had meant it as courtship, it was clear her sights had moved on. “She currently has a lack of proper suitors.”

She felt the instant Bellfort’s gaze switched to her—like a beacon, examining her face. She kept her expression neutral and ignored him, taking a small bite of the dumpling.

“Thank you, Catrin.”

A smile tugged the corners of her lips when he moved off the railing—back to Catrin, she noted, not Cat. He passed close to her back, his presence like a hawk on wing. After a quick exchange of looks between himself and the prince that she felt more than saw, he strode through the open doors.

She glanced over, watching the broad gray and black colors of his jacket disappear into the room.

The prince chuckled darkly. “Getting a man’s hopes up? That’s cruel and unfair.”

She shrugged.

“He’s better than the forty-year-old banker she came all the way out here to escape.” A smile danced on her lips as she met the prince’s eyes. “He’s in there, too.”

A pause. His gaze slid over her expression, studying her—not in a way that tripped her alarm, but reserved. Contained.

Then, as if he’d come to some sort of decision, he relaxed.

Like flipping a switch, his body language opened and smoothed, tension dropping from his chest and shoulders. The soles of his boots made a quiet tap over the flagstones as he stepped away from the wall, moving closer to peek over the railing at the crowd below—they’d lulled into a normal, quieter level of conversation, more like a party of neighbors than the drunken pub crawl she’d expected. Someone below plucked at the strings of a lute. The courtyard light angled across the smooth planes of his face, catching in his blue-gray eyes.

He let out a low sigh, hands sliding into his pockets. “You’re a trickster, aren’t you?”

“Must be the wine,” she tittered, the smile surfacing on her face again.

She frowned, giving the goblet in her hand a more-careful examine—it really was strong stuff. After a moment, she took another sip and wandered to join him at the railing. About fifty people spread across the dirt, gravel, and flagstones of the courtyard, most of them castle staff in various states of conversation and repose across the benches, though a few clung together in a slow-moving dance toward the side by the lutist. Her gaze slid over the lanterns, watching one of the kitchen maids approach a group of off-duty guardsmen, a sticky dumpling clutched in her hand.

“You were asking me about mercari,” she prompted.

The prince’s attention lifted. He looked at her sidelong, studying her face again. Though his posture was still reserved—not boisterous or taking up room as she’d seen others do—and his actions careful, it felt as though a door had opened on his personality, bringing him a little closer to the surface. His gaze dropped to her dumpling.

“You aren’t eating.”

She flashed him an irritated look and, very deliberately, brought the dumpling up and took a large bite.

What was with people being so obsessed over her eating habits?

“I know about fey mercari,” he went on, looking back over the crowd. “But how does the slidnepi mercari differ from common kimbic? They’re derived from the same source, correct?”

“They are, and it doesn’t,” she answered. “Not really, anyway. Some argue that mercari works better for elves because it was made by us, but the kimbic spells I’ve tried all worked fine. Bright ti—” She cut herself off from finishing the word ‘tits’, transforming the i into a strange, elongated veer that, by the sudden, amused dance in his eyes, fooled precisely no one. “I know a guy who swears by the kimbic firebending spell.”

Giones li Trenan, an old-guard former bladesworn that wandered through the Raidt training grounds like a drugged ghost, the bright scar of a northern battle wound across his face almost as recognizable as the seven-tipped nitya maple of the royal house. He kept paper kimbic spells in his back pocket for practice.

“I haven’t tried mercari myself—” Of course he hadn’t. He wasn’t an elf. “—but I’ve studied a couple of the spells closely. They had a slightly different wording, and not just in inherent grammatical structure and usage. The root was similar, but the branching had a different tone, even with the code-switching kimbic does. If…”

He kept speaking, but a low drone rose in the back of her mind. It didn’t so much catch her attention as seize it—like a hungry dog snatching a scrap of red meat. She froze, drawing inward, focusing. It sounded like a thousand bees, but quickly curved in pitch—blaring, almost. The breath stalled in her chest, eyes widening.

A ripple of tension swung through her gut.

It felt like something, somewhere, was about to break.

Slowly, she became aware of someone calling her name.

“Catrin? Catrin?”

Prince Nales’ voice was strong, loud. His hands waved, brows furrowed in concern, as if he’d been trying to get her attention for a while. A few faces from below turned up at them, their expressions curious.

She stepped back from the railing, and something crunched under her boot. Pieces of shattered crystal glittered on the flagstone, along with a dark slosh of spilled wine—the remnants of her goblet.

She stared at it, then back at him, uncomprehending.

A second later, she snapped back into the present like a crack of lightning.

She straightened, switched into her guard, swept her gaze past him, up the castle walls, across the empty veranda, over the familiar walls and shadows of the outer battlements, then up to the sky. She backed away from the railing, hands going instinctively to her rnari blades.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. The skin between her shoulders crawled, uneasy. Her senses were sharp and alert, nostrils flaring, eyes darting back over the scene. She found nothing, but she trusted her instincts.

And right now, every single one of them was screaming at her.

“Get inside,” she said, noting all the vulnerable positions, all the shadows she couldn’t cover, every alcove where a bow could be drawn, a knife thrown, a dart blown.

The prince was a target. She needed to protect him.

“Get inside,” she repeated when he didn’t move. He was still by the railing, in the open, vulnerable. “There’s—”

The sky exploded above them. Immediately, her summoning runes burned cold on her skin. She flinched, then lunged as magic ripped through the surrounding air. A crash of white light erupted from the great hall, blazing straight through the glass. Her body felt on fire, shivering, vibrating, every cell tuned high with energy. Shoulders burning, she bowled into the prince, caught his head and neck in her hold, and shoved him to the floor.

“Get down!”

He fought her—briefly, more surprise and shock than anything conscious—then she felt him move. Stone slammed into her knee guards, and she reorganized her grip as she fell on top of him, protecting his back with her body and armor.

As the sound returned to her ears, shouts of panic and alarm came up from the courtyard below. Around them, the white light expanded, going through the trees like a shock wave. More lights erupted in the forest and beyond, as if some god had skipped a handful of stones across the planet’s landscape.

A massive one lit up on her left, miles away, like some kind of supernatural blast. She watched, wide-eyed, as it spread.

Below her, Prince Nales shifted. His head came round, eyes wide and reflecting the glow. She kept a protective grip on his shoulder, but allowed him to sit up into a crouch, ready to run.

“Gate flare,” he identified, tone hesitant. Shaken. His eyes widened further as he took in the rest of the sky, disbelief and shock warring across his expression.

Her jaw slackened. Gate flare? Here?

The closest gate was more than a day’s ride away. From what she knew, there shouldn’t be gate flare anywhere near here. She’d seen a world gate once before—to the fey world, but goblin-made. They weren’t supposed to be this numerous. There were at least twenty ripples of light she could see. More, by the undulation of glows beyond the trees.

A great, rending crack scraped across her magic—like the rip of a falling tree shuddering in her chest—and a presence filled her senses.

Dark, burning, malevolent.

A low, keening growl came from the great hall, making all of the hairs rise on her arms.

Chapter 4

Energy snapped like storm tide. She lunged for the door, aware of the prince running behind her. Three runes burned cold on her shoulders, like spots of mountain ice embedded into her skin. Inside, the crowd was half-frozen, half-moving, surging, beginning to run, men and women with panicked faces and in fancy dress holding onto skirts, plates, glasses, stumbling.

She dodged through the first few, then had to angle herself and shove. People attempted to jump out of her way, moved too slow. She thumped straight into a noble, twisted, and kept going. Ahead, people were screaming, shouting. Someone—Treng—was calling her name.

“Catrin! Catrin! To me!”

A second growl—dark, angry, ancient—shook the air. The dark energy ramped up like a wave, tripping down her spine. Glass shattered. Another scream, more a whimper, quickly cut.

When she broke through the front of the crowd, she stopped dead in her tracks.

The hound was the size of a horse. Huge, snarling, with coarse, wiry brown hair and great claws that clicked and scraped on the checkered marble as it moved. It looked like someone had taken the meanest, mangiest wolf they could find and given it the muscles of a beef cow. Rough slabs of muscle rippled with tension, lean and hard, crisscrossed with bumps and scars. A particularly long and nasty one sliced across its bony hip, leaving a pale, twisting mark. Its long snout curved downward into a cruel jaw, showing two sharp rows of elongated teeth.

And, on its shoulder, branded so deep it seemed like the skin would never heal, was a symbol.

It looked like a Janessi ‘h’, except the top had three extra branches, two going straight out and one curling back over the left-side of the letter like the horn of a ram.

Though crude, even she could recognize the curve of the rentac.

Her eyes went wide.

Demon.

Black mist poured off its body, caustic to look at, dissolving like ground fog several inches from its body. The smell of sulfur caught at her nose, along with the fetid, overpowering scent of rotting gore.

Bellfort faced off against it, the broken shard of a glass punch bowl in his hands as a weapon and a flimsy metal serving tray for a shield. A rivulet of blood slipped down his hand where he held the shard, standing his ground.

Geneve stood behind him, shaking, cornered to the wall.

Another growl rose from the hound’s throat, the sound like a great, dragging stone, so loud and strong that it made the air tremble and sent vibrations through her bones. Bellfort dodged back as it snapped, lifting the shard and the platter, his steps quick and sure, face a mask of gritty concentration.

But he was clearly no match for it. The snap had been a feint, a test.

She watched in horror as its hindquarters bunched, gathering for a leap.

“No!” She threw out an arm, intending to defend him, for the instinctual mercari spell to spark through her runes and shove several spears of ice straight through the hound’s chest.

Instead, searing pain slammed through her skin. She yelled as it burned into her body. Her hand jerked to her arm, finding a slick of blood over the summoning runes.

She couldn’t feel Kodanh.

Helpless, she watched as the hellhound sprang and tore into Bellfort.

He didn’t stand a chance. With Geneve at his back, he could only retreat, not sidestep. He slashed the jagged piece of glass up and forward, shoved the tray into the beast’s snapping mouth, but it only aimed its jaws lower.

The hound’s teeth closed over his chest. Bone crunched. He went down with a strangled shout, the creature following him with another grating growl. Geneve shrieked, eyes wide in horror.

In the next second, Catrin was there. Its acrid stench beat at her eyes and mouth—sulfur, gore, and stale sweat that reminded her of an infected wound. She sliced a solid gash through the hound’s hamstring and danced away. A pained howl ripped the air like thunder. Its hindquarters dropped and flailed, the limb collapsed, flopping, claws scraping across the marble, muscles bunching grotesquely in its haunch. Black blood splattered the floor with a hiss.

She darted away another few steps, watching it, studying its movement. Then, when its biting jaws proved too slow, she raced in to take its other side.

The second hamstring snapped under the stroke of her blade, pulling a scream from the beast. She met its snarling backstrike with a twist and stab close to its eye, making it flinch, then went for its neck. It had thick skin, and she had to push harder, but she severed the tendons along its back and side in a smooth arc, then stabbed a blade deep into the side of its throat.

Its howl switched to a gurgle. Blood like liquid obsidian gushed from the wound, spreading across the floor, hot, sizzling where it touched the marble. She pulled her knife out and jerked out of its way. Wisps of thin smoke came from it, stinking like a foul river.

The dog thrashed like a mismanaged puppet.

Death throes. Her gaze went to the brand on its shoulder, now smeared with blood, staring at the symbol.

Where had it come from?

She kept her blades raised, just in case.

After half a minute, it was dead.

An unearthly silence spread over the hall. She felt eyes on her. Nobles and upper class merchants stared, shock clear on their faces. Most hung at the opposite end of the room where the veranda let out, bunched near the exits, but a dozen stood closer, makeshift weapons—broken bottles, table knives, the splintered-off leg of a chair—in their hands.

To her left, Treng had pulled Bellfort out of range and was hurriedly unwrapping his sash to use as a bandage. Geneve was there, too, cushioning his head with one hand, the other shaking as she helped Treng undo Bellfort’s jacket.

From this far, she couldn’t see enough to detail his injuries, but he didn’t look good.

She found Prince Nales in the crowd and pointed a bloodied finger to him.

“Go to the kitchens, get the elf. He’s a healer.”

His face had gone a stark white, mouth slack in shock. He’d already taken several steps toward Bellfort, but his head snapped to her, eyes wide.

Then his boots were clomping hard on the marble, racing for the door.

As he left, it occurred to her that she’d just issued an order to a prince. And that she’d just sent him off alone.

Elrya’s tits.

On cue, a blood-chilling shriek reverberated through the castle.

She stopped dead, grip tightening on her blades.

Treng’s fierce gaze met hers across the room.

“Go!” he snarled. “Kill it.”

She offered up one of her blades as she skipped back. “Knife?”

It wasn’t his usual Sarasvatani short sword, but it was better than nothing.

He gave a curt nod. She pressed the hilt into the hand of the nearest noble—an older man with a strong, determined expression who, after a quick flinch of surprise, clasped it with a firm grip.

“Give this to him,” she directed, then sprinted for the door.

The hallway enveloped her in a wave of warmth and dimness. Outside the great hall, wall sconces cast a shivering, tinted light over the hall’s finery. She paused by the first set to inspect the blood on her arm.

As far as she could tell, she hadn’t been hit. Though blood slicked the entire outside of her bicep, there were no obvious wounds or scratches—not that she saw, anyway. No obvious breaks.

But the rune still burned. It felt as if every piece of mercari was biting into her skin, needle-sharp, the pain prickling like the aftermath of a branding.

She called on it experimentally, attempting to pull the power of Kodanh to her as she ran—an act as natural as breathing.

The runes screamed in response. Pain smashed through her nerves, cold as an arctic frost. She snarled, stumbling to the side, clutching at the arm awkwardly with the hand that held her knife.

Okay, no magic, then. Not that spell, at least.

That was fine. She still had a blade.

The shriek sounded again—closer, this time, eerie, tipping up in pitch like a saslani deer. More to the left.

In the outer bailey?

She pushed more speed into her sprint, feeling her muscles stretch out. Her breaths came even and calm, the weight of her greaves and pauldrons snug and flexed to her body—Elrya, she longed for her breastplate. She dug in and angled for the next corner, almost smashing into a castle servant, female, blond hair, eyes wide with fright, one of the wine servers. She jerked only slightly and bowled past, heading for the back.

“The terrace!” The woman’s voice followed her up, breathless, shaking. “It’s on the East terrace!”

Catrin checked her pace and swerved, taking the next stair down—a servants’ niche, tight and cramped. At the base, she ripped into the next long, straight hallway, veered to the outer door, and slammed through.

The night opened around her.

Adrenaline shuddered through her body. Most of the light from before had gone, though some remained—like echoes of the northern aurora, except pure and pale, ghosts. Above, stars glimmered, cold and distant. Her breath huddled up in a chilled cloud of vapor. The air was still. Tense. Quiet. As if every stone and insect held themselves, waiting. Though she could still hear the mutterings and buzz of panic from the great hall and courtyard, the sound came to her from a distance—like it belonged to a different world.

The breeze lifted, pricking her skin, cooling the blood on her arm. The smell of cinnamon and roast lingered, still warm, along with the bitter cut of triskan wine.

Then, sulfur.

She tightened her grip on the knife, steeled herself, and stalked toward the terrace.

The castle was old. Very old. Seven hundred years’ worth of additions had bumped and bungled their way into its design, leaving some serious quirks. The terrace was leftover from Lord Stanek’s great-grandfather, who had courted himself a bride from Verona and built it to give her a piece of home. It stood against the inner wall, sculpted pillars catching the light like piano teeth, holding darkness between them. A smoothed balustrade rounded its far end where the garden dropped off, allowing a small lookout over a landscaped pond. Ivy ringed the structure. The fountain gurgled a quiet splash.

The smell of sulfur grew stronger.

The first body was a lump in the grass twenty feet from its entrance. A stablehand. Male. Young. Hardly past fifteen. His face, neck, and torso had been mauled beyond recognition, a wet, tattered, glistening mess. She only knew him by his clothes, which now lay bloody and shredded.

The moist scent of gore slid into her nose, so thick she could taste it. Around him, the dirt and grass had been trampled.

The second body lay only a few yards away, limp like a discarded doll, with long brown hair that splayed like a whip. She had a thick face, slack and untouched, as if she were asleep. A braided crown of triskan sat askew on her temple. Her throat and part of her chest had been slashed, blood darkening her clothes in a sheet. A wrapped sticky dumpling sat in the grass close to her abdomen.

Ahead, the entrance of the terrace loomed in darkness.

Catrin sank into the shadows of the castle wall and slipped toward it.

As she approached its threshold, the night quietened even more.

The dusty, green scent of Teilanni ivy came to her. She brushed under its overhanging leaves with barely a whisper, only the soft tap of her soles, the subtle creak of her armor, and the gentle slosh of water from the fountain at the end of the terrace breaking the tense quiet.

It was dark, but her elf eyes easily adjusted, used to the deep forest. Though the tilework had chipped and worn over the hundred years since the terrace’s commissioning, it still gave a soft, ambient reflection. The mosaic had been done in a series of dark stripes and bars, mottled with black, twelve-pointed stars against the paleness of its striking white background. It looked like jagged teeth, she thought, or a rough representation of a river valley. The square stonework curved over her head, forming a concave, domed ceiling. Thick supports crossed overhead every twelve feet, blocking her view of the other domes, but her caution, the smell, and the emptiness of the corridor kept her glancing up.

A knot of tension tightened across her shoulders when she came to the next pillar and spotted a smear of blood on the ground. She halted, feeling the warning churn into her gut like a wayward shiver. Fear coiled through her like a snake. She fought the urge to gag, straining to hear the slightest sound. To her left, and back, the distant murmur or the great hall came to her—but in the terrace, the air remained dead silent. Her breath hissed through her teeth, slow and shallow. The smell of sulfur had grown overpowering, pungent with death, clotting in the back of her throat. The demon’s presence lay thick in the air.

Dark. Choking.

Heavy.

Her gaze roved slowly over the scene, taking in every last inch and detail, following the smear to a second on the balustrade and a tangle of torn ivy at the side, then up.

A shock went through her as she spotted it—cold, like a punch of ice that seared her system then dissipated.

It stared straight at her, folded into the ceiling like a massive, grotesque bat. About the size of Lord Stanek’s elkhound, it had two—perhaps four?—leathery, segmented wings that wrapped around its body, and a scruffy blend of fur and strange, stick-like protrusions on its hips and shoulders. Its head followed a bat-like design, with large, sensitive ears and a nose that flared like the taper of a heart-arrow. Its muzzle was wrinkled in the semblance of a permanent snarl, though she didn’t detect any animosity coming from it. Instead, it was oddly silent on that front. Its eyes—large, staring, strangely luminous despite their inky blackness—stared at her with a hard precision. Like a predatory insect following instinctual commands rather than the more complex realm of emotions she’d seen on the hound demon’s face.

But it was intelligent. She could tell that much by the tilt of its head, the way its focus shifted from one portion of her body to another, sizing her up.

Footsteps fell in the courtyard next to her. In her peripheral vision, a dark figure ran into the space, then stopped, looking around. The prince, she recognized from a combination of footfall and silhouette. He was out of breath, a drawn sword in his hand, its tip low and steady.

Trained, then.

Useful.

She didn’t drop her gaze from the demon, and its gaze never dropped from her, but she did shift back, move her free arm in a slow, deliberate manner.

The prince’s attention skipped her way. She and the demon watched each other as his footfalls made their way to the dark, roofed terrace and up the worn tile behind her.

“You should be in the great hall.” She held out an arm behind her—the same one she’d signaled him with—and he halted at her warning.

“Bellfort is dead.”

Cold swept her chest. Her jaw locked. For a brief moment, something wavered inside her. She forced herself to breathe through the emotion, never taking her eyes off the demon. The prince’s smell, smooth and subtle, like smoke over a river bed, came to her. It reminded her of the smell of rushlights in the temple behind the castle. A dark, woody scent.

“You should still be in the hall.”

The sword at his side twitched. She felt eyes on her. His head turned up, following her line of sight, and spotted the demon.

Like her, his breath left him in a soft whoosh.

Every line of his body froze. Then he recovered. Re-animated.

“Temi demon,” he identified. “Second Circle. Middling class. Watch for the venom barb on its tail.”

Her jaw slackened, but she quickly molded the surprise away from her expression. Her eyes slid along its torso until she found the tail in question, folded into the corner like the rest of it. Part of it did indeed turn into a barb, like a rose thorn.

“It hasn’t moved since I got here,” she said.

“They do that. Hunting reflex.”

Elrya. Demons have been cast out of the realms for two hundred and fifty years, and he’s talking about them like they’re common wildlife.

She decided not to send him back to the hall.

Arguably, he was safer with her.

Not very arguably. Treng was in the hall, likely with a sword by now, and the castle guards would also be armed by this point. Same with any fighters who’d been in attendance.

But she technically was the deadliest on the premises.

“My spells are down,” she said. “My main one, at least.”

“Mine aren’t,” he informed her.

She frowned. “Only mercari, then? Is that why Doneil couldn’t—”

“No,” the prince interrupted. “His spell worked. Bellfort was too far gone.”

His words came quiet and breathless. Too quick. The air tightened around them, and she felt a tension pass through his shoulders. The demon watched them. Its dark eyes, like clouded obsidian, never lifted from her.

“What do you have?” she asked quietly.

“Kimbic fire. Second level.”

More than just a campfire start, then.

“Good.” Her teeth bared. “Then let’s kill this thing.”

She stepped forward—bold, deliberate—and the demon twitched.

Like a Kitani paper puzzle, it unraveled from the ceiling and slid down the pillar, its movements slick and soundless. A spindly paw touched down on the tile, the single, protruding claw bumpy with clots of recent blood, then it rose into a bipedal stance, towering tall and thin in front of them, ears nearly scraping the support truss. Its wings stayed close to its back, like a fly’s.

She eyed it, decided on weak points—joints, tendons, a potential low amount of blood on its thin frame—spared a brief mental grumble at her lack of spells, then slid fluidly into an attack.

Elves were fast. Fey-blooded. Few humans could attack a rnari royal guard and win. They were the best of the best and stood far above humans in terms of raw ability. Her knife flashed like a gleam on water, sliced upward.

The demon was faster.

It jerked like a spider. A talon slashed at her face.

Fire bloomed between them.

Half-expecting it, she ducked as the flames crackled against her forehead, a sudden heat on her face. Warmth smoothed over her back. Golden light darted, flickered, bright, making the scene jump. The demon’s wings flared—too late.

The keen edge of her rnari blade cut through the tendons behind its leg joint. She shredded through a wing membrane, too. Its upper limb jerked for her, but she was already rolling, blade slick with blood.

It growled at her and gave chase, quick as a whip snake. A surprising maw of needle-like teeth snarled from its jaws, the spines on its head standing up like a crest.

Nales stabbed it in the back.

It roared, but he was already sliding out of range. By the time it turned back, she had already moved in.

Her blades caught it in the chest and gut. Using her strength, she shoved it around and slammed it into the terrace’s stone walls. Blood gushed from its wounds, pouring over her arms, her bracers, her skin. The gurgle of its next snarl, and the blood that choked from its mouth, told her she’d found whatever it used as lungs.

Its upper limbs snaked around her. One smacked hard into the leather at her hip. She angled her body when she felt the other go lower, turning it away so that it couldn’t rip through the back of her leg. Its chest jerked under her hold as it tried to snap at her, hot breath and saliva hitting her face—then Nales came from the right for a second stabbing.

His sword pierced through what would have been a rib cage on a human, sliding nearly all the way through. A raw, trapped scream gurgled through the demon’s chest and throat, and it bucked weakly under her hold. Its wings flared and jerked, trying to get away. The prince stepped in, under her lifted arm, angling it in deeper. Fire bloomed a second time. The air filled with the strong, acrid scent of burning hair and flesh, and its shoulder bloomed into a bed of embers. Heat seared over her knuckles, but she held tight, digging her knife in further as an anchor point. Its head tilted back in a silent scream, jaws agape, needle teeth on full, pained display.

They held it against the wall as its struggles grew weaker and weaker.

After a minute, it stopped.

Its chest exhaled underneath her. Hot breath fell over her hair, rank and stinking, clotted with the scent of old gore and bile. Its head lolled forward, jaws slack, a long, slender tongue hanging out. Black wings slid down the wall, leaving bloody trails.

The prince stood by her, tense and rigid, his shoulder and upper arm solid where they bumped her body. The air hung still around them. Quiet.

Then, with one smooth, fluid movement, he retracted. The sword made a wet sound as it slid from the demon’s body, and the fresh scent of its foul blood hit the air. Once he was clear, she pulled her knives out, stood to the side, and let the demon’s body fall forward onto the floor.

It was a truly ugly thing. Stick-thin legs, large talons, teeth like fish spines—and real spines, black and hollow, bristling from its neck and back like a porcupine’s quills. Blood soaked its chest, the combination of her two rnari puncture wounds and Nales’ sword strike making it bear a partial semblance to the raw, wet-meat mess it had made of the stablehand’s torso.

Cold emotion poured through her body. She nudged it over with her toe, upper lip curling. The stench of burning redoubled, tiny pieces of char flecking off its shoulder onto the terrace’s Veronese tiles.

The prince stood beside her, rigid, dead-still, a mix of subtle emotions playing across his hard face. His jaw was tense, tight, the muscles working. His nostrils flared wide. He looked down at the demon with an intense expression in his eyes.

The sound of their breaths rose loud in the quiet. She caught his smell once more—somehow, over the stench. Temple smoke and river stone.

She shifted. The blood was cooling on her skin, along with a thin, prickling layer of sweat. Her muscles shook. The pain from her runes had ebbed, slipping into a constant nag, like the aftermath of a fly bite.

Bellfort was dead. Demons were back.

The cold in her poured thicker. She tightened her grip on her blades, the blood making them slippery around the hilt. The urge to hunt took her again. Dark and electric, a command that echoed all throughout her body.

Nales glanced up when she stepped away, his movement quick and snappy, a jerk. She met his eyes, found the same icy, quiet need for violence reflected in him.

She curled her lip again and turned, leading the way back up the terrace.

“Let’s go find more of these things to kill.”

Chapter 5

She stalked through the castle’s lower corridor, her strides slow and ragged, squinting whenever the morning light hit her face through a window.

It felt like her head was stuck in a glass jar. Slow, pounding, the world moving like oil around her.

She’d been up all night, hunting, killing, organizing patrols, keeping the perimeter, and half her mind was still there, filled with the smell of sulfur and death, the cool touch of the forest, torchlight on the trees. Thick brambles and undergrowth breaking under her feet, rushes of adrenaline as she chased down demons, the blunt ache of muscles and bruises as she’d scrambled and rolled through dodges and defense, the holler of the hunting party as they’d rushed to keep up.

The morning light felt too much like a dream.

Eighteen dead. Three of them nobles, six from the village, and the rest either temporary or permanent castle staff. Doneil had survived, as had the lord and lady, Geneve, and Prince Nales. They’d lost a horse in the stable. Killed in its stall, gutted like a wolf kill, blood and entrails pulled out, flesh shredded. Two others had broken out, been recovered. Nales had stayed with her throughout the hunting party, never wavering.

Only one of the demons had been marked with the same symbol as the hellhound.

Two of her spells still worked. She could still call wind, and she could still encourage the growth of a very specific tree—for all the good that would ever do her. Her ice, however, led to crippling bouts of pain and renewed blood loss whenever she tried to use it.

She shoved a hand through her now-loose braids, grimacing at the next blade of light to fall over her face.

Gods, what had happened to the world?

“Catrin?”

The voice, warm and raw, but lilted upward in surprise, came like a splash of fresh water over her skin. She glanced up as someone stepped into her path. Geneve stood like a forest doe—frozen still, eyes forward, as part of the castle as the polished timber and textured plasterwork that framed her. Someone had changed her clothes, put her in something more practical—a simple, solid, faded green dress that ran straight to the floor over her hips—but her hair looked rough, frayed, still holding last night’s complicated weave. Her entire manner appeared shaken, hesitant.

Tired. Haunted.

Catrin’s jaw locked as the woman’s gaze darted over her. She had come this way for a reason. With her rnari skills, she had done most of the close-combat wet work. Almost every inch of her was covered in blood, dirt, and other things she didn’t want to think too hard about. She stank. Reeked. Sulfur, death, gore, a slip of sweet-smelling venom from one of the smaller demons that had etched into part of her bracers, the protective mercari be damned. A patch of mixed piss and blood from when she’d gone down in the stable.

She’d half been tempted to change in the barn, except people were cleaning the mauled horse’s remains out of there, and she hadn’t thought much of anyone would be in this hallway.

She’d been wrong.

“Lady Geneve,” she said, trying to inject some pleasantness into her strained voice, hyperaware of the blood and dirt that coated her body like a disgusting skin.

Geneve shifted, and Catrin tensed, reading the emotions that rippled across the young woman’s face. Like watching a pond in the first trembles of a storm, fish darting under the surface. Elrya, she’d been so confident last night. Buoyant. Brimming. Mischievous.

Now, it was like someone had smashed all of the happiness from her.

An image flashed through her mind—Geneve, body stiff, backed into a corner, a mix of fear and horror on her face; her shriek as the hound had torn through Bellfort. Her, kneeling on the floor, cushioning his head in her palms as he lay bleeding.

Temdin. She’d likely seen him die.

Geneve slid forward, buckling slightly on one stride—the action made Catrin flinch, wanting to catch and steady her—gaze locked to hers like iron to a magnet.

She expected her to stop, but she didn’t.

She had about half a second to process Geneve’s movement before two narrow arms wrapped around her.

The hug was surprisingly fierce. Strong. Catrin went tense as a bowstring, aware more than ever of the disgusting bits of blood and death that were now pressing into Geneve’s dress.

“Gods.” Geneve’s voice was raw in her ear. Worn. “I was so worried.”

Catrin froze.

Worried? She had been worried?

A shock of surprise went through her, and she gulped in a quick breath. The scent of lavender and rose came to her, tinged slightly by torch smoke. She inhaled deeply, dropping her head, relaxing into Geneve’s grip, a tremor going through her.

Slowly, her hands came up. She hesitated, aware of the blood and dirt ingrained into her skin, then pressed the cleanest bits of her arms to Geneve’s back.

Thank Elrya she’d washed her hands.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice wavered, unused to this. To comforting. “He was a good man.”

Geneve trembled. Her back shuddered once, twice, a small, choked sob wracking out of her.

Gods, he’d kill me for making her cry.

She hadn’t known Bellfort long, but she’d gotten that sense about the man.

Another sob. Geneve sagged against her shoulder, head buried close in the crook there.

“He gave me a dumpling.”

“You invited him to.”

“I know.” Geneve’s breath hitched, rapid and shallow, matching the flutter of her chest. “I’m just—I’m glad you’re all right.”

She pushed away, and Catrin moved her hands off as she straightened. Geneve’s eyes glistened with tears, but she held Catrin’s shoulders at arms’ length and darted her gaze over her soiled armor. “Though you stink. And what have you done with my hair?”

Catrin laughed as the other woman’s hands went to her head, wandering over the roughened twists of the warrior braids now windswept and mixed with demon blood and pieces of forest. “You should be proud. They served me well.”

Her hand stilled. “They did?”

“Yes.”

“Did you…” She hesitated. “Did you kill many demons?”

Catrin bared her teeth, knowing the woman would get a flash of her canines. They weren’t absurdly long, not like a dog’s, but their pointiness always threw off the humans.

“Twelve,” she said. “And there will be many more. I’m not done with killing things.”

Geneve stilled. “You will go out again?”

She nodded. “Later, after I’m rested. Hunting party.”

They hadn’t ironed out the particulars of the hunt, but Treng had been talking about it when she’d returned. One, at least, would be sent out to the nearby farms and villages—a dual purpose of protection and recon. Reports of demon activity had already begun to filter in. It was best to get on them quickly, before the creatures got their bearings.

Geneve bit her lip. A mask slid over her face, putting on a semblance of stoicism and sharp-eyed practicality, but it was a thin one. Easy to see the emotions that swirled beneath. Especially in her eyes. They tightened around the edges, little tiny wrinkles that gave her away. The blood-shot surface didn’t go liquidy, but it was a near thing.

“Will you…” Geneve swallowed, her breath hitching on the inhale. “Will you be okay?”

Catrin gave her a small smile, then, hesitating for only a short moment as she was reminded of the blood on her arm, reached forward and gave Geneve’s arm a squeeze. “Yes. It’s what I do.”

“Hunt demons?” Geneve’s laugh was a small flutter, like the butterfly yesterday.

“Fight. Kill.” Catrin squeezed harder. “Protect.”

Geneve dropped her eyes, and her back hunched, as if she’d been hit. The next words came out in a tumble—fast, racing, chased by the hitch of a sob. “That’s what Bellfort did, too. He—he wasn’t fine.”

Catrin was at a loss for words. She wasn’t used to this. And Bellfort’s death had shocked her—like the cold of snow in the shadows of spring, always lurking at the edges, waiting for the times when she stopped moving long enough to dwell on it. All she could do was continue to hold her, hope that her grip provided some comfort. A slow, stinging pain needled the muscles and tendons of her inner wrist, the result of an awkward blow and prolonged use, but that would ease with sleep.

Geneve felt like a shuddering bird. Elrya, how she wished she could make it better.

“It was a brave thing Bellfort did,” she said. “Unarmed, against a hellhound.”

Geneve’s jaws trembled. Her nostrils flared quickly, then her mouth clenched shut. For a moment, it looked like she fought a silent battle with herself, the tension rippling through cheek muscles, her entire body pulling stiff as a board, quivering as she struggled with the emotion.

Then, it was like something gave.

She didn’t relax. Not really. The emotions weren’t gone. Anger, fear, grief—they all still blazed from her, but she’d put a shutter over them and turned them into a forge fire. Bottled up, but burning strong.

When she looked up, her eyes met Catrin’s with a strong, quiet determination.

“Yes. It was.” The quiver of her lips threatened to unravel her, but she held it together, only a slight hitch in her breath as she continued. “We will honor him tonight. Him and the others who will go beyond.”

The Night Vigil. A human custom, though elves held similar. No one would sleep tonight.

Catrin nodded. “We will honor him.”

The click and rattle of a door and the patter of running footsteps interrupted them. A few moments later, Holic, a small, stocky lad who was training as Lord Stanek’s page, came around the corner in a near sprint, his expression of grim determination edged by borderline panic.

He stopped short, eyes visibly rounding and brows shooting into his forehead as his gaze locked on her—or, more likely, all of the blood, dirt, and obvious gore that covered her armor.

“Miss—er—Guardsman Ternadon,” he started, his brain obviously backpedaling on its rungs. “Ah, it’s His Highness, ma’am.”

She hid the smile that threatened to twitch her lips. It always amused her to hear her father’s name around the castle. Elves didn’t use the same naming conventions as the local humans—the li Ternadon in her name referred to him, not her, and whenever one of the castle’s staff attempted to shoehorn her full name into their title system, it always felt like she might turn around and find him standing right behind her.

Beside her, Geneve’s expression had gone smooth and professional, shoulders back and head straight. Her arms crossed over her chest.

“What about His Highness?” Catrin asked.

She’d left Prince Nales in the courtyard, on the periphery of where Treng was organizing castle defense. Last she’d checked, Prince Nales had been just about as covered in gore as she was, his face paler under the dirt than it had been yesterday. He had to be at least as tired as she was—humans, generally, had less stamina than elves—but she doubted he’d sleep.

He’d looked too haunted for that. Too far past the point of slumber. Like a moon-blind fish in the middle of a stream.

“He’s, ah, he’s taken a horse from the stables—one of his lordship’s—and is going out. Wants to keep hunting. We tried to stop him, but…”

But he was a prince, and Holic and the rest of the guardsmen were not.

Catrin grimaced and rubbed her brow. “Where’s Treng?”

“Attending his lordship. They went to the backwood.”

Out of the picture, then.

Catrin let out a low hiss, and Holic flinched—it wasn’t a human sound, but she didn’t quite care just then to censor herself. The flit of anger and frustration she’d felt yesterday at the prince’s arrival came back in full force, flowing through her muscles like a hot night drink.

Gods damn it all. And he’d be going out alone, which was likely his intention, or he’d be dragging a burned-out party of equally dead-tired guardsmen with him to who-knew-where.

With a grumble that was more of a growl, she shoved herself past Holic and back down the hallway he’d come from.

Chapter 6

Elrya. Why couldn’t princes just keep to themselves and fall in line?

Geneve jogged after her, slippered feet as quick as darts on the carpet, her face a concentrated frown. “What are you going to do?”

Catrin snorted. “I might hit him.”

That, at least, broke the frown. Geneve’s eyebrows shot into her head, a mix of amusement and caution clashing on her face. “Really? You make a habit of attacking princes?”

“If they’re all as stupid as I keep seeing, I may just.”

Her left hand curled tighter at the thought, but she forced it to relax. The other prince hadn’t been stupid, but lacking in other qualities, and she wasn’t about to explain that to Geneve. By the sounds of it, the lady was one of the few who hadn’t heard of her recent past.

But the others had. And, more importantly, Prince Nales had.

She could use that.

Schooling her features to her best impression of Treng’s sharp, predatory stoicism—it wasn’t hard, with half of her already leaning toward a darker mood—she beat Geneve to the door and shouldered it open with a clunk and a squeal, angling her face and blinking as her eyes adjusted to the outside light.

A bleary sun rode at a midpoint in the morning sky, veiled with a thin fog that pressed a cool moisture into her skin and bones. The air was damp, heavy, threaded with the smells of smoke, blood, sulfur, and fresh-cut hay. Last night’s decorations still hung across the courtyard, dead and still, their colors pale and washed out in the early light. Buds of flowers and the green starts of leaves stood out on dark branches.

With the smoke rising from a firepit on the other side, burning white, and a dozen of the castle’s guardsmen gathered in clusters of twos and threes around the courtyard in varying states of idleness, it looked calm. Peaceful.

Until one noticed the tension in their bodies, and the careful stoicism on their faces. And the way they all had their attention cautiously trained on one spot.

She followed it, spotting Prince Nales across the courtyard and in the process of putting a saddle on Lord Stanek’s black courser, which he’d lashed to the hitching ring on the outer wall.

A few guardsmen stood closer, posture stiff, identical expressions of unease on their faces. Several turned her way when she walked out, and the tension broke to relief in their bodies.

She hid a snort.

Not sure what they think I’m going to do. I’m no more a prince than they are.

But that wasn’t strictly true. Her status as both an elf and a rnari put her in an odd, outsider middle-ground. She’d been Treng’s second ever since she’d arrived.

Plus, there was also her reputation for attacking princes.

She wondered which of those reasons had sent Holic to find her.

Geneve followed her out, but Catrin put a hand on her arm as she made to leave the door.

“Wait here.”

It’d be better to speak with the prince alone. Less posturing to deal with. Easier to get a read.

Besides, he hadn’t seemed like a complete idiot last night. The opposite, in fact. He’d come off as quiet, intelligent. Cautious. Not the type to ride blindly into a situation.

Her frown deepened.

What was he up to?

Ignoring the quizzical, half-worried expression on Geneve’s face, she strode across the courtyard, making a straight line to Nales.

The already-hushed mood of the courtyard went dead silent, the stillness falling over her like the air before an electrical storm. If it had been quiet before, now one could have heard a titmouse squeak.

Every face turned toward her.

She stiffened, the underside of her skin crawling with the weight of their stares—far more attentive and wary than she’d thought they’d be—but gave no outward sign of concern, instead keeping her attention locked on Nales.

He watched her approach, his expression neutral. Guarded.

But, as she drew closer to the prince, she found her own expression softening. She crossed her arms over her chest, her aching muscles giving a slight twinge of pain before they rested, and took in the scene with narrowed eyes, her posture moving toward familiarity rather than the hard-assed intimidation she’d originally been going for.

The prince watched her over the back of the saddle, his light-colored eyes striking on his olive-tinted face.

She twitched an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going out.” His jawline tensed, and a quiver took his throat, a battle similar to the one Geneve had fought only minutes ago wavering behind his face. “Someone has to keep killing these things.”

Understanding clicked in her mind.

Bellfort had been orphan-raised, likely picked for the prince both as a guard and a companion.

Nales had lost his best friend last night.

She ignored his pointed stare, and the blame behind it, instead turning a cool, judgmental gaze over the horse he’d half saddled.

“Really? You’re going out, alone, to kill demons?” Her eyebrow lifted, and she pursed her lips. “We’re supposed to live for the dead, not follow them into the grave.”

He stared at her. He was wary, which surprised her. Tense. As if he really were expecting her to attack him.

And, as she re-examined the tension in the courtyard, and the way everyone was staring at her rather than him, she realized he wasn’t the only one who expected that.

Huh. Perhaps her reputation was stronger than she’d thought.

Then again, most of them had watched her slaughter demons last night.

“Are you going to stop me?” he asked.

“Oh, no, far be it from me to halt the stupidity of the royal line.” She gave a soft snort, only then drawing her gaze back up to meet his. A smile tightened her lips. She tilted her head, giving the guards around them the barest of checks. Her skin still crawled from their attention. A few of them, she noticed, had drawn closer. “Huh. They really think I might attack you.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“I probably should. You’re a Cizek, after all. It’d be an excellent way for me to gain favor. Elrya, they’d likely give me a promotion.”

The royal line of the Raidt and the Cizeks, historically, had never had the best blood between them. In fact, those of the Raidt were technically undersworn to them, turned under by the Cizeks’ infamous demon-cursed blade.

Prince Nales didn’t move. She suspected he wasn’t sure whether to take her words seriously or not.

She stepped closer, put one hand on the smooth leather of the saddle, and dropped her voice as she leaned in.

“I am not currently planning to attack you, but I didn’t peg you as this stupid. You going to tell me what you’re really up to?”

A ripple went over his face, but he held her gaze steadily. Bright blue eyes dipped into a harder metallic edge toward their center—as if they had an undertone of silver in them—never wavered from hers. She didn’t blink.

Then, like last night, something seemed to give. A barely-perceptible sigh slid from him, and his shoulders dropped—just slightly, but it was enough.

“Do you remember that symbol on the hellhound’s shoulder?”

“The… brand?” It took her a moment to recall it. Since killing it, she hadn’t had time to do more than throw a distant glance at the corpse.

“Yes. It’s the marker of a greater demon. According to lore, it would bind that hound to it.”

Her frown deepened. “A… greater demon?”

“One with more power than most, either by birth, conquest, or sorcery,” he supplied. “Similar to the fey.”

A part of her cringed at the prince’s easy, matter-of-fact comparison between the two—fey were very much not demons, and in fact part of her ancestry—but she had to admit it helped. Not all fey were graded equal. Even a simple comparison between a tree spirit and the spirit of an entire forest was enough to spell that out. Then there were those in the royal lines, and all the ones in between.

She went still as her mind connected the pieces.

“You think there’s a greater demon here?”

Temdin, they’d had enough trouble fending off the little ones like the hellhound. If the demonic equivalent to Kodanh had made it over…

Ten hells, he could freeze an entire city.

“I’m hoping not—except for the hellhound, there was only one symbol among all those we killed—but it would do to check. That symbol is linked with one based around Ulchris.” He hesitated. “You remember those lights in the sky? The gate flare?”

Her brows knit together again. Gate flare? In truth, she’d forgotten all about the lights. The demon attack had occupied her attention. Plus, she knew next to nothing about gates.

“I saw a large burst of it toward the south-east,” he continued. “Which would align it to the gate.”

Yes. Yes, it would.

Her frown deepened. She’d been right. He wasn’t stupid. He’d clearly thought quite a lot about this.

But…

“You’d planned to go alone?”

She directed a skeptical look to his pack. It was small, light. Largely empty. He’d likely planned to get out as quickly as possible, stop at the village for supplies, then head on—no muss, no fuss, no watchmen.

Which was either brave or foolish of him. More likely both.

Even riding, Ulchris was a day and a half’s journey, part of that through forest.

And he was potentially going after a greater demon.

She nodded.

“Put that away. Get some sleep. Reports are coming in. You’ll have an idea of the roads tomorrow, can make better plans.”

She regretted the words as soon as she saw him recoil, and a surprisingly sharp slice of emotion cut through her throat at the reminder of his friend’s death. She winced, turning into the bleary light of the morning. The fuzz of her mind expanded. Her head felt like it was inside a hot balloon, breathing in fire smoke.

“You want me to sleep,” he said, enunciating the words calmly, with a precision that cut an exact trace of every syllable. “While a greater demon is potentially gathering strength to subjugate us all? I can guarantee you, he won’t be sleeping. And neither will his servants, who will kill more and more while we rest.” His tone dropped into a hiss, mirroring her earlier one. “Bellfort would not rest.”

She resisted the urge to turn her eyes skyward, to where Elrya was hopefully not judging this show of idiocy. “Do you go out riding when bandits murder people along Lorka’s riverbanks? Or do you wait until you know where the fuck they are, what their numbers are, and then cut them down? Don’t pretend you’re more than you are. Royal blood or no, you’re still just a man—a very vulnerable, mortal man in a world that now has demons thirsting after his blood.”

His stare penetrated her. Icy, stubborn. She met it for a few seconds, seeing the obstination inside, the raw fire of anger warring with grief, and inwardly winced. She’d pressed too close to the wound, too close to what had happened, too close to what was spurring him to mount the horse and ride out from the walls.

Then, he sneered.

“I have a duty.” His lip curled, head tilting upward in a defiant challenge. “I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”

The breath stilled in her lungs, and it felt like the entire courtyard stilled with it. She stared at him, eyes locked on his. A ringing filled her ears, like the knell of clashing sword steel, and a roar like storm waves came howling to her mind.

Something in her snapped.

Rage bubbled up, hot and eager, and cut into her mind like a hot knife sizzling through butter.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about duty.” Her lips peeled back in a snarl. Her entire being vibrated, energy coursing through her as hot as the sun. “I have worked my entire life for duty—for the mere fucking chance to follow in my parents’ footsteps.”

A hard expression had clamped down over his face, leaving it a cold, distant mask. He didn’t move. Instead, his metal-tinged eyes stared, their own quiet rage simmering like icefire.

It touched her to her core.

“You think you can intimidate me?” His tone trembled with emotion, anger shuddering like a bowstring. “Everything you have done is nothing compared to what I have had to endure. Every second of my life has been spent living up to my duty.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she snarled, leaning into the horse. Her canine teeth were showing, and her tone had ground more into a subsonic growl. She didn’t care. “Don’t give me that. You princes—you just do whatever the fuck you want.”

Emotion twitched in his eyes—a touch of surprise, confusion, then understanding, like a clue had just slipped into place—and she cursed herself.

These fucking princes.

Luckily, before either of them could say any more—or anyone else in the courtyard could intervene—a flurry of activity interrupted them at the mouth of the courtyard. Lord Stanek’s scouting party returned from the backwood, hooves clattering on the paving stones. Her anger chilled as she spotted Treng trotting along at his lordship’s side, riding easily in the one-handed style of the Sarasvatani as he stood in his stirrups, speaking to the lord in low tones.

Cold shame squirmed in her gut.

The entire world was burning, and she was trading insults with a prince.

Slowly, she became aware of Geneve, still standing by the door, her dress so normal in the courtyard, her face so full of concern, trying to get her attention. Some of the guards were still staring. They, of course, had witnessed the exchange. And had likely heard every single word.

Elrya. I’m a gods-damned moron.

She ignored Geneve, instead turning to follow the scouting party with her gaze, wrestling a mask back over her emotions.

Treng broke off when Stanek pulled up near the castle steps and dismounted. The lordship began jogging up the stairs, officials collecting in his wake like blackbirds in a flock.

One of the guards came to Treng’s side. He leaned down to listen to the man. Then, he glanced up, his sharp-eyed gaze quickly finding her. He gave the man a pat, twitched his reins against his horse’s neck, and began to head their way.

The inside of her skin crawled as she watched him approach.

Hells. Why didn’t I just go to bed?

“Is there a problem?”

His voice wasn’t loud, not like she’d expect an army captain’s to be, but it was deadly, and it cut through the air like a slow, fire-heated blade.

“No, sir,” she said, hiding her cringe. “No problem.”

His eyebrow slid up an increment, telling her he saw straight past the neutral mask she’d thrown over her face. He turned away for a few moments, pulled his horse up to the next hitching rung, twisted the reins together, and adjusted a piece of his swordbelt. Splashes of mud marked his riding breeches, and the smell of wet soil and sweat came to her. His horse had begun to steam. When he dismounted, he ignored them for a few moments, busying himself with tucking a catch rope through a secondary strap on the horse’s noseband to the hitching ring, then removing the saddle and handing it to a stablehand, who took it away for cleaning.

Finally, he turned back to her.

“That’s not what I heard.”

She resisted the urge to tighten her jaws. Her face was a blank mask—she knew it—but a flash of memory caught her mind, the eyes of the Raidt Council, hard and judging, apathetic, looking at her like a bawdy wine stain on their chamber silk.

She braced herself, already feeling the shame as Treng’s attention lingered over her.

To her surprise, Nales spoke instead.

“I’d thought to go out, hunt more of those things, but Catrin wisely convinced me otherwise.”

Her eyes almost bugged out of her skull. She resisted the urge to turn around and stare at him.

Was he covering for her?

Treng stopped. His eyebrow twitched. “Convinced?”

The prince shifted. “She was very earnest.”

“And wise, too.” The edge of Treng’s mouth curled up—amusement. She dared a breath when Treng’s attention slid off of her and onto the prince, his eyes lazy as a cat’s. “You’d do well to bear her counsel, even when it’s so earnestly given.”

She flinched. Yeah, he definitely knew.

“Stay for the night. Go in the morning. There’s a vigil to attend, and we need to organize our supplies.” Treng’s gaze slid to the horse’s pack, his words and the tilt of his expression confirming he read the same conclusion from the empty saddlebags as she had. “Where are you planning to hunt?”

The prince hesitated. “Ulchris.”

Interesting—Ulchris, not Brighton, the town closest to the temple. Treng would know they were going for the gate.

And, indeed, his eyebrows arched. He considered Nales.

“Catrin will accompany you. A rnari of the Twelfth Circle is the best I can offer.”

Anger burst, bright and hot, and her eyes flashed—but she shoved it back under her mask, mind whirring.

This was too big to be a snap decision. No, he’d likely come to it shortly after Bellfort died.

And a backtrack of his words only proved it.

The best I can offer.

Had he been the best guard in the castle, he would have offered himself. Instead, he offered her.

It was like winning a trophy only to find a pile of scat underneath the gold.

“Problem?”

Treng didn’t look to her. Didn’t need to. He knew her mind well enough, at this point, to know what she was thinking.

“No, sir,” she grit out. “No problem.”

“Good.” He turned back to his horse, giving it a quick scratch by the top of its neck before reaching over to untie the catch rope and hand off the reins to another stablehand who stood nearby, waiting to take the animal for a cool down. “I know you can keep him safe.”

She dropped her gaze from the back of his shoulders—he’d feel her staring, especially when her anger was this hot—and let out a breath. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I request to take Doneil with us.” She didn’t bother to explain why, gleaning some dark satisfaction when Nales’ gaze turned to her with a question unsettling his expression—Treng was head of castle security. He knew all about Doneil’s abilities and threat level.

Hells, the two of them had even sparred together before her arrival. It was how Treng had been so shockingly good at countering her rnari base moves.

“Granted. I’ll leave you to tell him.”

He made a small gesture with his hand, not bothering to turn her way.

She was dismissed.

She gave him a short bow, and turned to leave, then realized that Nales was still looking at her.

She hadn’t missed the fact that he hadn’t mentioned his suspicions of a greater demon to Treng.

Irritation flashed through her.

Gods, I should have just let him walk out the gate with the horse.

Her eyes met his. Blue shaded with silver, grayed out by the morning haze.

They reminded her of Kodanh’s ice.

Unbidden, the runes on her bicep prickled with pain, a ghost of a sensation with his absence. Then another as the memory of Bellfort’s came to her mind.

Grief drew a raw cut on the inside of her chest. She clenched her jaw, immediately regretting her thoughts.

She was Nales’ protector. At least for the time being.

He wouldn’t be going anywhere without her.

Chapter 7

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Catrin twisted, squinting up at Doneil’s tall, lanky form. The fires from below lit him askance, touching his chef whites with the thinnest glow of yellow. He’d removed his apron and tucked the shirt’s tails into his dark-colored trousers, giving him a lean profile that blended partially with the castle rooftop behind him. A half-filled bottle of triskan wine glinted in his hand.

She eyed it.

“You keep trying to get me drunk. It’s not going to work.”

“One of these days, it will, and I will win a lot of money betting on you in a barroom brawl.” He tilted his head. “Are those new braids, or is it just really dark and I can’t see the blood?”

Catrin snorted. As forest elves, very little was too dark for their eyes—not under open sky.

“They’re new braids. Geneve did them. She’s good, isn’t she?”

She only tensed a little when Doneil reached for her hair—he was a very touchy person, she’d found, but it didn’t carry the same weight to it as it did others. Maybe it was something in his personality, or maybe it was all the healings he’d done on her, but he was one of the few males who didn’t put her on immediate guard.

Plus, she’d seen him do a similar touch to pastry dough to assess it—light and finicky, like a sparrow.

The braids weren’t the only thing Geneve had done. She’d also helped ease Catrin out of the death-soiled ceremonial armor, treated the few scrapes and aches Doneil’s healing powers hadn’t bothered with—her knees, shins, and shoulders were practically burning with witch hazel—and brought her a mid-morning nightcap of warmed water and bengan berry loaf to help her sleep.

Last she’d seen, Geneve had wrapped the soiled armor in a large cloth and had directed two servants to take it for cleaning.

By the determined cant to her chin, Catrin suspected she meant to do it herself—or at least to help.

“I think she likes you,” Doneil said

Her thoughts ground to a halt.

By the tone of his voice, he didn’t mean ‘as friends.’

She frowned. Then, slowly, she backtracked.

Geneve had been doing a lot of things for her lately. She’d thought it a symptom of grief—busy hands make for less time to focus on a hurt-filled heart, and helping Catrin could have been Geneve’s way of contributing to Bellfort’s memory.

But her first set of braids had come before the attack. Now that she thought of it, she doubted Lady Stanek would have come up with the idea alone.

And she doubted Raidt elf warrior braids were usual curriculum for human ladies-in-waiting.

Geneve would have needed to think about it, and either order a book or get someone to teach her.

Hmm.

“She did give me a sticky dumpling last night,” she admitted.

“Oh? Really?” Doneil’s grin was a savage slash in the dark. “Did you follow it up with a poem?”

“Ah. Is that what I’m supposed to do?”

Was there something more to Geneve? She’d heard of woman-on-woman relationships, but hadn’t given it much thought herself.

Her frown deepened. This wasn’t the first time she’d thought this about Geneve. She’d considered it once before, after the woman had first given her that sticky dumpling. And then, there had been that encounter in the hallway this morning.

Geneve had seemed so fragile. Trembling. On the verge of breaking.

And yet, it was Catrin who she’d sought out.

Maybe there was something more to her actions.

“Well, you’re certainly not supposed to hole yourself away on some sad rampart. I mean, what the fuck is this?” He made a wide, flamboyant gesture to the crenellations and rooftop that surrounded them—she’d picked a rather awkward place, a small niche space next to the back of the stable. “You know people can see you, right? You look like a gods-damned… what are those things called, the statues the humans put on churches? With big sharp teeth, bulging muscles, and a constantly angry expression? Really ugly—”

“Gargoyles,” she said flatly. “They’re called gargoyles. And they’re meant to scare demons away.”

“Ah, so there is a similarity—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’ll push you off the battlement myself.”

“Yeah, but I’d just heal myself and come back up. You can’t be rid of me that easily. And I’m not a prince, so I’d appreciate it if you left my hands alone.”

He snatched them away from her, as if she were a feral dog.

She said nothing for a moment, her expression flat as she studied him. “Does Geneve like women?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because you’re here, and you get all of the gossip.” She raised her gaze to meet his. “I know she talks to you. Everyone talks to you.”

“And they wouldn’t keep doing so if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“They talk to you because you can’t keep your mouth shut.” She snorted and shook her head, then lifted her hand and made a gesture to the wine bottle.

He passed it over with a crow of victory. “Yes! Finally!”

“I’m not getting drunk,” she warned. “This isn’t a party.”

“You don’t even get drunk at parties.”

She tensed a little as he sat next to her, his shoulder brushing hers before straightening out. He smelled like the kitchens. Bread and stew, moisture, more than a little wine—by the dark, liquidy glint to his eyes, he’d been imbibing with the staff on the ground below before coming up to check on her. She’d seen him, in fact, doing just that. Checking up on others, just as he was checking up on her.

It took a few moments for her shoulders to relax back down. She took a sip of the wine, and the pungent bitterness of the triskan transported her back to last night. Her jawline locked as fresh grief gnawed through her throat. She slowed, mulling it over her tongue as the wine’s dark, cutting undertaste took over.

Below, the soft sounds of grieving threaded into her mind.

Eighteen dead. Over two hundred in a neighboring town, more elsewhere. Pemberlin wasn’t connected to the burgeoning wire system the goblins had developed, but they’d received birds from the nearest castle that was. Lorka was under attack, too, and there were reports of demons in every county they had received messages from. When she’d woken that afternoon, Treng had been distributing weapons and supplies and dispatching small messenger parties to affected areas. Doneil, too, hadn’t slept. He’d been in the courtyard when she’d awoken, healing with one of the human scribes who’d held a stack of kimbic healing markers on the table beside him.

He hid it well, but she could tell he was tired. There was a darkening around his eyes that wasn’t normally there, the whites tinged with little lines of red. She suspected he’d used a few ranger stimulant spells throughout the day—he’d have that experience, and the rune to go with it.

Another reason she wanted him with them. Although she was the much-deadlier fighter, he had the road experience she lacked.

The smell of incense came to her, cinnamon and myrrh, tinged with offerings of cedar bark and needles. A trail of smoke lifted from the temple near the other side of the castle, with two more fires set in the courtyard. Half the crowd from last night had either stayed or left and returned, joined by others—children, mostly, brought both to participate in the Vigil and to keep them under the protection of the castle’s guard for the night. Though most of the bodies had been laid out within the temple itself, three former staff, including the young woman and the stablehand she’d found on the way to the terrace, were in the courtyard, laid in a place of honor under the main tree and surrounded by friends. They’d been washed and wrapped, only their heads visible, eyes closed and faces relaxed, as if in sleep. Offerings piled up on the table between them—things they’d used in life, prayer cloths and papers, things they might like in the afterlife.

Elves had similar rituals. Incense to honor the body, gifts to honor the soul. Most in the courtyard would believe in some form of reincarnation, but for her and many in the Raidt, the dead passed through Death Veils and into the darkness beyond, a line no one could cross back from again. Even now, sitting apart from the gathering, she could hear them whisper, feel their nearness.

The newly dead always drew them closer to this reality.

She watched as another person came to lay a flower on the stablehand’s chest, and on the chest of the girl next to him. The candle in their hand undulated with the rest of them, touching the wraps on the boy’s body, and the sallow skin of his face, with a gentle gold.

Numbness ate a hole in her chest.

“How did this happen?” she asked. “Demons are supposed to be locked away.”

The tips of Doneil’s canine teeth showed as he twisted his lip. “Clearly, someone found a key.”

“A deliberate attack?” She mulled it over, the same way she’d mulled the wine on her tongue. It had been well-timed, occurring on the only day in the entire year that the Teilanni would be vastly unarmed—Abiermar was their holiday, mostly—and if anyone had dealings with demons, it would be them.

Plus, Nales had recognized the marker.

But… who would do this? And why?

The last part, at least, was easy. The Cizeks weren’t well-liked. Tolerated, yes, but in the same way a pack of wolves tolerates a family of bears—because they had to.

“You think someone’s making a move on the Cizeks?” she asked.

“The timing is suspect,” Doneil said, echoing her thoughts. “Which could be either coincidental or opportune. Abiermar is a Teilanni fête, and the Cizeks were responsible for the sealing, but it is also on equinox day—lots of transitional power in that.”

Power to draw magic on, he meant.

Her bicep ached as she remembered what had happened the last time she’d tried magic.

“One of them was responsible for the sealing,” she said. “The rest were happily subjugating away with their possessed sword.”

“Such a strong opinion,” he said, drawling the words into a soft chuckle. “So it’s true—you and the princeling did have a fight.”

“What?” She scowled. “No. This isn’t about me. It’s simple fact.”

“It’s okay, ’Trin, you can talk to me. Everyone talks to me.”

She skewered him with a look. “I will hit you.”

“Oh, no, not that. Then who will come on your little three-day-sortie with the princeling?” His mouth split into a grin. “Unless you want to be alone with him?”

Irritation bubbled up within her. “I will hit you.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Mercy, mercy, oh great rnari warrior, please.”

She swatted his knee. “Focus.”

“Yes, oh scary soldier ma’am.”

She swatted him again, then swung her gaze back to the courtyard below, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. “Deliberate attack, or no?”

Doneil shook his head.

“I’m leaning toward ‘no.’ It’s too widespread for that, and there are far more effective ways to attack the Cizeks if one’s going to spend enough energy to smash through dimensional barriers.” His eyebrows twitched, and he glanced to her. “Plus, there’s a risk it would reactivate that sword of theirs. It was demon-powered, wasn’t it?”

“I… think so?” She searched her mind, but what information she had on the demon sword was hearsay at best. “Powered by a demon king?”

The pause drew out between them as they both thought about it.

“We should ask the princeling tomorrow. Trade court gossip.” Doneil flashed a wicked grin. “From what I hear, he might be happy to talk.”

“Right,” she said, reflecting back to the prince’s cautious, tight-lipped silence. “So far, he’s proven such a chatterhead.”

“Get him alone. He’ll talk. Ack—” He lifted his hands in a placating manner when she skewered him with another glare. “I meant that in a completely innocent manner, this time.”

She stared at him through narrowed eyes, the firelight playing off his skin. He likely had meant it in an innocent manner. His expression lacked the teasing it had held before, and she could see what he may have been going for—separate the prince from the people he needed to be careful around and loosen the mask he wore. The same as Bellfort had done at the fête.

Fresh grief sawed through her diaphragm. Her breath caught in her throat for a few moments, and she flattened her lips into a thin, tight line, struggling with the emotion.

Eventually, she wrestled it back enough to breathe.

She lifted the neck of the wine bottle and pressed its lips to hers. The bitter undercurrent of triskan flowed over her tongue like mulberry leaves.

“We’ll ask him,” she said after a few minutes. “But not immediately. Time it right.”

“No kidding.” He sighed, and his expression took on a more somber tone as he directed it back over the ledge. “Have you given a thought to the Raidt?”

“Many.” Of course she had. Her family was there—ten hells, her parents were guarding the king and queen! No telling what disarray and alertness the castle would be in. “Why?”

“Do you want to go back? Help with the attack?”

“The Raidt is one of the most well-defended places in this green world,” she said, repeating the conclusion she’d come to some hours ago, when the Vigil had first started and she’d been left alone to her thoughts. It was part of the reason she’d chosen to sit on the rampart instead of down amid the rest of the castle. “If they can’t handle whatever demons come to them, I very much doubt my presence would make much of a difference.”

There had to be three hundred Eleventh and Twelfth Circles guarding the Raidt, most with more experience, and spells, than she.

Doneil snorted. “You sell yourself short, little blade. Word on the street has you as a prodigy of your line—a literal ball of death. Hardly a brush-off. Temdin, I wouldn’t want to fight you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’m Twelfth Circle. I’d kick your ass so hard, you’d end up in Saras.”

“More like I’d end up sliced into exact pieces and left for the wolves in a neat package if you got serious.”

He was, actually, quite right. Like most dedicated rnari—ones who, as she had, had gone beyond the Eighth Circle—skill with a blade came as easily as breathing.

So long as that blade isn’t a sword.

She shook the thought off, clearing her throat. “I’m hardly an anomaly. We’re all literal balls of death, as you so poetically put it.”

“Yes. And you aren’t the only one with a lineage—but, in your case, your lineage actually bred true.”

She grimaced—could he not use the term ‘bred’ in reference to her parents?

“Where are you going with this?”

“I’m just saying—they won’t have forgotten about you. They’ll want you back.”

She almost laughed. “I doubt it. I broke their prince and betrayed my guardian trust. They won’t want me next to him.”

A brief image of thick trees came to mind. The scent of maple wood and cedar. Dogwood flowers. Torchlight over stone walls. Prince Tarris standing next to her, the jade-green eyes of his royal heritage bright and vibrant, lips curved in amusement.

Her jaw tensed. She clutched the neck of the wine bottle more tightly.

Doneil was shaking his head.

“No, you are the exact person they’d want next to him. And they’ll definitely want you back in the Raidt—not out and about, aiding potential enemies.” He grunted. “I doubt anyone in the Council chamber actually questions your loyalty. It’s just politics that threw you so far away.”

The muscles in her jaw only tightened. For a second, she could barely breathe as a mixture of hot shame and fear raced through her—Gods alive, she had to be the only above-Eighth Circle rnari who was on her own, not honing her skills among the Raidt. Her teeth clenched together so hard, she could feel it in her bones.

This time, it wasn’t Tarris she pictured, but the Council. Old men sitting around their stone tables, their eyes on her, picking her apart like a prized rooster amid a den of crows—and the mask of her father’s face as he stood behind the king, watching her like the rest of them.

Doneil was right. They would want her back. She was too valuable an asset to let go among the humans.

“I know this was unintentional on your part, but it’s probably a good thing that you’re escorting the prince. Ulchris is a two-day trip, one way. This’ll likely stretch into at least a week’s expedition.”

She frowned, not following. “So?”

“So that’s a week that a recall summons can’t reach you. Not unless they send a rider after us, which they won’t.”

Ten hells, she hadn’t even thought of that. Fury rose up within her like a bubbling, hot blackness. In the next instant, she was on her feet and snarling.

“Fuck.”

Doneil’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “Whoa, Catrin. It’s a good thing. That means you won’t be receiving summons for at least a week.”

“No, that means the summons will arrive and I won’t be here to receive it,” she hissed, rounding on him. “How could you possibly think that is a good thing? In the Raidt’s eyes, it will be my fault that I didn’t receive it in time. Another mark on my record.”

“Your current master is the one sending you. They can hardly fault you for obeying.”

“You know how they think,” she snarled. “Treng is human. They won’t give two tits that Treng issued me the order. I’m just supposed to magically know things. Elrya.”

Doneil eyed the tattoos on her arm. “Last I checked, you didn’t have a communication marker. And I checked yesterday.”

“Do you think that will matter? You know what they’re like.”

Gods, and what would she be doing when not receiving the summons? Playing guard to a member of the family most-hated by the Raidt.

She’d never put this incident behind her.

She hissed again. “I’m always going to be the black sheep, aren’t I?”

Doneil was looking at her with a mix of pity and irritation. After a moment, he stood. “Well, I think it’s a good thing, and I don’t think they can fault you for not receiving a summons you didn’t know about while obeying a direct order from your superior. Just do your job. If anything, it’ll be good practice for guarding people you don’t really want to guard. At least this one isn’t an asshole.”

She stiffened.

He raised his hands before she could retort. “Ease, rnari. I’m going now. You can keep the wine. Sounds like you’ll need it.”

The last mark, with his tone, slapped her like a cutting whip. Her teeth clenched together again, and her entire body shook with rage as he turned his back, aching with the need to attack him.

She held herself back. Barely.

The door to the rooftop squeaked when he went through, then banged shut. She watched the corner where he’d disappeared for a few seconds, the sounds of his footsteps faint on the stone stairs inside the rampart’s wall. The dim brown shadows of the stone and roof tiles seemed to shiver and deepen under her gaze.

She let out a breath. Then, she turned her attention upward, toward the sky.

With the light and the smoke, only the brightest stars were visible, but their cold distance washed through the turmoil of her emotions. Ice solidified in her heart and spread. She forced her shoulders to relax with a sigh, the memory of her lost spells sparking fresh grief in her chest—gods, had something happened to Kodanh? Was that why she couldn’t call on him?

She closed her eyes, feeling the cold spread. Slowly, the rest of her relaxed. The world righted around her. Reconnected. The night breeze touched her lips, tinged with smoke. The spicy scent of cinnamon came to her, along with the smoothness of cedar bark. For a second, the smoke painted her face with warmth.

Slowly, she grew aware of someone watching her. She opened her eyes.

Prince Nales stood at the side of the courtyard, partway hidden by the branches of a nearby tree, his gaze as unerring as an arrow’s flight. He didn’t stop when she caught him. Instead, their eyes met and locked.

A ripple of emotion passed over his face, but he quickly shut it down.

After a moment, he placed a small bowl of berries among the offerings on the vigil table, turned his back, and strode away.

Irritation built in her shoulders like a buzzing hive. She watched him go.

Great. Neither of us wants to do this.

Doneil was right—this was going to be good practice.

She grimaced, fingering the lip of the wine bottle with her thumb.

Tomorrow would come too soon.

Chapter 8

“Two Raidt elves protecting a Cizek prince,” Doneil drawled. “No one would believe this.”

Her eyebrow twitched. This wasn’t his first attempt at small talk. So far, they’d ridden in relative silence—neither she nor the prince had spoken a word. Her flat gaze strayed to the back of Prince Nales’ head, wondering what he was thinking—though that was pretty obvious. He’d stated his opinions quite clearly in the courtyard yesterday.

He barely gave indication that he heard the comment, instead staring ahead at the road, or into the trees.

Some of last night’s irritation bubbled up through her bones.

She let out a sigh and pressed it back down. “Hell has boiled over.”

And she was uniquely qualified to guard a royal, she reminded herself. It was, after all, what she’d trained her entire life for.

Prince Nales just happened to be the wrong royal.

Bright tits. How did my life turn so upside down?

That, at least, she knew the answer to. Her hands tightened on the reins as the memory of drink-touched eyes came to her, never far from her mind. His hand grasping her elbow to bring her up short, a quick snap of bone in the dark. The Council meeting after.

Elrya.

She shook the memory off and refocused her attention on the road. It was damp, muddy in places, making the horses’ hooves suck when they lifted, but a fresh breeze tilted through the leaves and branches, and the smell of smoke, both from the castle and from the neighboring towns, lingered only faintly. Instead, the aroma of fresh grass and spring soil filled the air. Tall stands of maple mixed in with ash and poplar along the route, wetting their feet in the spring that ran close to the side of the road, their branches green-tipped with new buds. A dogwood tree stood out among the rest, its broad, blatant flowers calling to her, and an itch of magic graced her skin—along with an inward cringe.

Dogwoods were the symbol of her family’s line. And maples belonged to Raidt royalty.

She must have been staring at the dogwood too long, because Doneil noticed. And, as usual, he was far too good at drawing inference.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, switching to elven.

She let out a sigh. “That’s never a good sign.”

She turned her gaze to the dappled branches above in exasperation before settling it back on the road again, the switch to elven already giving her a clue as to what he wanted to talk about.

Ahead, the prince had stiffened—subtly, in a way a casual onlooker wouldn’t notice, but she did. Though he still stared at the road, he no longer glanced toward the trees, and she could almost feel his attention on them.

She wondered if he knew elven. He had admitted to reading a little mercari, after all, and she couldn’t imagine a person in his position not coming across it in their studies.

“Shush. I think you can get out of your bloodline contract.”

A snort escaped her. “One does not simply get out of bloodline contracts. That’s kind of the point of them.”

“It’s been done before. And you’re not bladesworn yet.”

She let out a sigh, drifting her gaze up to the tree canopy once again, annoyed this time. She had a feeling she’d be hearing his idea whether she liked it or not.

“Fai li Gioni was bloodlined and bladesworn before she left on her campaign,” he said.

“Yes, and so was Jinir the Betrayer. Look what that got him.”

“Of the two, you resemble Fai more.”

“Why? Did I acquire great mountain-taming strength while I was sleeping? Knowledge of special fey springs with which to heal mortal wounds on secret kings?” Disgust laced her tone, and a familiar wrenching made itself known in her chest. It was useless to contemplate anything different, especially when the wound was so fresh. She was already skating on thin ice from last night. Very tense, thin ice. She didn’t even bother to hide the sneer she aimed at him. “Come now, you know the Council politics as well as I. Nothing short of becoming apostate will remove me from that position—and that is something I will not do.”

His sigh was equally exasperated. “Do you really want to go back and guard that prince?”

She gritted her teeth. “The Council seems to think it’s a good idea.”

“The Council is full of fools. The royals control them outright.”

This time, she did glance around. With speeches like that, said in the open, in a forest no less—it was no wonder Doneil had decided to leave the rnari.

“You’re not bladesworn,” he reminded her.

No, she had not made that oath—not yet. No one could call her an oathbreaker and be truthful about it. But she was bloodlined, and that in itself was a promise. Her family line had been guarding Raidt royalty ever since they’d come down from Mount Sinya and split with the light—she could trace her lineage back directly to both Isplin and Verdamor, who had turned swords and taken assassins in the tumultuous early days of the Raidt. Her father was bladesworn of the king, and his father before that. Her mother had guarded both Ceciline and Hyuir in the queen’s nursery.

She’d been training all her life to match them—and she was good. A risen star among the rnari blades.

Until she’d broken Prince Tarris’ hand.

“As I was saying,” Doneil continued, drawing a flicker of annoyance from her. “Acts of heroism seem to smooth over sins. You should do a few of those. Then pretend you forgot about the whole unwritten ‘protect royalty’ expectation in your family bloodline. You know, really play up the rnari ‘protect the weak’ edict.”

“If I did that, Prince Tarris would be at the top of the weak list,” she muttered.

Stunned silence met her words. She froze, horror slowly washing over her.

The blood drained from her face, and the breath whooshed out of her. She turned wide eyes on Doneil, her jaw slackening. “I did not just say that.”

“Catrin,” He was grinning, yellow-gold eyes sparking with mischief. She could feel the glee coming off him—like light dancing from a fire. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

The blood rushed back into her skin. She dropped her head and swore.

“No one can know I said that. No one.” She narrowed her eyes up to Doneil, lancing him with a look. “If I hear so much as a whisper, I’ll fucking end you.”

“Is this the thanks I get for all that healing I’ve given you, Twelfth Circle?” His tone began mocking, but quickly shifted into a laughing defense when she growled at him. “Okay, okay, your treasonous words are safe. I didn’t hear one whit. You are the perfect paragon of an obedient rnari warrior.”

It took all of her control not to hit him.

It was hard. He was in easy reach.

Perfect paragon. Hah. From what she’d heard in the rnari ranks, she had been one. Selfless, devoted to duty and regime, bold and proactive, never disobeying—never even questioning.

Not until Prince Tarris had cornered her alone against a wall. Not until he had pushed where he shouldn’t have.

Her body tensed as the memory slipped back into her mind. Just a light touch on her elbow, the twist in her abdomen when she realized his intentions, her propensity to not think twice and just trust her instincts, the faces of the Council after, tearing her apart—

“In all seriousness, though—” Doneil’s voice cut through the memory like a saw knife, the smoothed syllables of his elven an odd familiarity on such a human road. “—there might be a way out of your unwritten bloodline contract.”

“If you’re talking about heroism, then doesn’t doing a heroic deed for selfish reasons negate the heroic value?”

He chuckled. “If that were the case, I doubt half of them would have gotten done. Pure of heart and intention—how many beings do you think have that as their sole motivation? I’d wager sheer, stubborn pettiness is a greater motivator.”

“Unless loss of life is involved,” she said, then turned her tone lighter, as if considering, sarcasm lacing her vowels. “In that case, it could work. I am quite petty.”

“It’s true, you are. However, in all seriousness, there may be an actual way out. You know, one that doesn’t involve nigh-impossible acts—”

“Oh, come on,” she said, switching to Janessi with a glance to the prince ahead of them—they were being rude, and she’d let this go on long enough. “Enough of this.”

A farm was coming up ahead on the road, the homestead visible through the trees, three people at its side, all looking their way. A trail of gray-white smoke floated out of the chimney. As she watched, the tallest of the three broke away from the others and started up the road, their pace hurried.

Lone. Female. Farmer. Low threat level.

“No, no, hear me out.” Doneil spoke the first in Janessi, glanced to the prince, and switched back to elven. “It’s the undersworn loophole.”

“The undersworn…” Her brows drew together in confusion as she searched her mind—then shot into her forehead. A wave of shocked giddiness exploded in her chest and she burst into laughter. “Are you serious? Holy Elrya, could you imagine the looks on the Council’s faces if I did that? On old Tommin’s? Bright tits, man, I think half of them would write my name on their lavatory cob. The rnari would use it as fucking target practice.”

By technicality, all of the Raidt were undersworn to the Cizek bloodline—an unhappy by-product of the demon-sword days. It hadn’t been obeyed or enforced in two hundred and fifty years, but it still existed, and, notably, the Raidt had not made a move against the Cizeks in all that time.

Well, no open moves, anyway.

Elves were nothing if not wily.

But, the fact that it still existed—in writing, no less, which was more than could be said for her bloodline contract—meant that, technically, any of the Cizek line were as eligible for her blade-swearing loyalty as the Raidt line.

She could toss the Raidt crown prince for the Cizek second-in-line.

“It would get you away from Tarris,” Doneil said, as if reading her mind.

She snorted. “It might be worth it for that alone.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched her, eyebrows lifting.

“I didn’t say that,” she added.

“Of course you didn’t.” He shot her a grin, yellow eyes flashing with good humor. “I personally think it’s a great idea. It’d piss off the Council, fulfill your unspoken oath, and send a message to Tarris.”

“I’m not sure I want to send a message to him.”

“Oh, no, I know you want to—you’re just not sure you should.”

She pinned him with a stare. His grin only widened.

“You are a troublemaker,” she told him, switching back to Janessi.

He snorted, also switching. “You’re the one who gave me the idea. I just voiced it.”

“Some things are meant to be kept to oneself. Especially concerning certain matters.” She held up a finger when it looked like he was going to speak again. “I’m starting to understand why you’re at a human castle rather than in the Raidt.”

“What can I say? I dislike politics. And you are already doing it, even if the notion hadn’t crossed your pretty little head.”

Her stare narrowed, and his face took on a mock-sobriety, one hand rising as if to fend off an impending blow. “Fine. I’ll be quiet.”

Experience made her very much doubt that, but she lowered her hand anyway.

“I think I liked your idea of become a rnari nun better.”

“Someone’s coming,” said Prince Nales.

Up ahead, a middle-aged woman in a dark-colored homespun dress—a closer version of the figure she’d seen earlier—was walking up the side of the road toward them, the objects of her attention clear in the hesitant gaze that turned their way. It irked her that the prince had voiced her presence, as if she and Doneil had been too caught up in conversation to do their jobs properly. His tone had held a slight edge to it, as if in rebuke.

“She’s from the farmhouse,” she said, giving the woman an irritated glance-over. “There are two others, at least, both smaller.”

“Must have heard us coming,” Doneil said with a grin.

She skewered him with a glare—no, they hadn’t been quiet in the past few minutes—then nudged her horse to walk faster, soon catching up to Prince Nales. The woman saw this and faltered, wringing her hands, eyes widening obviously when she took in Catrin’s non-human looks and the lay of her armor.

With the prince leading, it had likely been easier to overlook the two elves at his back. Now, she was forced to address them. To see them.

Catrin felt a momentary pang of regret. In this part, elves may be an uncommon sight, but rnari were even rarer.

And intimidating.

That made her frown.

We shouldn’t be like that. We’re meant to protect the weak, not harass them.

Prince Nales directed his horse ahead, loosening the reins so that the gelding stretched his neck out. “Do you need something?”

His tone was warm, friendly. When she glanced over, his expression had shifted. His normal shuttered frown had vanished, replaced by a hesitant smile and a quiet curiosity that sparked in his eyes.

Shy and gentle, but welcoming. Open.

It surprised her.

The woman hesitated. Her wide eyes stayed locked on Catrin for a moment longer, then switched to the prince. She wrung her hands again, but the motion seemed more half-hearted this time, relaxing. She took a step forward, emboldened, and her tone turned up in a hopeful cant.

“Are you from the castle?”

Pemberlin, she meant, not Pristav Castle in Lorka. Not unless she’d seen the prince before—he was wearing no identifying signifiers other than a small, gold lapel pin of a sword, which could have been taken for military. In fact, if Catrin hadn’t moved forward as she had, an instinctual guarding action on her part, he would have passed for military. Upper-brass military, perhaps, with his nice jacket, quality boots, and the long black sheath of the straight sword at his side, but military nonetheless.

She’d have to remember that for the future.

“Yes,” he said. “Are you all right? Did you…” He glanced to the fields, which looked untouched, and to the house with its single stack of smoke—no demon burn like they’d read in the reports coming to Pemberlin, but that didn’t mean anything. As they were finding out, demons were disposed of in many different ways. “Did you have problems? Do you need healing?”

“You can heal? Oh, thank Abier.” The woman winced, obviously reminded of what, precisely, had befallen on the god’s feast night, but resolutely drove past it. “It’s not for me, it’s—a stranger came last night. A nice stranger,” she added hastily, catching the shift in their manner as they all stiffened. Though bandits were about as common as elves in this area, they did occur. What they’d be doing at a poor farmhouse, Catrin wouldn’t know. “Killed two of those… things last night. After that, we’d be happy to take him in—gods know we could use the extra hand—but he needs far more help that what we can give.”

She hesitated, her gaze once again flitting between the three of them. Protective, Catrin realized. Not sure whether to trust them wholly.

But something in their demeanor must have won out. Either that, or she was truly desperate.

“Actually,” she confessed, her voice lilting smaller. “We don’t rightly know what to make of him. He is, well…”

She hesitated, once again glancing to Catrin and Doneil, though the glance felt more inquisitive than fearful this time.

“Strange?” Doneil supplied.

“Yes. Though not in the way you are. He’s certainly strange-looking, but definitely human. Foreign.” She bit her lip, giving them another glance-over. “It’s probably better if you come see yourself. I think you’d know about these things better than I.”

There was a moment of silence. Then, the prince raised his gaze through the trees to the homestead beyond. The other two people hadn’t moved, watching.

Catrin followed his stare, frowning as she considered the woman’s words.

A foreign stranger. Like Treng, perhaps?

She almost snorted at the thought. If Treng had shown up on someone’s door in the middle of the night, they wouldn’t be nearly so calm about it—even if he did kill demons for them.

The man was a damned nightmare.

After a few seconds, the prince twitched his reins and turned his horse for the farm’s track.

“All right. Let’s have a look.”

Chapter 9

“Well, she wasn’t wrong,” Doneil said, his elven slipping through the air like water over river rocks. “He is human.”

Catrin kept her features smooth as she sized up the man spread out over the cabin’s communal bed frame.

He looked Gatali to her—brown eyes, black hair, an obvious bronzing to his skin—his eyes had near bugged out of his head when she and Doneil had walked in, gaze sweeping over them, lingering first on her two blades, then her eyes and ears, and giving the prince only a passing glance. It made her think he hadn’t seen an elf before.

Which was odd. Maybe he was used to light elves? But—no. Not with that skin tone. Forest elves?

The woman was right about something else, too—he was definitely foreign. He didn’t speak Janessi, instead replying to Nales’ questioning in a language none of them recognized.

He was also brawny—and definitely a soldier. She’d pegged him for that almost immediately. He had an edge in the way he held himself. Like he was prepared to fight, even in his injured state.

Civilians didn’t have that edge. Not unless they’d been attacked.

Plus, he’d taken down two demons. Two. Single-handedly. And the second with a very broken leg.

She glanced down once again to the end of the bed and resisted the urge to curl her lips back.

The women had done their best to reset it and make a splint, but the break was clearly beyond their help. The entire leg had bent forward at the knee joint, every bone and tendon that had held it in place snapped and strained.

Elrya, just looking at it made her want to leave.

She could only imagine how that last fight must have turned out. The demon must have caught onto him—injured prey, weakest—but he had still taken it down.

And… setting it afterward.

Gods, that must have been horrific. For all involved.

“So,” Doneil began after another minute, in Janessi this time. “Can I heal him, or are we going to stare at him for a bit longer?”

She felt the attention of the entire cabin switch to her.

She hesitated. “He’s dangerous.”

“He’s in pain.”

She didn’t need to look over to notice Doneil’s tension. As a healer, he’d be able to sense the man’s pain, the same way her bond with Kodanh allowed her to sense winter frost.

But she had a job to do.

“He can stay in pain until I make a decision about him.”

“Bright tits,” Doneil spat. “You’re a bitch.”

“I’m practical,” she said, then switched to elven. “The man took out two demons, one of them with a broken leg. I’d rather not have to wrestle him back into bed if he decides to go after our princeling.”

There was a brief silence. The three turned their attention back to the man on the bed. He watched them warily.

“Who are you?” the prince asked for the second time. “Where are you from?”

The man glanced at him, then gritted his teeth and moved. Catrin stiffened, but he only reached for the trousers that hung from the head of the bed. Though pain shadowed his face at the effort, he fished a worn leather wallet from a pocket, flipped it open, and pulled out a small, pale green card. With a glance to her, he kept his motion deliberately slow when he passed the card to Nales.

The prince’s eyebrows arched into his forehead.

Catrin craned her neck. “What is it?”

“Identification, I think. There’s a photograph with writing, and a similar emblem to the one in his tattoo.”

“A photograph? Aren’t those done on glass?”

“No, you can put them on specially treated paper.” Nales’ eyebrows drew together. “I’ve never seen one like this, though.”

“It’s using the Veronan alphabet,” Doneil pointed out. “That’s some common ground, at least.”

“Yes. I don’t recognize the language it’s making, but I’m sure someone might know.”

“Lord or Lady Stanek, possibly,” she suggested. “Hells, even Treng might know.”

Growing up where he had, the man had an immense grasp of languages.

The prince tried to speak to him again, switching first to Gatali, then to another language, but the man just shook his head.

She frowned.

A polite cough came from her right.

“He was carrying this, Miss. Some kind of weapon.”

She glanced over. The older woman—Sannya was her name—held out something folded in a handcloth for her perusal. Her two daughters, Rinya and Eleza, stood behind her, expressions uncertain and watchful. They had pale skin and dark hair like their mother, and their faded homespun blended in with the cabin’s painted boards and simple furnishings. The place was larger than she’d expected—three rooms, rather than a single, with a drop-down stair on a pull leading to an attic story. The inside of the house had an airy feel to it. Though the furnishings were simple, mostly of dark-colored wood, they were sturdy and well-cared-for.

She took the item, an eyebrow lifting at its surprising weight. When she opened it, the other eyebrow shot up.

It looked like a dueling pistol. She’d only seen two, but the shape and the trigger were instantly recognizable, and it even had a slight smell of burning. Both the barrel and grip were stockier than she’d expected, though, and made of metal where she’d normally seen wood, with a glass window on its side next to some block-like Veronese letters. And it lacked a hammer. Or a place to put the powder.

Perhaps they were inside?

Except… a quick glance showed her that the barrel itself was closed off. With a strange, glass-like attachment blocking its end.

And dueling pistols were more a weapon the nobility carried—but he certainly wasn’t a noble. Tits, he wasn’t even Gatali, or he didn’t speak it, anyway. Nor did he speak Janessi, elven, Finian, or any of the other half-dozen languages they’d managed to muddle at him in the past several minutes.

She passed the potential handgun onto Doneil for his perusal—noticing, as she did so, that the man’s attention shifted with it.

Hmm.

She turned her own curiosity back onto his body, trying to parse out clues. A mixture of ink tattooed his skin, none of it spellforms that she could see, though some looked to be in old Veronese script. Most of it formed pictures. Flowers, skulls, emblems. One such emblem matched the colors of a flag on the shirt he wore, though it was faded.

“Which flag is that?” she tilted her head. “Yetra?”

“No, Yetra uses orange stripes.” The prince made a gesture. “These are red. Blood representation, perhaps?”

Catrin considered the man again. “He is a soldier.”

“There are too many stars, though, and they look all different. Maybe it’s an alternative version? Older? A representation?”

Perhaps. Both the tattoo and the shirt came with a recognizable eagle, though the one on the shirt was as faded as the flag it bore.

She tilted her head. “How’d they get it on the shirt like that? It’s not woven, or embroidered. Paint?”

Nales considered it. For the first time since they’d left Pemberlin, his expression approached something resembling genuine interest. “It does look like paint.”

“Very accurate paint.” Catrin’s eyes narrowed, studying the designs once again. “His tattoos are very accurate, too.”

“Maybe he afforded the royal tattooist,” Doneil said, distracted.

Suddenly, the man’s entire body stiffened. He tried to hide it, tried to keep the blank neutrality on his face, but it was like watching a spring crank tight.

She followed his gaze to find Doneil looking down the barrel of the pistol with its end pointed at his face.

She reached over and gently pushed it to the side. “Are you an idiot?”

“What? I wanted to see if the powder was already inside.”

So he had known it was a firearm before he’d done that. Her assessment of his idiocy ticked up.

“Do you know how often those things misfire? Temdin, there’s a reason the rnari keep to crossbows.”

“I thought that was because the Raidt hates goblins?”

“Well—that, too.” Actually, it was humans the Raidt hated, specifically humans like the one standing a few paces to their left, wearing his princely insignia on the inside of his lapel, but Catrin appreciated the candor.

Besides, goblins made a close second.

She blew out a breath and once again turned her attention to the man on the bed, sizing him up for what was likely the sixth time.

“Right,” she said. “Doneil, heal him up. We’ll bring him with us.” They’d be more able to provide for an extra mouth and body than the small homestead. “If we don’t figure him out along the way, they can sort him out at Pemberlin. We can use the extra fighter, anyway—and I’ll take that.”

She hastily grabbed the pistol when Doneil made to put it on a nearby table, keeping its thick barrel pointed at places that didn’t have warm bodies. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she had read a series of reports once on accidental deaths brought about by firearms.

“Thank you, Milady,” Sannya said with a small curtsy. “You do him a great service.”

‘Milady’? Elrya, save her. Between that and Guardsman Ternadon, she was getting all sorts of promotions these days.

She hoped Doneil was too busy healing to notice the title, but doubted she’d be that lucky. The man had keen ears.

“I’m happy to help a fellow soldier,” she heard herself saying.

Sannya curtsied again. This time, her daughters followed suit. Catrin attempted to prevent the blush that threatened her cheeks.

It was a good thing she didn’t have pale skin like they did.

“Besides, I imagine the castle has more resources for an extra mouth—meaning no offense.” She glanced around the small cabin, taking in its white-painted walls, the flower box outside the casement window, the colorful hemming on the blankets and curtains. “You have a lovely home. Did you make these yourselves? Those designs are well-done.”

She gestured to the end of the table bench, where a white-painted triskele of three flowers looped through itself over the dark-stained wood.

Sannya had barely glanced to the furniture, instead watching where Doneil bent over the man’s leg. “My Dan did, before he passed. And we owe this man more than we can say. He saved our lives.”

“You’ve done well by him. We’ll take care of him.”

This time, Sannya did look at her, and Catrin’s heart panged when she saw the caution in the woman’s eyes. Life was hard out here, and they, too, were strangers. Hard to trust. But something in Catrin’s expression, or in her voice, must have swayed her, because she relaxed. Her head swung back to the man.

“His name is Mattie, I think. Or Matteo. Some variant. Hard to say.” She grimaced, obviously uncomfortable with the whole situation. “And if’in you don’t find a place for him at the castle, he’s welcome back here, and not just out of pity. Abier knows we need a strong set of hands around the farm, and I trust him.”

“We’ll tell him that,” Catrin assured her. “I’m sure someone at the castle can manage to speak with him.”

Probably not anyone at Pemberlin Castle, not unless Treng came through on that, but Prince Nales doubtless had contacts.

At that moment, magic shifted in the air, and the man possibly known as Mattie or Matteo made a loud sucking sound on the mattress, going rigid. Doneil grunted, leaning further over the bed to cup his hands around the man’s mangled knee joint. Just underneath his cuff, a glow of white-gold light indicated his active rune.

She studied the man as Doneil worked. His shoulders bunched under the thin material of his shirt, and his hands tensed into tight fists—gods, she could only imagine what it must have been like for the three women to attempt setting the break in the first place. At least this had minimal pain.

Well, maybe not minimal, but definitely far down on the scale compared to what he must have endured last night, even with the willow bark tea at his bedside.

When Doneil had finished, the man had a stunned expression on his face.

Right. Doesn’t know magic either, then?

“Done?” she asked as Doneil backed away. “Good. He can walk with us. It’ll do his muscles good to stretch after that.”

She left, taking the man’s pistol with her.

Chapter 10

His name was Matteo, not Mattie, and he didn’t complain about the walking. Or, well, she assumed he didn’t—they were still working around a language barrier, but he’d been nothing but smiles since Doneil had healed his leg, and he was practically bursting with chatter.

From the way he kept checking his once-fucked knee joint, they probably could have told him to run a fifty-mile loop and he wouldn’t have uttered a single complaint.

Clearly, he really had never heard of healing magic before.

Which drove a deep amount of suspicion in her.

Where the fuck was he from that he hadn’t heard of it? Even Sannya and her daughters had known. This wasn’t the third century. Magic wasn’t confined to the other-worldly anymore. They were connected. Even humans could learn it, if they had the predisposition.

Doneil, at least, was working on finding the answer. The two muttered with each other in the back, each trying to parse a common thread of communication between themselves—a double language lesson, it sounded like, trading random vocabulary for things they could point at on the trail.

She rode ahead, with the prince.

Not talking.

He hadn’t changed much since the homestead, though she detected a layer of concentration in his expression that hadn’t been there before—he, too, was thinking about their new ward. It added a stern edge to his face, sweeping all of its angles into being flat and dull. Though his dark jacket and hair should have linked him more with the image of a crow or raven, she couldn’t help but still be reminded of the small, wiry nuthatches that flitted in the undergrowth.

He just had that manner about him. Quick, taut. Always ready for action. A crow usually needed to tense, prepare itself, even if it only took half a heartbeat to do so—a nuthatch was always ready.

Plus, his jacket had faded somewhat. No longer an even pitch-black, but mottled in some areas. Grayer.

The road stretched out ahead of them in a soft bend, a cool, shady palette of greens, grays, and browns, and their horses’ hooves made steady clops on the hard-packed dirt. It was better-tended here, a remnant of an old Kingsway, still with the sand mixed in and signs of old, now-dilapidated shelters in the surrounding woods. The spring at the side of the road trickled with snowmelt. They’d left the maples behind, but the scent of pine filled the air from farther upwind. Another dogwood leaned over the path ahead, its bold white flowers standing out among the rest of the green.

She gave it a dull stare, hyperaware of the matching insignia traced into her weapons’ sheaths.

This is either an unsubtle portent or sheer dumb luck.

If it was the latter, some idiot must have had a planting frenzy. She’d seen about two per mile marker.

If it was the former, it didn’t take a genius to guess its meaning.

Go home. Honor your family. Fulfill your duty.

Memories flitted through her mind—a quiet, brief scuffle in the dark, Tarris’ furious, pained eyes, his brief yell; her body stiff as a board as she stood in front of the Council, her father watching from his place behind the king.

Hot shame burned through her face.

They’d even spoken of removing her Twelfth Circle.

Bright sun, why didn’t I just let him have his feel?

Her jaw clenched, and her grip tightened on the reins. She’d been so naive—so ignorant. The royals always got what they wanted. She should have just let him get it out of his system. Heavens knew he’d flirted with almost every female guard he’d been assigned, and a few of the men.

If she’d done nothing, he would have moved on.

But she hadn’t done nothing. Instead, she’d drawn attention—and harmed her charge in the process.

She forced a swallow down.

Elrya, how did I let this happen?

Maybe it was appropriate that she be escorting a Cizek. A sign of how far out she’d fallen.

“Are you exiled?”

She sucked in a breath and snapped to attention, her focus crashing into place like an avalanche.

At some point, the prince had stopped watching the scenery and had trained his attention onto her.

Dread panic flushed through her chest.

How much had he seen?

“No,” she said, wrestling her mask back into place.

Silence for a moment. Their horses’ hooves made quiet clops on the trail, occasionally grinding into sand or rock. She forced herself to purposefully relax into her mare’s gait, allowing the muscles to stretch in her lower back.

Nales frowned. “How come you aren’t in the Raidt?”

She ground her teeth together, fresh anger flaring in her chest. Was everything going to circle back to her current predicament in the Raidt today?

“Like I said before, I broke the hand of a prince. It was deemed best that I be elsewhere for a time.” She glanced over, letting him see the irritation that sparked across her expression. “It’s not an exile. I can go back at any time—and am expected to.”

His expression took a concentrated frown again. “Prince Tarris?”

Her eyes narrowed, her earlier suspicions of his language abilities resurfacing.

That guess was a little too close for one who hadn’t overheard and understood her earlier conversation.

“Yes,” she said, her voice cool. “You know him?”

“We met once. Briefly.” The flicker of remembrance that crossed his face told her that the meeting hadn’t been of much import. As a Cizek, he’d undoubtedly met many members of royal courts. “Why’d you break his hand?”

“Maybe he kept asking questions.”

He glanced at her, his look assessing—as if he were really considering that explanation. She kept her face neutral, giving nothing away. Behind them, Doneil and Matteo kept chattering away, their hand gestures elaborate. Birdsong tittered from the canopy overhead, along with the gentle rattle of high leaves in the late morning breeze. Sunlight shifted over the road.

After a moment, he broke away. His gaze slid back to the road.

“Maybe he was just wondering why you were concocting a plan that involved him.”

At first, she didn’t understand the remark, too focused on Prince Tarris to think any broader.

Then, she connected it.

Cold shock rushed through her body.

He did speak elven. And he had heard their conversation.

Their entire conversation.

For the second time that day, the blood drained from her skin. Then it rushed right back in, anger bubbling up like boiling oil.

“What, unhappy about us underlings plotting our lives without you?” She sneered. “You could have piped in at any time, you know.”

“Clearly, you didn’t want me in it.”

“And yet, clearly, you didn’t take the oh-so-subtle hint. Are you always this nosy, or is my life just that special to you?”

He gave her a disgusted look. “Maybe I’m just sick of people using my family for their own interests.”

“Really? With your family?” The sound of her laugh echoed off the trees. “Gods, you people make me sick. You think you’re oh so bloody important, but Elrya, you know we have our own lives, too? And they don’t involve yours?”

“From what I heard, you were doing just fine involving yourself into my family with your schemes.”

“Then maybe you should learn to listen better, because if you had, you would have noticed that I thought the idea was fucking laughable,” she hissed, not caring that it made an inhuman sound—he didn’t flinch, anyway. “Gods alive, I wish I’d just let you walk out that gate on that fucking horse. Then I wouldn’t have to be here, protecting your stupid body.”

“I could have ordered you to come with me,” he sneered. “I have that right.”

She laughed, the sound bouncing off the trees. “Good fucking luck with that. Do you want to cause a war? Gods, you princes are all the same, just doing whatever in the ten high heavens you want. Why are we even out here? We should be back at Pemberlin, providing fortification—helping people, not swanning off to Ulchris. Hells, you should probably be going to Lorka. Isn’t that where you’re needed? Not gallivanting off into the wilds with a couple of elves?”

“No,” the prince said, the syllable as cutting as a swinging ax. “If something is happening at Ulchris, if that greater demon is back, then—”

“If, if, if, if, if. It’s always if with you.” Actually, it usually wasn’t, but she’d already said it, and she was in too deep to stop now. Her voice lowered, accent thickening to curl around the words. “Do you have any substantial proof that this demon is back? And if he is, just what are your plans for that, precisely? Because from the sound of it, I don’t think a party of three can stop a greater demon on our own. Temdin, you haven’t even told us anything about this thing other than that it might exist. Do you even know much about it?”

“That mark is substantial proof—or at least enough to warrant a check.” His speech turned into a gritty jeer, nearly matching her tone. “And I do know about this particular demon. I just don’t choose to share it with the likes of you.”

The likes of—

The anger in her went white-hot. She scalded him with a look.

“What do you mean, the likes of me? The underlings, as you people like to call us? Those undersworn to your family’s demon-cursed sword? The ones you tried to subjugate under blood and death?”

She stopped herself, reading him. His face had shuttered again, and he’d half-turned to face the road—but there was something about the way he almost avoided her gaze…

He’s hiding something.

“What do you know?” she asked, her voice deathly low. “What aren’t you telling us?”

He remained quiet. Around them, the forest seemed to have quietened, too. Doneil and Matteo had fallen silent—she could feel their attention on her, see their faces turned toward her in her peripheral vision—and a thickness seemed to have cast itself about the trees, as if the very air had woven a texture that clotted the space between them and the rest of the world.

She swore. “You and your fucking secrets. I—”

“Catrin,” Doneil snapped, his voice low, warning, lilting in elven. “Check.”

The rnari command cracked through her thoughts like iced thunder. She cut herself off, snapped her head to their surroundings. The argument dropped from her head like a guillotine blade, replaced by an intense focus as she grounded herself. In the next breath, she took in every bend and shift of their surroundings, looking for anomalies.

And found them almost immediately.

The air had thickened. It wasn’t just her imagination.

A low thrum of magic hummed through the background like an undercurrent.

She pulled down, found the trickle of energy that was her woodcraft, and reached out to the three horses.

Halt, she commanded.

Three sets of hooves ground to a stop on the trail.

Silence fell over the scene like a cloak.

Slowly, she searched the area, following the nudge of her intuition—and the taste of magic that coated the air.

Her gaze came to a rest on a spot just ahead on the road, her mind almost immediately sensing the subtle wrongness of the air, the way it wanted to turn her vision aside, make her look elsewhere.

The thread of magic wormed through her vertebrae like an oiled leather cord.

Something hidden.

She caught on a spot about mounted head height, roughly five yards up the path.

There. That was where her woodcraft said it was.

But it didn’t scream threat to her, not like the demons had. Power, yes, and tension—but not threat.

She kept her eyes on the spot and waited.

With a barely-perceptible shiver of magic, the fey hunting party melted out of their camouflage glamour like rain.

Chapter 11

She’d encountered fey before, both high and low. Hells, even her mercari binding with Kodanh was considered fey, though the ice lizard walked a gray area between fey and deity. Fey were not like the rest of the world. Elrya, they were barely a part of this world, usually spending their time in Tir Na n’Og, their Summerland. But they bridged the two worlds regularly, both on their own and through the gate systems, and every inch of them screamed magic.

Where she needed tattooed spell-forms, they could weave a spell from the very air—and they wore otherworldly like a second skin.

These looked humanoid, at least. Like elves, actually—perhaps one of the northern tribes with their pale hair and skin, though that particular semblance came to a crashing halt when one noticed their eyes.

Jet black. As if someone had taken a glass of ink and filled them to brimming.

They reminded her of the demons last night.

Her gaze slid over them, soft, calculating, taking in their bodies, their weaponry, little decorative details in the leather they wore that could identify them, though that particular avenue was coming up short—each of them, even the more richly-dressed one near the front, had a near-matching set of leather tack and armor, well-worn and the color of faded teak.

She hid a shiver. Elrya, they looked made more of marble or ivory than flesh—carved and honed, not grown.

High fey, she concluded. Well-armed. Well-skilled. And, by the look of those weapons, able to shred her entire party within the span of a minute, three at the most.

But, if they’d wanted to do that, they would have done it before they’d lifted their glamour.

No, this hunting party was after something else today, and probably the same thing they were.

Demons.

Most likely, they wanted to talk.

Without a word, she leaned forward, swung a leg over her horse’s haunches, and dismounted. The leather of her sheaths whispered as she took her blades out and handed them hilt-first to Prince Nales over the back of the horse. He took them in one hand, confusion marked in his furrowed brow, but she gave him a meaningful look and walked away.

The hunting party watched her approach.

There were five of them, all tall and lean—like thinner, whiter, more wiry versions of Doneil—all staring down at her, and as much as she’d practiced taking down a mounted adversary, the height difference was not something she would ever get used to. Intimidation made a strange itch between her shoulder blades.

But she kept her mask on and her back straight, lifted her chin, and addressed them in Common Fey with a strong, confident voice.

“Fair hunting, cousins.”

“And to you, cousin.” The one she suspected was their leader gave a short bow of his head. His tone held a trace of humor to it, the stony mask of his face relaxed in something close to bemusement. His dark eyes followed her as she stopped beside him, looking her over for a moment before they moved back up to settle on Prince Nales. He paused, one pale eyebrow rising. “What is a Twelfth Circle rnari warrior doing escorting a member of the Cizek line?”

Hot embarrassment flushed through her—they’d heard all of that?—and through sheer will, she kept it from breaching her mask, inwardly cursing herself. What the hell was wrong with her? This was the second time she’d gotten in a loud argument with Nales. Thank Elrya that they hadn’t said anything too incriminating in the last little while.

She kept her face neutral, but injected an extra dryness to her tone, aiming to match his humor. “These are dark times, cousin. We do what we must.”

Although, now that she was closer, she suspected that last part might not apply to him. The fabric he wore had a richer sash to it, and there was an abstract magnolia pattern woven into its long side, a distinct mark of the Clemensi royal house.

Light court. Likely a member of the family.

Gods, this forest is just lousy with princes today.

That would, however, make his companions part of the heartsworn—the fey variant of the royal guards she had been vying for. She gave them another glance-over, three men and a woman, noting again their tall, lean builds and the subtle brawn that underlaid their armor.

They all watched her, silent on their horses, dark eyes shadowed and attentive.

“What news of the road have you?” The language tripped off her tongue, rougher than she’d like. “Any idea what happened?”

“Apart from the massive immigration of demons, dislocated magic, and broken gates, you mean? No.” His voice slid in the air like water over river stones, curling around his words in a dark accent. He studied Prince Nales for a few more moments, then turned his attention back to her. His dark eyes lingered on her tattoos before flicking back up to meet her gaze. “Where do you travel?”

She barely heard the question, her brain having latched onto his first sentence.

Broken gates?

“Ulchris,” she said, distracted. No use lying to a fey, especially ones such as these—they could sense honesty like a batch of warmly baked bread. Plus, giving a tidbit of information would most likely warm them to her. “The Cizek suspected something had happened to the gate. Wanted to check up on it.”

Okay. That was somewhat the truth.

The hunting party rippled around her, and she caught a snatch of whispers—a dialect, like wind through leaves. A touch of magic buzzed in the air as they exchanged looks.

The fey prince looked down at her again, his gaze lingering for a few seconds, then seemed to come to some sort of decision. After a moment, and an even longer look between him and his heartsworn, he loosened his reins—he had claws, she noticed, pale, thin ones cutting his nails into sharp points, like thorns on a tree—and leaned forward.

She stepped back as he dismounted, careful to angle herself away from the front of one of his clansmen and well aware of the steel that curved in the sheath over the man’s thigh.

“Forgive my rudeness. I am Volaon li Naine. These are my heartsworn, Jorire, Caracel—” A fey with a thick scar through his cheek and eyebrow nodded at her. “—Ryane, and Loreux.”

He offered her his forearm, in the Clemensi style of greeting. She took it and tried not to stiffen, aware that fey had a different idea of personal space and greeting customs. The calloused pads of his fingertips scratched against the soft skin of her inside elbow, his claws making only the lightest of pricks.

She returned his grip, carefully matching his strength.

“May the morning bring you strength,” he added, pulling his arm back.

The greeting sounded oddly formal, especially considering the sun was well up in the sky by now, so she just nodded, glad he was no longer touching her.

“And to you. I am Catrin li Ternadon of the Raidt, currently of Pemberlin. My companions are Doneil li Argent, also of Pemberlin, Matteo, and Nales Cizek of Pristav.”

A rustle of cloth and leather caught her attention—Nales, apparently, had had enough of waiting. After some murmured discussion between him and Doneil, he leaned forward on his horse, dismounted, and handed his sword, her rnari blades, and the reins of his horse over to Doneil and Matteo.

His boots crunched in the gravel as he approached.

She turned to him.

“This is Volaon of Naine,” she said in Janessi, using the Teilanni of instead of the traditional li—but, to her surprise, Nales answered in Fey.

“I know.” He glanced to her, then, to the prince. “Your reputation precedes you, Summer’s son. I had hoped we would meet in brighter times.”

Volaon eyed him. Then, after a moment, he took the offered arm, gripping it in the same Clemensi style he’d just given her.

“And I, too.” The words had an edge of stiffness to them, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to react, but a coil of tension loosened inside her as he leaned back and took on a relaxed posture, glancing over them.

“One of our companions went missing that night. We are looking for them.”

“You think demons took them?” she asked.

“That’s our guess. They were having—” he struggled with the word, then inserted the High Fey variant, ipsa, which she remembered as a root for ‘meditation ritual.’ “We found traces of the ipsa, but the site was interrupted. Wolf prints, boot tracks, and signs of a much larger force. The earth was rent—not by claw or machine, but magic. The whole area was buzzing with residue. No sign of where our people have gone.”

He blew out a frustrated breath, tension cording visibly through his chin and neck. Quietly, she took another look at the party and horses.

Yes, they did have signs of hard use.

“The hellhound in Pemberlin wasn’t on a mission,” she offered, echoing her conversation with Doneil last night. “If it had been, it would have killed half the hall, not just stood there.”

Nales stiffened, a tendon in his neck tightening, but quickly hid it and nodded. “That’s true. And the others—”

“No immediate pattern,” she said. “They’ve all, as far as I can tell, been random.” She turned to Volaon. “Pemberlin received many reports from all over, from Lorka to the Simeen Vale; there’s likely been others, as well.”

“It isn’t just the demons,” said one of the heartsworn—Jorire, a lean woman with her pale hair in an easy, practical braid. “There are others. Strange things. Disruptions.”

“Disruptions?” she asked.

Jorire nodded, then lifted her hands from her lap to demonstrate, butting her fingers together. “Like two places running together. We saw new rocks, buildings, an odd metal construct—not goblin, we’d know.” She took a breath, giving her head a shake. “There were things that looked like they were melted together—”

“And bodies,” said another, his Common Fey blunter than the others. “Human bodies, but foreign. Not Zemiari.”

Zemiari. An old Janessi term for something that came from their specific dimension, as opposed to fey or demon. Few used it anymore, which made her wonder how old, exactly, this fey was.

“We came across a stretch of what looks to be demon land. Heavy with sulfur, stinking of blood and death.” Volaon grimaced. “It was as if the land itself had been sliced and transplanted, and not kindly. We tracked our companions to its edge.”

“Historical records have the area around Ulchris under the control of a demon lord named Grobitzsnak,” Nales said, avoiding Catrin’s gaze. The demonic name spat from his tongue like metal nails. “If that is still true, he is capable of the rending you mentioned. Mild necromancy, too.”

Catrin fixed him with a stare.

Was this part of the information he was withholding? And, if so, how did he get it? Did he know this demon lord?

No, that was impossible. Demons had been locked away for two hundred and fifty years, no contact. The spell had been done specifically to prevent his family access.

But then… how did he know so much about demons? Was it all really just from records, as he’d been telling them?

She resisted the urge to clench her jaw, forcing her muscles to remain relaxed, her features smooth.

Volaon looked at him with renewed interest. “What else?”

“Mind control, usually over lesser demons.” Nales glanced to her. “Similar to woodcraft, except infernal rather than divine in origin. Through pain rather than ascension. He takes a humanoid form with a stag skull mask—”

“Tall?” one of the heartsworn asked. He lifted a hand to indicate head-height on a mounted rider. “Like this?”

“Most likely.”

The heartsworn—Loreux, with broad shoulders and a spattering of mud across his leather-clad thigh—turned to Volaon. “I saw him, night before last. In the fire.”

The other rider spat something she didn’t understand, the dialect tripping around her ears, and the drone of magic tightened against her skin.

“If he is the one who took your people, you’ll likely find them in his hold,” Nales said.

Volaon didn’t respond immediately. His face had gone stern, rippling with thought, brow furrowing.

After a few long moments, he glanced up and exchanged a few looks with his heartsworn.

He gave a sharp nod. “Then we must go.”

“It will be dangerous,” Nales warned as Volaon turned back to his horse.

“Undoubtedly.” The fey swung up into the saddle easily, the horse barely taking a step to accommodate his weight. When he was up, he turned back down to them. His black-eyed stare moved over them, expression turning grim as he met Nales’ gaze.

“The one who was taken is a cousin of mine. Yena li Vaness. I fear…” He shook his head, one hand flexing into a fist. He met Nales’ gaze again, then hers. “She is very dear to us, a high priestess of her sect. Thank you for your help.”

“We will take her in if we find her,” Catrin assured him.

He nodded, then turned his horse.

Hooves ground into dirt. They began to move off.

All except the rider behind her, the one with the scar on his face.

Instead, he moved closer.

She stiffened as a hand clamped on her pauldron, then slid down to her bicep. Calloused fingers curved over the ink of her mercari. Every inch of her felt his breath as he leaned forward to speak into her ear.

“These won’t work, little sister. The gate-paths are broken.”

After a moment, she realized that his attention had only been to point out her specific runes.

It took a large effort to unclench her jaw and answer him.

“Thank you, brother,” she said, the words stiff and narrow to her ears. “I am aware.”

Still, he lingered. Her teeth ground together, every inch of her straining from the effort to keep still. She didn’t breathe as he leaned even closer, switching to a broken, dull elven.

“Be careful of that one,” he said, his low tone quiet, the words murmured for only her to hear. His dark gaze slipped toward Nales, needing no clarification as to who he was talking about. “He has devil’s blood.”

The hand lifted from her arm, and his presence retracted.

“Fair hunting.”

The hooves of his horse ground into the sandy dirt of the road and followed the rest.

Slowly, she forced her muscles to relax—and noticed Prince Nales watching her.

The tension returned, along with the hot burn of embarrassment.

She shoved them both back, shot him a heated look, and strode back to where Doneil and Matteo were standing.

Doneil was grinning.

“Gods be damned, Catrin,” he said, his grin so wide, his canine teeth flashed past his lips. “Did we manage to find a prince you won’t attack?”

“I will hit you,” she reminded him.

“Last I checked, we have all the weapons.” His grin flared, canine teeth practically beaming at her now. “And I have a new soldier friend.”

She didn’t even bother to glance at Matteo. Keeping her eyes on Doneil, she simply walked up, halted in front of the man, and held out her hands.

A second later, Matteo pressed the hilts of her rnari blades into her palms.

“Damn.” Doneil mock-scowled. “I’m going to have to train him better than that. Oh, look—they’ve done their vanishing thing again.”

She glanced back. Sure enough, the fey had disappeared from the roadway.

There was no trace of thickness in the air, this time, though. By the rate they had been trotting, she guessed they were out of range.

Besides, they had bigger problems.

She pinned Nales with a look. “So, this greater demon has fire-rending, necromancy, and mind control. When were you going to tell us?”

“What, now?” Doneil balked, eyebrows shooting up into his forehead. “Mind control?”

“It only works on lesser demons. We are out of its range.” Nales glanced over his shoulder as he prepared to mount. “I was going to tell you. Later. Tonight.”

She pinned her stare to the back of his shoulders as he mounted, a familiar, ringing heat rising in her blood.

Guess us underlings just don’t need to know some things.

She blew out an angered breath.

Princes. How did she get involved with so many of them?

Sheathing her blades, she swung up on her mare.

“Never mind,” she said, nudging her into the front. “We can deal with this later. Let’s find camp.”

Chapter 12

“Tits,” she hissed, gritting her teeth as a rumble rose in her throat at the pain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The mercari lanced her skin in stabbing waves—as if a hundred tattooists were hot-pinning her at the same time. Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the hilt of her left-hand blade, spine stiff as she fought to continue the connection beyond the pain.

“What do you feel?” Doneil asked. “Anything?”

“I feel like I want to slice your head off. With something rusty.”

“Huh. Well, that’s an escalation. Normally, you just want to hit me.” His tone was light, tinted with shades of his normal humor, but distracted. He frowned down at her bicep, where blood was welling in the mercari lines.

Gods, what has happened to them?

Was it just that the gates were broken, as the fey had said?

She hoped so. If that were the case, then they could be fixed. What was done could be undone. They could shut the demons back in their world, and she could call Kodanh’s power again.

But, until then, she had to keep trying.

She shut her eyes, blocking out the fleeting remnants of sun beginning to close the day on the forest, focused on her connection, and tried to block out the pain. The moist, heady smell of leaf litter came to her, along with the salty tang of sweat—both the dense, wet-hair smell of horse and the distinct sharpness of humanoid. They’d put the horses on long tethers among the trees, trusting they knew not to trip themselves. Beneath that, the undercurrent of soil and bark made a cool, damp impression.

And below that, below everything, her magic lay pooled. Waiting. Latently interacting with the forest around them.

But not the right kind.

When she summoned her ice, the connection tripped almost immediately—Kodanh’s power rushed into her like a northern lake, cold and enduring, filling her over the brim, intertwining his mind into hers. She became part of the ice when he connected with her.

Now, her arm was nothing but hot, searing pain.

She let out a short breath, feeling along the connection for something—anything—that might let her through.

Nothing.

She grimaced, dropped the attempt, and opened her eyes. The pain lessened immediately. “I think they’re right. No connection.”

“Catrin—”

“My magic is fine. I can feel that. It’s just not connecting. They’re right—anything with an otherworldly component just isn’t working right now.”

Blood trickled down her arm in slow rivulets. She watched it go. The skin still throbbed—like it had gone through a thresher. Little pinpricks of sensation squirmed through the flesh like tiny, needle-sharp worms, but the shade was quickly soothing the area.

This time, Doneil remained silent, but he did purse his lips.

“Don’t give up. We’ll figure out what’s wrong and fix it.”

She snorted. “Not even the Fey know what’s happening. What chance have we?”

“Catrin, it’s barely been two days.” He flicked his fingers in her direction—as if he were giving her a light swat, but without actually touching her. “Let things settle a bit.”

She sighed. He was right, of course. She knew that.

Why was she so testy?

That, at least, was easy to deduce.

She didn’t quite glance to where Nales was sitting by his pack, writing something in a small, leatherbound journal, but Doneil sensed her intention, anyway.

She felt more than saw his huff. In the next moment, he’d lifted his head with a hearty chuckle and turned his gaze toward the opposite direction with a guffaw and a clap.

“Would you look at that? Our new pet human is still going!” The grin burst across his face in a flash of white teeth. “So that’s how he keeps all those muscles. You know, he’s going to give you a run for your money.”

Across the camp, where the leaf litter was thinnest and the soil relatively firm, Matteo had been keeping up a regular rhythm of grunts as he pushed through a lengthy body-weight workout.

It was impressive, actually. Especially since he’d been running or walking much of the day, only switching with her or Doneil a few times to ride.

“Maybe you should go test those muscles, eh, Cat?”

Cat.

Slowly, she let her gaze drift over to him and pinned him with a slow stare.

His hands went up with a mock-defensive wince, though the grin on his face belied it. “Or maybe I should go test those muscles. All right, all right. Eesh. Fine. I’ll go test the human, and you can watch and judge, if it’ll make you feel better. You drive a hard bargain, rnari.”

She watched him walk over. Matteo stopped his push-ups, head snapping up. He pushed himself onto one knee as Doneil squatted down in front of him and began to speak. His voice rolled, low and quiet, unintelligible from this distance.

After a few minutes—enough to give Matteo’s muscles a small break while still being warm, though not as long as she’d thought he’d need—they both stood.

As they squared off over a patch of mostly-even ground, each shifting into fighting stances, she noticed that the prince had looked up from his book.

She wasn’t the only one curious about their new human’s abilities.

Irritation flickered up, brief but fresh. She shoved it down, smoothing her face into a mask, and turned her attention fully on the foreigner ahead of her.

Matteo was strange—no argument there. Though he blended in well enough despite his odd clothing, moving with a careful, conscious confidence that belied the beyond-basic military training she suspected of him, a more careful study of him found more and more things off about him, from the way he walked and spoke to the way he looked around. It was as if he’d never been in a forest before, or at least not this one. More than once, she’d caught him staring at the mix of stones and brickwork that lined the road’s borders, and he never failed to study the distance markers when they came up. Ruins, too, received equal appreciation from him.

And then, there was the surreptitious glances he kept giving them—mostly her and Doneil—and the way his gaze tended to linger on their ears.

He really hadn’t seen elves before.

Where was he from?

The fey had mentioned something. What had they called it? Non-Zemiari disruptions? She searched her mind, recalling Jorire’s stuttered description.

…Like two places running together. We saw new rocks, buildings, an odd metal construct—not goblin, we’d know. There were things that looked like they were melted together—

And bodies. Human bodies, but foreign. Not Zemiari.

Had Matteo come from a different world?

His weapon had certainly looked different. A firearm, definitely, but unlike anything she’d ever seen or heard of. Definitely not goblin—no craftsman marks for one, and no trace of their artificing for another. Everything about it spoke of perfection. Perfect lines, perfect symmetry, perfect balance…

She studied Matteo, watching him move. He’d ridden the horses similar to how Treng rode, but the fighting stance he adopted was different. It looked habitual to him. Hesitant, yes, and with his brow furrowed in a questioning expression as he followed Doneil’s lead, but his footwork flowed smoothly, and he never dropped his guard.

Doneil threw a couple of punches—light, glancing, easing into the spar.

Then, he went for a takedown.

Catrin watched him move in, well familiar with the styles of the rnari. It was a simple one he was going for—distract the upper hand, slide in, lock a heel behind the opponent’s lower leg and shove the opposite shoulder—

But Matteo was ready for it.

With a smooth, effortless-looking twist, he grabbed Doneil around the torso, spun them both around, and flipped him into the dirt.

Doneil gave a strangled squawk, quickly cut off by an oof.

Her laughter burst loud into the trees.

“Oh, heavens,” she said, a grin splitting wide across her teeth. “You’re right, Doneil—I feel much better!”

“Oh, shut up,” came the muffled response. Doneil’s head, somewhat bedraggled by dirt, came up to scowl at her as Matteo let him go. He picked himself up, brushing the dirt from his leathers.

“No, go on.” She smoothed her features, not quite managing to contain the flutter of laughter that still spasmed her chest. Her grin peeked out in a flash of canine teeth that she knew he wouldn’t miss. “Keep testing his muscles. I’m getting a fantastic idea of someone’s fighting ability.”

“Temdin,” he swore. “Don’t you always get beat up by Treng?”

“With swords only,” she reminded him sweetly. “With blades and straight hand to hand, I always come out on top.”

Most of that, she knew, was due to her race advantage. Had she been human, Treng would likely have schooled her, but elves were just too strong and fast.

Doneil made a disgusted noise in his throat. His hand came out, pointing to her. “I’m doing this for you, don’t forget.”

“And I’m ever so grateful.” She leaned forward, taking in the scene with renewed interest, gaze flicking between them with a happy hum. Matteo, for his part, kept his expression shuttered, which made her even happier.

“Please,” she said. “Do go on.”

“Gods save me,” Doneil muttered as he slid himself back into fighting stance. “This is just base entertainment for you.”

“Your rnari reputation rides on it,” she informed him, giving him a mock salute with her off hand as she leaned back, fully aware of the grin that stretched her face.

He muttered something else under his breath, then got serious.

This time, Doneil was cautious. Slower, more careful, his expression a solid, blank frown that mirrored Matteo’s intense look. Her own grin slid off as the two stepped in, a buzzing energy filling her body. They traded a few feints and darts—Doneil lunged inward with a Second Circle ‘joust’ that had Matteo backing swiftly across the earth in defense. Dust rose from the ground as his boots thudded down in a skitter.

Then, as before, Doneil went in for the takedown.

Matteo exploded into motion.

He didn’t try to flip him—not this time. Instead, the two locked in a standing struggle, Matteo’s sudden advance forcing Doneil to retreat. Doneil’s foot came out, but Matteo kicked it away and shoved his leg down, forcing Doneil back another step.

For a second, the two men stood there, muscles bulging, arms and torsos weaving like constrictors as they attempted to get the upper hand.

Then, Matteo dropped.

Doneil let out a surprised yelp as they both went down. There was a brief skirmish of flailing limbs, and a struggling attempt to grapple.

Within a few moments, Matteo had him pinned again, this time with a leg lock on his arm.

Catrin’s grin nearly ate her face.

“You were definitely right, Doneil,” she cooed. “This is highly entertaining. And to think—this is after he did a million sets of push-ups.”

And the fact that he’d gone toe to toe with Doneil for strength? Her impression of Matteo’s ability had jumped to a whole new level. Humans just weren’t built for that. It was like comparing a deer to a horse—while both were strong, an elf’s muscles were just that much denser, allowing for more explosive feats of strength and flexibility. That, and the woodcraft senses that buffered their reactions and environmental awareness.

Doneil groaned, extricating himself from Matteo’s hold.

“Maybe this is the real reason I retired from the rnari. You’re welcome to try anytime, Catrin. Show us all what the Twelfth Circle is made of.”

A buzz of giddiness ran through her, light as a butterfly’s touch, and another grin spread across her face.

She rose and unbuckled the sheaths of her blades.

Matteo’s attention snapped to her.

So did the prince’s.

Odd, she thought, hiding her reaction as the weight of his gaze crawled through the side of her body. They’d taken down demons together just two nights ago. He knew what she was capable of.

And why did she feel his stare so much? It was like being next to an electrical current.

She ignored him, dropping her sheaths and their harness in a neat pile, and strode forward. Matteo waited, an expression of watchful uncertainty clouding his expression.

His gaze dropped to the muscles that bulged at her sides. Either that, or the tattoos that covered them. She kept still, letting him take a good look.

The prince’s gaze still crawled through her side.

This time, the memory of Tarris’ green eyes slipped into her mind.

She shoved it back down.

But her expression must have rippled, because Matteo noticed. Dark brown eyes held hers, the strong brow furrowed above him. He tilted his head in a quick uptick, holding her stare.

A question.

That was not something she was about to try explaining to him. Or anyone else involved.

In answer, she gave a tilt of her own head and made a gesture to encompass his body, eyebrows lifting in their own question.

Was he okay to fight?

His expression shuttered immediately. He gave a curt nod, shifting into back stance.

She mirrored him.

Then, they began.

She let him take the lead to start—she intended to draw this out, let him feel her out, test her—and he did. A quick step forward, to check her reaction, a dart to the right. She let him land a smack on her bicep, the blow glancing.

With every movement, Doneil and Nales’ attention burned into their skin. The forest quieted around them, and a slow breeze slid between them, the air thickening with the scent of rain. Her steps were sure and light, movements fluid, the instincts of a rnari as habitual to her as the sound and movements of her mother tongue. The smell of dirt rose in her senses, mingling with the sweat and leather.

After about a minute, he finally made a real move.

The throw was light, efficient, expertly done, and she let him do it. She didn’t even touch him as he stepped in, grabbed her wrist—and he tensed, already sensing the wrongness of her ease, but he was committed. His thigh blocked hers, hip connecting, and he dropped her over his leg.

As the world spun, she spun with it.

Momentum was her ally. Even in her early training days, she’d shown a natural ability to harness it—one she’d honed both in the strict, brutal training grounds of her ambitious rnari regime and in the wilds of the Raidt’s surrounding forest.

So, when he made to swing her onto the ground, she simply grabbed him, added a step up to her momentum, flipped over his back, and pulled them both over.

They landed in a conjoined thud.

A strangled noise came from his throat, and he twisted immediately, but she planted a foot into his lower back and shoved him firmly off, already rolling to her feet.

She backed off, allowing him to recover.

He did so, locked eyes on her, and charged.

This time, she took him down the front, swinging them both in a grappling roll. Rough earth and stone thudded into their shoulders, and his hand gripped her forearm like a vise, attempting to bring it up. She resisted, broke loose a second later, and jammed her other arm up close to his neck.

He took them for another roll.

But, when she attempted to continue the momentum, her hip smacked into a fallen log.

His weight pressed down on her back, and his hand clamped down on her wrist again.

From the side, Doneil gave a crow of triumph as Matteo overcame her resistance and managed to trap her arm into a lock.

She clenched her teeth and grunted. Her muscles strained as she lifted both herself and Matteo up, one-handed, and turned her back. His weight fell from her, limbs a jumble of movement as he tried to swing his legs up, trap her torso.

She was on him in a second. Pulling them both into a roll—another one—she captured his right wrist, brought it up to her shoulder, and shoved her knee down into his back.

He grunted into the dirt and struggled. She eased and rode him out as he tried to buck her off and out-maneuver her.

Then, he stopped.

A second later, his free hand tapped the dirt.

She relaxed her grip and eased off him.

“And that’s why you don’t pick fights with the Twelfth Circle.” Doneil’s tone was light and dry as summer-bleached bones, and a wicked curve flicked the corner of his mouth upward.

“Yes,” she said, her humor light between breaths. Idly, she brushed off the loose dirt and leaves that had attached themselves to her during the rolls. “Though I can think of a few other reasons.”

“Like the continued existence of my head on my shoulders?” Doneil suggested. “Or were you referring to the politics?”

She snorted. “Those two things aren’t usually separate from each other, I’ve found.”

Rnari politics—or, to put it more bluntly, the in-house drama that came from such a competitive school—was hardly a secret. Being who she was, bloodlined and with a serious ability to defend herself, she’d managed to avoid most of it, but she’d heard stories from others she’d trained with.

On the ground, Matteo had recovered. His face had a questioning look.

She shot him a grin and held out her hand.

He hesitated—just for a moment—then took it.

Then, after he straightened, to her surprise, he gave a short bow and held out his arm.

Exactly how the fey prince had offered her his.

A smile tucked the corners of her mouth.

He’s learning.

Good. He’d need to. The world was dangerous enough, especially if you didn’t speak any of its languages.

She took it, stiffening only a little as his fingers touched her inner arm—Temdin, was she going to have to find an extra piece of armor to cover that area? It felt so exposed.

This time, fortunately, he didn’t notice. Or, if he did, he didn’t press.

She dropped her hand and stepped away.

“Okay—Doneil, you prep the foodstuff. I’ll go find us some firewood. We’ll rest here tonight, then leave with the sun.”

Picking up her blades from where she’d left them, she buckled them on as she walked toward the edge of camp—up the near slope, where the wood might be drier—then caught the look on Nales’ face.

He was still staring at her, same as he’d been before—only now, there was a distinct expression of shock on his features as he watched her move.

Ah. The fight.

Perhaps he hadn’t believed her Twelfth Circle claims.

An easy thing, she supposed. When they’d fought together, it had been night—hard to see, in a human’s eyes, and a time when things were more brushed under the metaphorical rug. And cutting demons was an entirely different matter than winning against someone at wrestling.

Still, though, he stared.

She shot him a cheery smile, gave him a two-fingered salute—in the rnari tradition, casual greeting to a superior, and definitely mocking him—and turned into the forest.

Chapter 13

The light of the low fire cast the trees in a dim, orange glow. Not enough light for a human to see by, but her elf eyes had no trouble piercing the dark.

The forest was her home.

And, around her, it breathed.

A part of her drank in the feeling—the sensation of collaborative movement, the way the canopy overhead rustled like a single force, the stars piercing the branches in a cold light. Her woodcraft formed a latent connection with almost every aspect of the forest around her, and it made a happy sigh at the base of her being.

As an elf of the Raidt, this—being in the forest—was home.

The other part of her stared at the closest ember, a low, deep orange color, and tried not to think of the flicker of fire on stone.

It always came back to her at night, during the quiet times—most likely because it had happened at night, but it still pissed her off. And it pissed her off even more that she couldn’t seem to get over it, that, no matter how hard she trained, no matter how many times she told herself that it wasn’t a big deal, that she could just make up for the incident and prove her loyalty with perfect, unquestionable service, it wasn’t enough.

Her brain always looped back, as if those few moments with Tarris were all it could focus on.

As assaults go, it hadn’t been that bad of one. Ten fiery hells, she knew what happened to others, both in and out of the ranks. Rivka had been raped by her own father, for gods’ sakes.

All Prince Tarris had done was touch her. Force her up against the wall. Press his lips to her surprised mouth.

And she’d broken his hand for it.

She hadn’t meant to. It had been instinct. Something she’d followed through with on many combat tests.

The Council hadn’t seen it that way. As a rnari, she should have had more control. And she agreed with them.

She should have foreseen the problem and taken measures to prevent it. Perhaps worn a more quilted gambeson under her armor or a tunic that covered her arms. Something to hide her figure.

Doneil’s words from before came echoing back to her.

‘It doesn’t matter if you make yourself rail-thin or fat as an elephant. He would have still come for you.’

She sighed.

She doubted he was right, but he did have a point. Tarris should have behaved better.

But he was a prince. He could do that and get away with it.

As she stared into the dark between the trees, it took her almost a minute to realize that her entire body had gone rigid, muscles as taut as baler’s string, ready to run.

Anger flickered like fire.

She was a warrior. She did not flee.

With another sigh, she forced herself to relax. And tried not to think about it.

A snap in the forest lifted her attention to a different location between the trees. She didn’t see what caused the noise, but a few seconds’ listen gave her a likely culprit—a raccoon, the third one she’d heard since taking watch, though her woodcraft indicated that at least two of them had been the same creature circling back.

She relaxed into her spot, trying not to think of fire, or of green eyes in the dark.

If I ever see that prince again, I’ll break his other hand. For all the trouble he’s caused me.

She wouldn’t, of course. After this, she was expected to return to the Raidt and uphold her duties in the palace—duties which included guarding Prince Tarris.

In fact, she was due to become his bladesworn.

As her father guarded the king, and her mother guarded the queen, so she would guard their son through his expected ascendance.

She’d follow the path her bloodline had made since the Raidt elves had split from the light.

As much as it amused her to contemplate Doneil’s schemes—he was right, taking the undersworn loophole would piss off the Council, and send a giant ‘fuck you’ to Tarris, which brought a certain bubbly cheer to the small, petty part of her—disgrace was not an option.

But, hells, what had happened to the world? Messed-up spells, demons, broken gates…

Who had done this?

Pulling her sleeve up, she studied the mercari binding on her bicep, the spiraled letters and script that formed her connection to Kodanh.

She’d been the only rnari to call him in a generation. None of her peers had managed it. The ice lizard. Ruler of the Annatwensi Glacier.

And now, the connection was dead.

She frowned down at the runes. With a heavy breath, she pulled on the magic.

The pain was instantaneous. Like the ink had turned into a hundred biting ants. Made of fire. Blood welled on her skin. She stared at it. Then, she let go of the connection.

The pain lessened. After a few seconds, the blood began to trickle down her arm in a slow rivulet.

A hollow feeling scraped through her chest as she stared at it.

Gods, my life is just going to shit.

The rustling came from the edge of the trees again. The same raccoon as before. She let out a sigh and leaned forward, stretching out her back. It had come closer, no doubt smelling their food, and she was getting bored enough to let it.

Maybe one of them would wake up to her petting a wild animal.

Her mouth tightened in a smirk at the thought. It was part of her woodcraft, after all, even if it was discouraged among the Raidt elite. Maybe she ought to return with a pet raccoon. It could go on patrol with her, rummage through the Raidt’s kitchens, fight with their dogs. It was in the bear family, wasn’t it? Perhaps she could—

Without warning, the forest’s spirit thundered into a roar.

She jumped to her feet in an instant, the silent cacophony of a hundred tree spirits running through her woodcraft senses like the rush of a wildfire—trees, rocks, mushrooms, animals, the latent energy of the land, all communicating in a hiss of whispers.

For a second, she felt split—one part of her reeled from the sensation that swarmed through her woodcraft, while the other part stood still, grounded in reality, feeling the quiet, tense calm of the air around her.

And, vividly, for the briefest of moments, she felt the pure cold of Kodanh, caught a flash of his glowing eyes in her mind, the curl of frozen water in her flesh, the dusting of frost on her skin.

Then, the explosions came.

They sounded distant. Lost. Great pops and rumbles that echoed through the trees like cannons. Insignificant, except in their size and shape.

But her woodcraft told her otherwise.

The fey found the demon.

A cold prickle edged through the skin over her shoulder blades, and her jaws clenched together, back molars grinding. The forest whispered of fey magic—high, silent, crackling—but the roar and explosions had been something entirely different.

She shivered.

Hells.

With a quick thanks to the spirits, she snapped from her woodcraft fugue and glanced around. Doneil watched her, yellow eyes shadowed in the gloom.

“Demons?” he guessed.

“Yes.” His woodcraft wasn’t as good as hers, but the roar had been a strong communication—as was the fire she could now feel at the edge of her consciousness. Whatever was going on, it was big. Gods, hadn’t Nales said his greater demon could fire-rend?

They should probably move.

“Can you tell more about it?” Nales, this time, awake on the other bend from the fire. Closer to her.

Likely, he’d read about woodcraft. Knew how well a rnari Twelfth Circle would use it.

She tilted her head, seeking the connection again, dipping into the seething awareness the forest had become, and found her answer.

“It’s a big one. Smells of fire. And rot. Likely that necromancy you mentioned before.” She bared her teeth as the sensation of death rolled through her. The soft, moist scent of broken earth came to her, followed by the overpowering stench of tainted blood, stinking like a milk tray left to sour. “Definitely that necromancy you mentioned before.”

“Ten hells.” Nales rose from his bedroll.

“Is it the greater demon you talked about earlier?” She didn’t even try to pronounce the name—spoken rentac did not move easily off her tongue. “Is it him?”

“Fire and necromancy, lots of power? Most likely.” Teeth flashed her way as Nales grimaced, the coals of the fire lighting his face briefly as he threw off his bedroll and reached for his sword. “We need to check it out.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “Check it out?”

“Yes. Only greater demons would have anything close to his power, and there is only one greater demon accounted for in this area—historically speaking, anyway.” He grunted, pulling on his swordbelt. “If he’s back, it’s bad news.”

“I’m supposed to protect you,” she said.

“Those fey are attacking it.” Doneil, this time, tapping into his woodcraft by the way his head tilted to the side—his must finally have stirred enough for him to sense flashes of things.

“Precisely,” she said. “We can’t just walk into a fight.”

“Yes, we can.” The prince’s voice rang calm as he shoved his foot inside the first boot and laced it up. “It’s quite easy to, I assure you. We can even join in.”

Disbelief punched through her. It felt like all the air around her head was expanding, making her dizzy.

Join in? Was he mad? He wanted to join in on a fight against a greater demon? One who, according to his earlier metaphor, likely had power rivaling greater fey like Kodanh?

“Are you stupid?” she asked, following him the few steps to the end of his bed roll. “Even if it is your greater demon, those fey are attacking him. They’ll rip through us like paper if we get in the way of their spells. Doneil’s shield spell won’t hold that!”

“You don’t have to go,” he grunted, bending for his swordbelt—deliberately putting his back to her. “I can go alone.”

“What?” A laugh dropped out of her, light and hysterical. “You can’t go alone. You’ll die if you go out there.” She paused, unbelieving, watching him prepare. He’d fed the swordbelt through his trouser loops and had almost finished buckling it.

Was he really serious?

“I’m supposed to guard you,” she said.

He grunted, finishing the last buckle and adjusting the hang of his sword. “Then guard me, rnari. But do not get in my way.”

She stepped into his path as he made to leave. “You’re not going.”

“What are you going to do, rnari? Break my hand?” His calm mask broke, anger twisting his face into a heated snarl. Sarcasm cut around his syllables like a knife as he spoke, his face coming so close, his breath brushed over her nose. He made a wild gesture, pointing into the darkness. “They could die if we do nothing. The demon could win.”

“You could die if we do,” she spat. “I can’t allow that. This is your life we’re talking about. This is a real battle, not some whim.” The ridiculousness of the situation made her head swim—was he really serious? Was he really going to do this? She shook her head. “You can’t go. This is stupid.”

His jaw tightened, and her stomach hardened, already seeing the answer in his eyes.

“I’m going.”

He pushed past her and walked into the trees. The crunch of cracked twigs and the rustle of leaves followed him.

She listened as his footsteps retreated into the forest, a hollow mix of disbelief, anger, and anxiety eating at her chest.

Slowly, her gaze moved to Doneil.

“I’m going to end up breaking another prince, aren’t I?”

“They do seem to bring it out of you.” He paused, tilting his head. “It’s quieted.”

So it had.

Maybe the fey had won.

Somehow, she doubted it. That explosion had been big. It was more likely they were all dead, and the demon was picking apart their bones.

And Prince Nales, her charge, was about to go waltzing in, blind as a deaf bat.

Fuck.

She let out a low hiss and snatched her go-pouch from where she’d left it. Her steps made quiet stalking sounds as she paced around the campfire, running a hand down to check her blades and armor before she left.

“Stay awake. Saddle the horses. And give the other human his firearm. It’s in my saddlebag—you know where.” She threw out a pointing hand as she jogged away from the fire. “We’ll be back.”

Chapter 14

She caught up to him easily, her steps soft and quiet on the forest floor. He flinched when her fingers locked around his wrist.

“You’re planning to do something stupid. When I find out what it is, I’m probably going to murder you,” she informed him, her tone quiet, clipped, and irritated as she directed him around the large bush he’d been attempting to breach. “But if you insist on this idiocy, then I’d better lead. At your rate, we’ll be lucky to get there by morning. Elrya, you humans are blind at night.”

Actually, he was surprisingly not blind for a human. A small dose of shock zipped through her nerves when his eyes met hers in the dark, seemingly without trouble—and, large bush aside, he had gone a fair distance for a human.

The fey’s words from earlier came back to her.

Be careful of that one. He has devil’s blood.

She snorted softly. No time like the present to find out. “Do you have demon in your ancestry?”

Nales’ arm jolted in her grip. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking—how could a human line so specifically wield a special, powerful demon sword? It makes sense if it’s locked to a lineage.”

There were a few like that, historically—the Raidt palace had several locked away in vaults, though not nearly as powerful as the Cizeks’ sword. Goblin-made items could be hard keyed to an owner’s blood, but they had an iffy success rate on even first-generation descendants. If the humans wanted something multigenerational, they had to tap into older magic, like the fey.

Or demons.

“I’m not going to just tell you the secrets of my family’s ancestral workings.” Nales’ voice was terse, closed—though she detected an undertone of incredulity beneath it.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ then.” She led him around a patch of fallen timber, the rustle of their footsteps grating on her skin. “One of the fey told me you had demon blood.”

“What?”

“The one right at the end. That grabbed me. He said to be careful of you.” She paused, taking a moment to sight through the forest with her senses. Everything had gone still, back to its restful state, though she detected a wariness to the trees that hadn’t been there previously.

Nothing around. All the animals were either hiding or sleeping. Mostly hiding. She could feel threads of attention over her shoulders as they moved.

Ahead, the raw energy seethed like hot air.

It hadn’t gone away, or dissipated, since the explosion.

Not a good sign.

Face grim, she turned her attention to Nales.

The shadows bisected him, only a few slants of scant moonlight dappling his hair and shoulders. The darkness of his clothing stood out in the dimness as a darker shade—not an unnoticeable shade, like thieves and assassins tried to mimic; it was too dark for that, unless he decided to go sneaking around some of the obsidian caveforms she heard the dwarves kept. Though he presented a slight figure, she realized that was misleading. He was actually quite broad in the chest, with more muscle than she’d initially given him credit for—he had to be, in order to have kept up with her during the demon attack on Abiermar.

But maybe the demon blood fed more than a bloodline key to him.

He had been keen to leave the next morning. She’d thought it regular human desperation and vengeance, but…

Something was niggling at the back of her mind.

She blew out a breath.

“Anything else I need to know about this demon that you aren’t telling us?”

“He’s powerful.”

“Yes. You mentioned that. Any other fun talents, apart from the fire-rending, necromancy, and mind control?”

Nales grunted. “Three hundred years ago, when the gates were active, this demon nearly corrupted the entire forest ley vein with his power.”

She halted. “What?”

“My ancestor put a stop to it, along with a group of elves. It was, perhaps, the one time elves worked together with a demon. She used her power to cast the demon from the realm and helped the elves seal the gate.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a grim cant. “This was before the Quickening, when Eolos sealed the rest of them. A precursor, most likely. He had been her grandson.”

Ah. So now he was admitting to demons in his lineage.

It wasn’t unheard of. As far as she knew, the four main races were, more or less, compatible with each other. Elf and human mixes were common, same with elf and fey and, to a lesser extent, fey and human. Dwarf, human, and goblin mixes also existed.

But demons?

They’d been gone so long she’d never even considered them.

How would a demonic line effect a person? Based on what she’d seen so far, demons were malevolent creatures—but the ancestors Nales spoke of did not seem evil. They had helped the other races.

Around them, the trees were silent, the air still. Ground fog was beginning to rise in places, giving the dips and breaks in the trunks an eerie chill.

She held his gaze. In the dark, his stare never lost hers.

“So,” she said. “In short, we have a very powerful demon who has a specific reason to be pissed off at you?”

“Yes.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “And you want to walk on up to it and poke it with a sword?”

“If the opportunity presents itself, yes.” His jaw worked. “Like I told you before, I have a duty.”

Duty. There was that word again.

She remembered how angry he’d gotten in the courtyard. How they’d snapped at each other.

She’d thought they’d end up fighting, right there.

Maybe he does believe in what he says.

He wasn’t naive, that much was certain—he was as wary and cautious as one would expect a prince of the Cizek line to be, given their power dynamics—but neither did he shirk. When the demons had attacked, he’d been with her all night, putting his life on the line again and again to hunt down and kill every last one of the things they could find. Then, he’d tried to keep going, all on his own.

Maybe she’d finally met a prince who wasn’t a complete, self-serving asshole.

Tarris isn’t completely self-serving. He’s a good prince, when it suits him.

Which is what had really twisted the knife for her. Having experienced his bad side, when she’d known he was capable of so much more. Living with the damage she’d done, knowing he’d also ride at the head of the rangers when the time for war came.

Gods.

But Nales…

She narrowed her eyes, silently examining him in the dark. His brow furrowed, sensing this, but he kept still under her scrutiny.

Maybe he was a decent royal.

“What?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Nothing.” She brushed off his question and twisted, readying to lead him farther through the forest. “We’re on this path now. It’s gone quiet, but we’ll try to find this demon of yours. Keep close behind me, follow my lead, and don’t do anything idiotic.”

She was expecting a smartass remark back, something along the lines of ‘you can’t tell me what to do, underling.’ Instead, his gaze remained calm and focused. Studying her as she had studied him only a few moments ago.

Then, he nodded.

She stepped off into the forest.

Chapter 15

The forest was a series of grays and blues for her, the air unnaturally still. Wary. Like a layer of electric tension draped across her shoulders. Only the pull of their breaths and the rustle of their steps among the leaf litter disturbed the air. She was reminded of Abiermar—finding the bodies, moon shining on blood, on mangled flesh, the way the stablehand’s face had been unrecognizable. The unearthly way the demon had unfolded from the ceiling, its poison barb gleaming in the dark as slick as a scorpion’s sting.

A game trail opened up, then led into a second. She ducked and pressed its branches to the side. Twigs pulled across her skin, skittered and scratched over her bracers and pauldrons. A spiderweb slung across her shoulder like the touch of a ghost. The prince followed in her shadow, smaller, taking her lead. As her woodcraft fed into her intuition, the fresh scent of pine and soil rose to her senses, water dampening the air close by.

The atmosphere hung around them. Quiet. Watchful.

All too soon, the smell of death came to her.

It was one of the fey horses. Ripped apart and strung across the ground in a grotesque, violent manner, what was left of its coat practically glowing against the forest floor, so pale was it. Blood splattered and smeared parts of its hair, muscle and viscera a mass of darkness against the leaf litter below its stomach, the harder slopes of its saddle juxtaposed into the mess. Several ribs jutted up, gleaming in the filtered light of the crescent sliver of a moon. Its head and neck lay limp on the ground, eyes closed as if in sleep. Leaf litter clung to strands of its mane.

Though parts of it steamed, its corpse had already been cooled by the air.

Her jaw locked as emotion threatened to choke her throat. She wrestled it down and forced her gaze to slide over it, calculating, dispassionate.

A quick kill. Violent. Near ripped in two. Three ripping teeth marks in its haunch brought the image of the hellhound’s jaws to her mind.

Two of them, most likely.

The horse’s rider was nowhere to be found.

“No sign of them,” she said, turning her attention back to the surroundings, skimming over the soil and tree trunks that faced them. The air lay silent around them, the forest still. So quiet, it felt like the entire world was holding its breath.

A light breeze shifted through the trees, bringing the first few tinges of smoke in the air with it. She frowned as her mind followed them, the scent glowing in her woodcraft senses like cooling iron in a dark forge room.

Up ahead, the forest felt… different. Hard. Hot. Except… She tilted her head, trying to reach through the connections with her woodcraft, but grasping only the bare minimum—like a root touching a different type of soil, or a person walking into a crowd of strangers. Still able to see, but the tone felt off. Unfamiliar.

“What’s wrong?” Nales’ eyes met hers, his frown a mirror of hers.

“Nothing. It’s—” She clamped her mouth shut and gave her head a small shake. No, keeping him out wouldn’t help anything. And, as much as she hated to admit it, he had already proven himself useful, especially when it came to matters involving demons.

“My woodcraft is acting up,” she admitted.

Given his education, he should have a good idea of what that meant. Plus, he’d seen her use it several times already.

“We’re going in blind?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I can still see things, but it feels off. It’s hard to connect.”

She winced. It jangled at her senses, kept slipping and sliding. It felt as if two images kept climbing into each other—what had the fey said? About ‘disruptions’? Like two places running together, as if the land itself had been sliced and transplanted?

That was precisely what it felt like.

She tilted her head, searching, trying to feel through the forest the way she normally could. The frown on her face deepened.

One spot in particular stood out to her. Where the rest was a background noise to her senses, this had a quiet, glow-like feel. Closer than the rest.

She grasped Nales’ wrist and pulled him forward again. “Come on. This way.”

He resisted, briefly—she felt the hesitation in his arm—but followed along, quiet and tense.

In another hundred yards, the ground suddenly diverged.

Both of her eyebrows shot up as the disturbance came into view.

“What the… fuck?”

It was as if someone had taken two places and attempted to shove them together like old pie crusts. The earth was jagged and rough at the seam, pushed up in places, a mix of the darker forest on one side and a harder, drier type of soil on the other.

She squinted, trying to make sense of it. It still jangled in her woodcraft as wrong, but seeing it in person made the sensation slide.

“Is this what the fey were talking about? The ‘disruptions’?”

“It would explain the gate flare we saw that night. And verify their theories.”

Nales’ tone was quiet and low. She could feel him by her side, his body as still and wary as hers.

She kept her mouth shut, feeling the spark of anger flare within her—she was still pissed off at him, however unreasonable it was—and instead turned her focus to the area itself.

It was rough, lighter-colored. Hard and compacted, with a heavier mix of rock and sand than the normal, springy loam of the rest of the forest, a different mix of minerals, and it had a dry, acidic tinge to it. The air above it also felt dry and a touch acidic, as if something in the soil exhumed pieces of atmosphere like a foul smell.

Her fingers curled back like claws.

“It’s definitely foreign,” she said. “I can sense demon here, too, though the smell is faint.”

The sulfur, at least, she could smell. It seemed to be coming from the soil itself, which might partially explain its lighter color. It seemed to exude it, the same way it made the air drier. It pricked at her skin like a miasma, almost visible in the surroundings. Underneath hung the distinct odor of rotting blood and viscera that seemed to come with them.

“Perhaps one came over with the land.” The prince’s eyes moved back and forth, human-blind but doing their best to survey the land in the dark. “Any blood?”

“Hard to say. That tree’s been hit, though.”

She made a gesture to the side, where the seam ripped right across the angled trunk of an older poplar. The scent of sticky sap almost overpowered the sulfur she smelled, and the wound at its base stood out like a shock of white, half-ripped and splintered through—as if someone had carved out a chunk with their bare knuckles rather than a saw, or kicked it out.

Other bits jumped out at her now that she’d noticed it—roots ripped all along the seam, a log near torn in two, branches displaced. Part of the scene looked as though a drunk castle groundskeeper had taken a pair of clippers to a segment, just to get it out of his way. Cleared right in a specific area—which told her that the cut, or transplant, or whatever it was, was not confined to the ground. They just hadn’t noticed it in the air as much, due to its fluid nature.

But yes, there was a distinct hole in the canopy where this clearing stood.

Gods alive. What happened to the worlds?

She blew out a breath. Nothing good, that was for sure. But she suspected the prince was onto something.

The gates definitely had something to do with it.

“Let’s keep going,” she said. “There’s something bigger up ahead. Similar to this, but I can’t get a focus on it.”

This patch of earth still jangled at her, but the sensation had played down once she’d set eyes and feet on it. The other, however, still rolled in her mind like a batch of raw, wet cotton.

Beyond, a much larger presence filled the back of her mind.

The demon lord? No, probably not. This felt more like a place than a person.

Once again, she took his wrist and pulled him forward.

They found a second horse a quarter mile away, similarly butchered, its guts spilling down the slope in a grotesque tumble, as if something had caught it mid-stride. This time, they found signs of struggle—flattened earth, scuffs, bent and broken branches, the black glisten of demon blood partway up the trunk of an ash. She almost gagged at the overpowering stench of rot and sulfur.

Fear spooled in her gut like fraying wire. The closer they got, the more the world seemed to tremble in her woodcraft. Little fluctuations, like the flutter of moth wings, pulling at her skin, eating away at her nerves like ants on wires. She couldn’t help the tension that clamped her jaw as they drew closer, and by some unspoken agreement, both she and Nales slid into a more careful approach.

Tension pricked at her skin like an approaching stormfront.

Then, they found the first demon.

The hellhound hadn’t been mauled like the two horses—in fact, judging by the blood on its mouth, it had likely been doing the mauling—but she recognized the clean cuts that marked its sides.

Blades. Most likely fey.

Hope sprung in her chest.

Maybe they were still alive.

Maybe they had won.

A jittery bundle of nerves and excitement ran through her, but she suppressed the shiver before it could enter her muscles. She moved forward, leading Nales on at a faster pace, unable to conceal the tension that ran through her. She could feel the fear tremble through her gut, the way it hijacked her nerves. Her left hand went to the hilt of her blade, ready to unsheathe it, finding some calm in holding the weapon she’d trained with for years.

After another ten minutes, they came to the edge of a clearing where the forest began to slope into the funnel of the river valley. She pulled Nales down beside her, next to a bush for cover as she surveyed the changes.

At first, it was hard to make sense of what, precisely, her eyes were telling her. Half the valley had been mauled—a big trench of earth cut through its center as if the talon of an extremely large bird had scratched through, digging deep enough to uproot trees, rip up sod, and scratch the rocks below. Temdin, it looked as if a child had gotten to it and used the valley for a game of matchsticks.

And beyond it…

Well, the river valley where Ulchris sat was, quite simply, gone.

Her jaw slackened as her mind caught up to what her eyes were perceiving. The entire thing had been taken—moved out and replaced. Instead, a low, bumpy mountain sat over what had once been the slow bend of the river wetlands.

She could see its outline clearly against the rest of the forest. Dark and rocky, devoid of flora except for small, scraggly-looking trees and shrubs, along with acidic-philic plants that bent in the cracks of the ground in clumps and series. The back of it made a craggy outcrop against the slow slope of the forest and valley beyond.

And the smell…

Her diaphragm spasmed, a hint of bile crawling into the back of her throat as the stench of rotting blood and sulfur mixed into the spriggy scent of the forest. This time, there was a miasma—she could see it clearly, slipping up from the dense, coarse ground like a dark ground fog, a larger remnant of the stuff she’d seen off the first hellhound she’d encountered. Her mind flipped back to the wiry, lean roughness of its coat, the way it seemed to wear the rot and acid like a cloak.

Slowly, the area settled in her woodcraft like a shiver.

Silence lay thick in the air—even thicker than before—and a distinct unease crawled through her skin. Every inch of her was taut, wary, alert. Ready for action. Her eyes darted to and fro, senses working in overdrive, searching.

It was clear something had happened here. Fires burned here and there, dotting the landscape like scattered sheep. Bodies slumped in their glow, their bumps and outlines more solid than the ground they lay on—demons. She recognized the snout of one hellhound, its snarl limp and dead, and the mangled wing of another demon sticking out like a broken umbrella post. The smell of death and sulfur pressed against her senses like a hot rag.

As she followed the light of one fire, and her attention landed closer to the small mountain, her breath died in her throat.

“Is that… a fortress?”

Distinct battlements lined the lower crags of the mountain, fitted in a rough, carved style. Columns and balustrades, arching in paths and criss-crossing up the slope, along with what looked to be stone steps accompanying them, if she squinted properly.

Her blood ran cold as the implications sank in.

“I’m not crazy, am I? This is where Ulchris used to sit, right?”

She’d been to it, once. Keenly remembered the view. A small white temple half-hidden in the trees on a rise by the river, a quiet road snaking its way up to it through the forest.

“You’re correct. Ulchris used to be here. Now, it’s…”

“A demon fortress,” she finished for him.

Gods, it really had just transplanted itself, hadn’t it? There was even a glint of water through the trees where the river had diverted, flooding several fields like a dark, rushing pool. She stared, feeling the coolness of the water prick distantly in her woodcraft.

“Yes.”

She didn’t need to look to the side to see Nales’ tension—she could feel it. He knelt next to her like a meercat, back and neck stiff, face wary, his entire body still as a hunting spider. Like her, he also had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“It’s not supposed to be here,” he sputtered. “Even when he ruled, his hold was on the other side, in the infernal realm.”

“Guess he relocated.” She turned her attention back to the scene ahead of them. “Lots of dead demons,” she commented, keeping her voice low, tension pulling her shoulders tight. She glanced to the side. “I count fifteen at the least. More, most likely.”

And a lot of magic had been used. She wasn’t an expert in it, not like the fey were, but she could feel it in the air. Every inch of the place felt like it had been hit by a lightning strike—booming and potent, violent and powerful, the energy already spent but still wreaking havoc in its passage.

But there was something else, too. A second tone underneath it.

It felt like it was waiting.

Not a good sign, given their current situation.

She swallowed back her fear and forced her mouth to work.

“I don’t see any fey yet.” She clamped her teeth shut, the words almost electric as they left her chest—was it really possible they were still alive? She’d thought so before, when she’d seen the marks in the hellhound’s corpse, but, Gods, she hoped they were.

If a party like that couldn’t defeat the demon lord…

A tremble of fear—true, cold fear—crawled up the underside of her spine. Fey were powerful. If they couldn’t defeat the demon lord, they would need an army. Her shoulders stiffened with tension, and she sank closer to the leaf litter. Though the scent of sulfur and rot was still overpowering, the wet, earthy scent of the soil below helped ground her. Her fingers trembled into the dirt.

They had to get out of there.

“If this is his keep, there will be upwards of five hundred demons inside. More, most likely. It all depends on what he’s been doing with the past two hundred and fifty years.” Nales spoke with only a sliver of a tremor in his voice, the tone low and even. “Our historical texts tell about him subjugating the forest lords through the ley vein corruption. I’m sure there’s more to the story, but…”

“Forest… lords…?” She managed.

He grunted. “Like the deities you pray to, except demonic.”

Gods, how did he know all this? Had he spent all his free time reading demon lore as a kid? Given what he’d just told her about his family, that would make sense, she supposed.

She pulled her mind back into the present. Now was not the time to wonder about that. Instead, she let out a slow breath and instinctively reached down into the soil, wincing as the energy of the demonic area jangled in her woodcraft senses.

It wasn’t an energy she’d ever felt before. Overpowering, far more than the clearing had been. It was playing hell on her senses, even with her attempts to ground, pressing straight on top of her like her head was in some scientist’s bell jar.

And where had the fey gone? It was clear some fight had taken place—she could feel that much. Though the atmosphere crushed against her body, she could feel the magic that had been used in the area, like the shock of a thunderstrike, or the pressure of a building storm system. And there were certainly enough demonic bodies lying around.

But she couldn’t see anything from here. Only the corpses. And the vague sense of movement from the walls of the mountain itself, like catching the sight of ants crawling along corridors.

Nales shifted. “We should go back. This is too big for us.”

Oh, thank Elrya. He isn’t a moron.

“Oh, it definitely is. I agree.” She put a foot under herself, shaking at the thought—they’d need a veritable army to take out the hold ahead, and a large one at that. No, going back was the best idea. They’d regroup. Send word to Lorka. Muster the King’s army, maybe the Raidt’s. If anyone could defeat the mass of demons and undead in that fortress, it would be them. “Once we get—”

Leaves rustled to her left. A footstep. A silhouette shadowed the trees.

Adrenalin smashed through her. She was on her feet, blade in hand before she’d completed the thought.

Volaon li Naine stood between two trees to the side, hair frayed and disheveled, his pale, blood-streaked form outlined by the slim fraction of moonlight that slipped through the leaves.

The breath rushed out of her in a whoosh of relief.

“Oh, praise the gods,” she started, immediately relaxing. “We’d thought the worst. Are you okay?”

He didn’t look okay. In fact, his ability to stand was about the only thing he had going for him—the rest of him was a mess. An absolute, bloody, half-mangled mess. Blood coated his pale form in dark patches and smears, more than a few nasty wounds visible, armor scored deeply in places. Much of it had crusted, but some of it was still wet and oozing. Most prominent was the jagged cut that slashed his bicep, making both skin and fabric gape, and a massive trauma point on his temple.

Very little of him wasn’t covered in blood.

“Elrya,” she said—this time, the goddess’ name was both a prayer and a curse. “We need to get you back to Doneil. He has a healing rune.” She swallowed, spotting more and more cuts and bruises—even a break, by the way he was listing to the side. They had to get him to Doneil soon. “Where are the others?”

He didn’t reply, but his eyes locked on her—black as ink, gleaming in the light of the nearest fire. He stepped forward, faster than she would have expected from someone so injured—the fey always were—and a twig snapped under his heel, leaf litter giving a whispery rustle, much in the way some had for the raccoon earlier.

“Volaon?” She backed up a step as he closed in, her gaze darting to his bicep wound again—Gods, it looked terrible. Almost like the blood had slowed. Probably not a good sign. “Where are the others? We have horses. We can get to them. If you just—”

He lunged, quick as a snake. She jerked back with a squawk, snapping herself away.

Cooling flesh wrapped around her wrist in a grip hard enough to lock her bones.

A shock went through her as realization hit.

He was not alive. Undead.

Her squawk turned into a growl. She ripped her hand down, snapped to the side. He followed, lightning fast, blocking her automatic temple strike and snatching at her. The whisper of drawn blades came from behind her—Nales—and she felt others close in. Footsteps. Vague, pale silhouettes of the other fey rushing them.

Panic flooded her system. She switched her blade around, but Volaon blocked her other strike, capturing her fingers on the hilt in a bruising grip and forcing her back.

As the others closed in on her back, she took them both down in a spinning tumble.

The air whumphed from him in a stale mess. Cold skin pressed against her, his weight bearing down like a sack of bricks. She struggled, struck out. Bone cracked as she smacked his face, clicking loose like a rigid carcass. She jutted an elbow out and twisted, feeling him try to turn her.

Then there were other hands on her. Holding her down, forcing her to bend. Pain stung through her legs as someone kicked out the backs of her knees, pushing her down. A hand on her neck pressed into her vertebrae, bowing her forward. In her peripheral vision, she saw Prince Nales to the side, forced to his knees.

Her woodcraft snapped through her like lightning as her cheek pressed against the forest loam.

Volaon’s grip on her knife hand tightened painfully. She resisted, refused to let it go. Hands held her down as she struggled, and she switched gears, began to pull on something—anything—to help her, scraping at her magic in wild efforts. Felt the wind lift as one of her runes activated, felt the forest respond, reach into her woodcraft as if it could do something—

Volaon’s grip tightened painfully. A second later, he pulled back.

Her elbow popped like a chicken bone.

Pain smashed through her. A scream ripped from her throat, raw and loud, then a second one, louder, when he forced the broken arm to twist up her back. Tears blurred her eyes. Acid clotted in her throat.

The ground pressed hard into her cheek and chest. She swallowed the yell into a full-throated hiss, choking to get fresh air into her lungs.

Then, the fey stopped. Stilled.

Waited.

The wind shifted, touching the magic in her extended senses. The breeze brushed through her power like a cold hand, dry and trembling.

Leaves scratched to the left, dry and crackling, and a low voice spoke into the tremor of the air.

“What is this? More sheep to feed my flock?”

Chapter 16

The Janessi was stilted and out of tone, lilting strangely, but his voice was rich, and the words crawled under her skin with an undertone like crackling electricity. The demon’s energy slid into the atmosphere like a hot cloud. She didn’t know how he had hidden it from her before, but she felt it now—heated, corrupt, like dirty iron glowing in the dimness of a forge room, smoking with impurities, so hot, it made the air bend around it.

A second later, he came into sight.

He was tall. Tall as the largest human, and half that again. Filtered gaps of moonlight passed over the smooth white bone that covered his face, the stag skull triangulating into a nightmarish mask that appeared to hover in place, the sharp points of its nose and jaw like jagged teeth. The rack of antlers stabbed the air in ragged points, a mockery of the forest king imagery. His skin was smooth underneath the bone and black as night—not a dark brown, not like in some of the Southern continents, but black, as if he’d been dyed in ink or cut from a type of matte obsidian. Thick muscle sloped into and under his robes. The cloak he wore dragged through the leaves behind him, silver threads of embroidery catching the light in a rakish design. Armor protected his body, along with bands of rentac sigils that almost mirrored the positions of the mercari scripture imprinted in her own armor. His eyes, a soft glow of red behind the stag’s eye sockets, seemed to narrow as they fell on her.

There was something predatory in them. A hunger that pierced right to her bones.

He likes to hurt things.

Volaon pressed her further into the ground, making her broken elbow spike with pain. Her breath guttered in her throat as the agony smashed through her, rocking through her skin like an ocean wave.

As the demon’s gaze slipped over her, crawling through her neck and shoulders and back, her mind flashed to a brief glimpse of Tarris. Green eyes in the dark, the flicker of fire against stone. The feeling of vulnerability, disbelief, shock. Pain from her broken elbow joining the mix in a surreal juxtaposition.

A low ringing crept up in her ears. She gripped her left fist tight and fought against the feeling as her vision began to tunnel.

No, no, no. Not now.

“A rnari soldier,” the demon said, his voice a thoughtful monotone. Quieter, as if he were speaking more to himself than anyone else. Her body shivered, pain riding with anger and fear and desperation. Gods, they were going to die. If she didn’t get out of this—

A fresh wave of pain spiked through her arm as she tried to squirm free of Volaon’s grip.

She hissed.

“You will be valuable to my collection. Stay alive for now. I will heal that arm of yours before I take you.”

Take her?

Her heart froze. He meant necromancy.

She stayed quiet as the demon moved on, trying to ignore the images that his words conjured in her mind and the bile threading up the back of her throat. Less than an arms’ span in front of her, the edge of his cloak rustled over the ground, some unseen foot below snapping a twig.

He stopped in front of Nales.

As the demon looked down on the prince, it felt like the entire world was holding its breath. Cold fear threaded through her nerves. Her body began to shake.

They were going to die, probably violently. And then, the demon lord was going to resurrect their minds and bodies for his army.

Something shifted. Even held down as she was, with her woodcraft slipping in and out of focus, she could sense the change in the air.

She didn’t dare to breathe.

Maybe they could get out of this. Maybe, by some divine miracle, a bolt of lightning would crash down, give her Kodanh back, and she could cut them free, blast everything into ice, and race into the forest with Nales. Or, if the demon didn’t recognize him—

“Is that demon blood I detect in you?” the demon said.

Tits.

She swallowed hard, every molecule of her body focused on the conversation.

“It is.” Nales’ voice was somewhat strained, muffled by the angle he was being forced into. “I am Prince Nales Cizek, second in line to the Teilanni throne. I have been trained to wield Andalai, the blood-cursed sword.”

“Nales!” Her heart jumped in her chest. She swung her head around. “What are you doing?!”

The question devolved into a pained yell as Volaon tightened his grip. His cold flesh burned against her skin.

The demon didn’t so much as twitch at her outburst. Instead, another small silence filled the space.

Then, Nales switched to rentac.

She’d never heard the demon language spoken before. It sounded a bit like the patois goblins used, except far more complex—less nattering. But the tones were all wrong to her, jarring and abrupt. And this seemed oddly formal.

It made her skin crawl.

The demon lord regarded Nales with a quiet stillness. He looked huge from this angle, able to strike her down with barely a flicker, his aura like a long-burning signal fire smothered in caustic smoke.

Her ice runes, despite their dormancy, itched in response.

Her jaw clenched. Temdin, what was he playing at?

The demon replied in rentac, his tone amused.

Her mind raced, eyes widening. What were they saying?

Nales spoke again, polite but pointed.

“Plus, I have you kneeling before me with a knife at your back,” the demon replied in Janessi, his tone dry as winter leaves—but his accent curled, and he said the last word slowly, as if considering something.

Nales spoke again, more insistent, louder, a hardness to his tone.

Grobitzsnak chuckled. “Fine. The rnari goes free—for now.”

Her heart stopped.

What?

“Nales!” she yelled. “What are you doing? Are you in bed with demons now?”

To her surprise, Grobitzsnak waved his hands, and the fey holding Nales down let go and stepped back. One of them handed him back his sword as he stood.

The air punched from her chest as her mind pieced the realization together.

They made a deal. He’s joined the demon.

She sucked in a breath, denial and disbelief rocking through her. Cold rushed through her like a gasping wind. Her mind shuttered, slamming over the emotion storming through her chest. She watched in shaking fury as he wiped the blade of debris and resheathed the sword, the metal rustling into the wood and leather with a hiss that slid straight through her spine. A dull roar rose in the back of her mind.

Traitor. He’s a traitor.

“What the fuck?”

The anger shook through her chest, rattling her breath. Nales looked down at her, eyes meeting hers, cold and distant as they regarded her on the ground. He relaxed, turning his attention to adjusting his cuff as he spoke.

“Lord Grobitzsnak is wise and benevolent. I made a deal with him. You would be wise to do the same. He has agreed to give you one week to return to the Raidt and give them news of his rising. They can either join him in life, or die and join him in death.”

She froze for a moment, her mouth opening and closing.

Wise? Benevolent?

Anger burst like a pot of magma.

“You made a deal with him?” she sputtered, breathless with rage. “In what realm of insanity is that a good idea?”

“Demons aren’t just evil, mindless thugs, Catrin. They are a multifaceted series of races with their own minds, ideas, and structures.” He glanced to the side, then back, meeting her eyes. “And Lord Grobitzsnak has quite a strong hold. Why wouldn’t I make an arrangement with him?”

“Yes,” she spat. “Your family is quite good at that, aren’t they? Coming to arrangements with demons.”

A small silence met her words. Nales kept his expression calm and resigned, body equally so—though she could feel the tension underneath.

Then, he took a step forward. Metal flashed as he bent and picked up the blade she’d lost. She cringed back as he knelt beside her and slid it into her right-hand hilt. After, he reached for her face, a hand tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb. A brief flash of Tarris’ green eyes pushed into her mind. Nales’ were blue, their silver-gray undertone deep and flickering in the light of the closest fire. His smell came to her, sweat and rushlight smoke and river stone, a hint of blood from a cut on his knuckle.

“Catrin, go home. You can’t win here.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she said.

His mouth twitched, though not in amusement. For the first time, she detected something else behind his mask—fear, linked to the tension in his body.

Renewed confusion slid through her. She went rigid as he leaned forward.

She didn’t need to see him to feel his shadow as he leaned over her, the way the energy of his body brushed hers. His breath flowed across her ear and neck, a raw murmur that she didn’t doubt the demon lord had no trouble hearing.

“You’ll have to find me first, underling.”

His lips touched the shell of her ear, then pressed down just above it in a chaste kiss. His hand shook where it rested against her neck.

What in the ten fucking hells?

Rage filtered up. She snapped her head back, slamming it into his nose. Felt the now-familiar crunch of bone break under the force. Nales grunted, jerked back.

Volaon shoved her back down. She snarled as pain stabbed from her elbow, rocking her skin in a searing wave that hit through her shoulder all the way to her navel. When she looked up, the firelight glowed on the new flow of blood dribbling down Nales’ face from a now-misshapen nose.

Good.

She forced her tense jaws apart to spit in his direction.

The demon lord gave another low chuckle.

“It would be easier to keep her in a cage. Are you sure she’s worth the trouble?”

Worth the trouble? Of what? She frowned, attempting to roll her head around to see his head—however much one could read expression on a mask of stag bone—but Volaon kept her locked down. His hair tickled her shoulder, its tendrils moon-bright against the darkness of her armor. She could feel his body over hers, pinning her down in a tight hold. Her nerves buzzed with pain from where he held her broken arm.

“Yes,” Nales said. “I will enjoy breaking her.”

Her eyes widened.

What the fuck?

The demon lord chuckled again. Then, he nodded. Lifted a hand.

Movement shifted at her back. She cringed as a new wave of pain sliced through her.

Then, Volaon loosened his grip.

She was up like a shot, ground whirling as her rnari instincts took over. Pain screamed through her broken arm. She staggered as she snapped around, the scent of sulfur and rot piercing her mind as her woodcraft lit up, giving her the speed and exactness the rnari elves were most known for. Her good hand went to her hilt.

The fey stood around her in a broken circle, their black eyes watching without emotion. Volaon was closest. His wound still oozed, but she could now recognize the hint of death that clung to him, despite the life in his eyes. Her woodcraft senses traced the hint of magic that animated him—and that tied him to the demon lord at his back.

None made a move to attack her.

She paused, eyes wide, heart racing.

What in Elrya’s divine name was going on?

“Leave, Cat. This isn’t a fight you’re going to win, much as I’d enjoy it.” Nales’ eyes held hers steady, their blue turned more gray in the light. He stood still, his body quiet but tense. Waiting.

And… Cat?

Another red flag. Something was up.

“I’m going to kill you.”

Her voice thrummed slow, steady. A promise.

The demon lord laughed again, a low, rippling sound that seemed to cleave the air. Then, he lifted his arm. Energy rippled, loud and powerful, touching at her senses. A chorus of whispers rose, and every hair on her body lifted at once.

Ghosts, calling from beyond the Death Veils.

Movement shifted on the slope behind her. Demons, rising again, undead life filling their brains and muscles with a cold, corrupted power.

She took several staggered steps back, her mind reeling, wincing, nerves on fire from the pain.

Nales was right. This was not a fight she was going to win. She wouldn’t even get through one fey—not with a broken arm. Her flimsy spells were no match for the demon. And she had no idea if their magic was still intact.

Left with no other options, she turned and ran into the forest.

Chapter 17

Traitor.

Nales was a traitor.

The forest raced by, a rush of blues and grays, leaves and branches slapping at her knees and shoulders. She hardly felt the raw gasp of her breath. Her mind hung in a cloud of panic, anger, and shaking, primal fear, as if the entire world had narrowed into a tunnel in her head. Raging. Fuming.

Screaming.

Gods, what the fuck had just happened? Nales had spoken to that demon, and then—

What in the ten unholy hells had that kiss on her head been? Not sexual, that was for sure, but more a promise—or perhaps a farewell?

Her heart stopped.

Had he been saying goodbye?

No, no, he’d definitely told her to come find him. If she could read through his words correctly. Had he been play-acting? Gods, she wished she knew what was going through his mind.

No. He’s just like the rest of his family—an ambitious, self-centered prick. He is a traitor.

A branch snagged on her broken elbow. She screamed as pain smashed through her, ringing thought her flesh like the vibration of a gong, so hard and sudden, it blinked out her vision in a flash of white.

“Fuck!”

She swallowed her yell, her voice turning to a growl in her chest and throat. The white flash subsided into tiny darts in her vision, prickling at the edges. Pain wracked through her arm in a second wave, overlapping the initial burst like a burn of fire through the inside of her flesh.

Her breath whistled through her teeth.

She slowed to a stop and bent over, breathing hard.

Get a hold of yourself, rnari. You are in the Twelfth Circle—act like it.

The forest was quiet around her. Still. No wind breathed through the trees, and not a single leaf moved. It felt as though all of the animals had gone into hiding. Even the insects were still.

Sweat was beginning to chill against her skin. Her clothes felt hot and clammy in places, the pain in her arm slowly dulling into a searing, angry numbness.

She collected herself. Calmed the race and spin of her mind.

Nales’ voice ran through her mind again.

‘Lord Grobitzsnak is wise and benevolent. I made a deal with him. You would be wise to do the same. He has agreed to give you one week to return to the Raidt and give them news of his rising. They can either join him in life, or die and join him in death.’

She remembered the tone of it—cutting, diffident. As if it was an obvious choice.

Gods. He couldn’t possibly believe for one second that the Raidt would bow down to some demon. The Raidt never bowed. Even against the demon blade of his ancestor, their surrender and subjugation had been won in blood and a long, ruthless siege.

She took a slow, steadying breath.

Maybe he was stupid. And had, stupidly, betrayed them. Just like a Cizek.

She closed her eyes, feeling the anger burn.

I am going to kill him.

The violence of it was particularly surprising to her—hot, burning, no hesitation. Like she were already carrying out the deed. She could already feel herself lashing out, smashing the blade of her palm into the soft parts of his side, breaking a few ribs. The ill-advised, but oh-so-satisfying crunch of her hand smashing into his face, breaking his nose even further. Cutting into him with the sharp edges of her rnari blades. Forcing him to collapse in a bleeding, screaming gurgle.

She shoved the urges down. Going still, she took a moment to slow the spin of her thoughts and reconnect with the world, focusing on the scent of earth and leaves around her.

Then, she put one foot in front of the other and made her way back to their campfire.

It had been doused, only the faintest trace of smoke permeating the air—Doneil still remembered his ranger training, it seemed. A quick check of her woodcraft found them fifty paces away with the horses, waiting for her.

She strode straight to them, slipping through the trees like a ghost.

Matteo jumped at her arrival, and the muzzle of his firearm flashed in her direction before he checked it. She ignored him, already reaching for the dark silhouette of her mare with her good arm.

“Nales is a traitor. The fey are all dead. He and the demon have gone off together.” She tensed her jaw against the waver that threatened in her voice and fumbled the leather braid of her reins with her one good hand. At least the mare didn’t spook at her arrival. Horses had better perception than even elves did. “There’s a giant, demonic fortress in the middle of the forest. I assume they’ve gone there.”

She could feel Doneil’s gaze behind her, pricking her skin like a perceptive hot iron. He shifted, a slight scrape of the ground on the sole of his boot.

“A traitor?” he asked.

She winced at his tone, the disbelief catching at her mind like a barb.

“He has demon blood. The fey said so, and he revealed as much.” Her intake of breath hissed past her teeth. Drying blood stuck to her arm. She tensed her shoulder against a spike of pain from her broken bones. “He and Demon Lord Grobitzsnak made some sort of deal and let me go.” Her upper lip twisted, baring her teeth. “I’m going to kill him.”

She heard more than saw his frown. “Wouldn’t he prefer you dead, if he were a traitor? Seems simpler.”

“He wanted me to take a message to the Raidt, organize their surrender…” she trailed off, her brows furrowing. It sounded even more stupid when she said it out loud—and Nales was not that stupid.

Doneil was right. It would make more sense to have her dead. Especially with the demon’s necromancy kick.

Her skin crawled at the thought.

She shivered and let out a breath.

“Maybe he thinks I’m just a weak little underling. Too small to hurt him.”

Doneil didn’t move. She could still feel his eyebrows arch.

“Catrin, I don’t think anyone could mistake you for weak.”

She ground her teeth in consternation. He was right, of course. She was a Twelfth Circle rnari warrior. Even Grobitzsnak had recognized her strength.

Her mind twitched back to the shut-tight expression on Nales’ face, the tangle of fear she’d felt behind his mask. The slow, deliberate tone to his words. The touch of his lips murmuring into her ear.

‘You’ll have to find me first, underling.’

He’d shown precisely zero romantic interest in her before—that, she knew for sure. Ever since her infamous encounter with Tarris, she’d looked for it and done her very best to shut it down. Nales had shown professional interest, yes, but, even in her wildest, most paranoid schemes, none of it had ever been even remotely romantic.

And he’d called her Cat.

He knew she didn’t like it.

Something was going on.

She growled through her teeth. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Yes, yes. All right, rnari.” Doneil raised his hands up in mock surrender and cast an eye-roll toward the canopy. “You’re very scary. Now—sun’s holy ass—stay still and let me heal that arm.”

Her breath expulsed in a noisy fume. She sagged against the saddle, the smoothness of its hard leather against her forehead. Doneil moved in next to her. A sharp pain rang out when he took her arm, then the healing took over. She gritted her teeth, hearing a sharp hiss as his power told him exactly how badly her wrist had been mangled.

“You know this is the second time this week you’ve broken this arm, right?”

She grunted, teeth grinding as the healing magic crawled through her flesh. “I think I preferred the last time.”

“Yes. Treng, at least, broke it evenly.” He swore under his breath. “Tits, Catrin. What did this to you?”

“The fey,” she said.

There was a pause. She could feel his brain working.

“They attacked you before they died?”

She frowned. Then, she played her own speech over in her head from the beginning.

Ah. She’d left that part out.

“They’re undead. Reanimated and controlled by the demon lord.” A shiver ran through her when she remembered the feeling of cold flesh gripping her skin.

Doneil swore. “Ten fucking hells. Are you serious?”

“As a tombrat.” She spared a glance to Matteo. He was still there, playing silent guard with his gun turned toward the forest, but obviously keeping a close eye on their tone and expressions. He caught her glance with one of his, the concern clear on his face.

“What are you going to do?” Doneil asked. “Back to Pemberlin?”

“To Pemberlin?” She almost laughed. “Fuck me. You think I can? Without the prince? No. You can, though. They’ll need to know.”

Doneil pinned her with a stare. “Not what I asked. What are you going to do?”

She stopped. She hadn’t really thought of that.

I’m going to murder him.

Okay, so maybe she had thought of it. In rather gruesome detail. But there was still a lot that didn’t add up. Even more now that the pain wasn’t clouding her mind. Why would Nales let her go? Doneil was right—she was far too strong to be left alone. No one wanted a rnari on their trail, let alone one from the Twelfth Circle. Was this all some power play on the demon’s part? And, that aside, why would he go with the demon? What was he planning?

Had he really betrayed them?

Or—and this was now seeming more logical the longer she thought of it—had he pulled a fast one on the demon in order to get her released?

Her forehead wrinkled as she thought back to the heated exchange they’d had this morning.

They hadn’t known each other very long, but that strange play of betrayal did not seem in character for him. Rather the opposite.

And he definitely wasn’t stupid enough to let her go.

In fact, she could think of a multitude of things that made more sense than to have her alive and at large.

Especially since Nales knew she’d just come back here and be instantly healed and ready to attack.

“Fuck.” She grimaced. “I might have to go after him.” She paused. “I may or may not kill him once I find him.”

“Oh-kay,” Doneil said. “Sounds like someone’s getting less grouchy. Next steps?”

With the last two words, his voice dropped its normal friendliness, switching to the hard professionalism she recognized from the ranks.

He was walking her through it. She appreciated it.

“Leave the horses here. We’ll bring a minimum of supplies and check out the demon lair, do some reconnaissance. See if there might be a chance of getting him out.” Her gaze slipped to Matteo. “You think we should leave him with the horses?”

“Nah, bring him with. He can hold his own.” Doneil’s lips pursed as he considered the man. “Is the demon lair obvious?”

She snorted. “Yes. It’s a big fucking castle with demons coming out of it.”

“In that case, I think it will be possible to communicate our intentions. He can choose to come with, or not.”

Her eyebrow twitched as she rubbed at her arm. “You sure that’s a good idea? He’s not exactly… one of us.”

“He trounced me pretty good earlier,” Doneil pointed out. “And he’s got that firearm.”

She winced, remembering what she’d read of guns. “That’d be noisy.”

“But useful, in an emergency. We have no other ranged weapons. I’ll give him one of my blades. You’d be better off with both of yours. Deadlier.”

She didn’t even bother arguing. From a logical standpoint, he was right. Plus, he also had a working fire spell he could use.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s pack up and go, then.”

Chapter 18

“Ten fucking hells, we’ll never get into that.” Catrin grimaced, lips peeling back from her teeth.

“It certainly does look formidable,” Doneil commented from her right. “Very, ah…” He paused, head tilting as he considered it. “Big.”

‘Big’ was certainly a good word to use with the fortress, though perhaps an understatement—it was huge. Massive. Near double the size of the Raidt palace, though she suspected the mountain played into a lot of that.

And that was a whole other thing. The damned thing wove in and out of the mountain’s cracks and crevices. Every minute or so, she spotted a new tunnel or battlement that she hadn’t noticed, or a new section of crenellation etched into the shadows.

The place had to be one big fucking maze.

Her jaw moved, molars grinding as she scowled up at the mountain. “We’re not getting into that.”

It was a logical statement, but she couldn’t help the slip of emotion that roughened her tone—or the quiet flutter that seized her muscles. Her wrist was healed, bones and skin and tendons mended by the buzzing touch of Doneil’s magic, and a jittery, keen energy quivered through her like the pulse of a bowstring thanks to the stimulant-based rnari tonic both she and Doneil had pounded back. Her body shivered with a desire to fight, to attack, but her mind had become a honed, grounded weapon—as cold, hard, and sharp as the edge of a ceremonial blade.

All of which wouldn’t help her if she couldn’t actually get into the castle in the first place.

She swore under her breath. “He’s probably already dead.”

“No, that’s not how royalty works,” Doneil said. “He’s better as a hostage. Or to wring information about the blood sword out of.”

“Ah, so they’re torturing him. That makes me feel a lot better.”

“That means he’s alive, at least. We can work with that.” Doneil leaned forward, and she flinched as his shoulder brushed hers. The light caught his face askance, the gold in his eyes deep and rich. “Do you know Feinright Castle, over on the Marbin coast? Big old tenth century brute, heavily armed?”

She did. In fact, the place had been on the rnari Third Circle theory tests, which he had definitely completed. An example of extreme fortification, albeit a half a century old in its armaments.

“What’s your point?”

“Would you say it’s about the same size, give or take? Assuming some of the mountain is solid?”

She drew her gaze back to the fortress. “Most of that place has to be solid. It couldn’t support itself, otherwise—not without magic.”

“Precisely. Even dwarven clan-holds don’t hollow out entire structures. They tried that, back in their history—which is half the reason, eldritch deity aside, that you don’t want to explore the older areas of the Kanyp holdings—but it doesn’t work so well. Things get unstable, collapse. The humans know this well, more recently, given their industrial bent.”

She cringed. Yes, that had been going around. Farmers’ sons heading south to the mines. Nowadays, they tended to go to the factories, as well. Work there, send money back to the homestead—though the latter didn’t always happen.

“Your point?”

“Knew a crew who stole a fork from the main dining hall. Part of a dare. They planned for over a month to do it. Went right around security like ghosts.”

Ah. Now she was seeing the parallel.

“A fork is not a prince. And we don’t have a month.”

“No, but—”

“Do you see a way in? Because unless we scale a good portion of the mountain and, I assume, brute-force a door, I don’t think we’re getting in there.”

And, besides that, they didn’t know where the prince was in there, or if he was even in there at all—it was just their best guess.

She sighed. They never should have left the camp. Hells, they never should have left Pemberlin.

Matteo knelt on Doneil’s other side, nestled next to a young birch. Wherever he came from, he was proving a reliable soldier. Human-blind, yes, but doing surprisingly well for it—and near-silent in movement when he wanted to be.

He had uttered what she suspected had been a swear when the fortress had come within sight. She had no idea what, precisely, he was able to see of it, but his eyebrows had shot up as soon as it had come into sight.

And, by the way he was looking the castle over, and the serious frown on his face, she guessed that Doneil was right—this was a situation that could be communicated.

Still, though, a team of two might be better if they were going to attempt this mad rescue. Matteo may have bested Doneil in sparring, but the elf had far better senses than he did. And Doneil’s rnari training would work well with her.

“I’m just trying to say,” Doneil went on, dragging her attention back to him. “It isn’t impossible. And I am perfectly capable of scaling a mountain.”

“That mountain has zero cover.” She grimaced, tilting her head to better see around the bush. “They’ll shoot us off before we get halfway. Hells, they’ll shoot us before we get halfway to it. The approach is completely open.”

Nothing but bare scrub and dirt led to the mountain. Mostly flat but for the broken line of a low fissure that turned through the plains halfway, and the rough, pushed-up edges from where it met the rest of the forest. A kind of scrubbly grass poked out of the rough, coarse dirt, giving it a semi-furred appearance that reminded her of the mange on the hellhound’s coat.

She didn’t know how old the fortress armaments were—they looked similar to Feinright, but gods knew that even Feinright was more up to date in its arms. She’d read up on the arms the humans had been making, and of the contraptions the goblins had hybrided into existence.

Who knew what demons had cultivated in the two and a half centuries since last contact?

She pushed out a disgusted, frustrated sigh and stood. “Come on. No point in staying here. Let’s circle around. Maybe we’ll find an entry point.”

“Yes. Looking at the front of castles isn’t usually the best.” Doneil shifted on the ground, shoulders sagging as an uncharacteristic grim expression stole his face—he didn’t think they could get him, she could tell. “He may have to wait for rescue.”

“He may be dead by then,” she said.

“Maybe. But the daylight will help us look. It helps against demons, too, I hear.”

Her jawline tensed, and a shiver passed through her body. Yes, she had heard that, too—something to do with the demons living under a different sun in their world, being unused to the brightness here.

But it still rubbed her wrong.

“He may be dead by then,” she said again.

Doneil patted a hand against her knee, a friendly gesture. She didn’t flinch this time. “I know, Catrin. Just providing analysis.”

She let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her mind and body were getting too wound up, but at least, the tonic was helping.

“Yes. I know. Sorry.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, ducked her head, and closed her eyes, trying to rein the tension back in. A raw combination of regret, grief, and desperation gnawed at the bottom of her lungs, but she quickly tamped them back down.

Yes, she should have done things differently. But that was in the past, and she couldn’t change it.

All she could focus on was the now.

“Right,” she said, blowing out another breath and making to rise. “It’s useless standing here. Let’s go around. We—”

A leaf cracked about twenty feet behind them. A footstep. Someone creeping.

She exploded into action.

Everything happened in a blur. With the woodcraft riding through her senses, she barely saw the tree she sidestepped off of—only felt the roughness of its bark against her sole, the slight give of its trunk. Her blades were in her hands in milliseconds. As she landed back on the ground, the smell of ozone came to her—magic—and all of her instincts pointed to a spot some ten feet to her left.

She leapt, blades reaching, the rustle of her armor the only sound in the silent forest as she kicked off.

Metal clashed with metal, blades scraping down and turned aside. The cloaking glamour fell like pelted rain as the fey warrior shot backwards, an expression of mixed shock and concentration on his face, his sword awkward in his hand as if he had just drawn it.

She shoved him back, blades ringing as they shrieked against the metal of his sword. His other hand had lifted, palm out and fingers loose in surrender, jet black eyes wide with shocked focus. She recognized him—he was the same one who’d warned her about Nales, the tall, lankily muscled male with the scar on one side of his face.

His hand lifted higher in a placating gesture. “Wait—rnari, I—”

She didn’t wait. His stilted elven turned into a shocked squawk as she shot forward. The sword came up—too slow. She batted it aside like a training stick, stepped in, and slammed the blunt end of her hilt into the center of his face.

His nose crunched. Blood spurted as he gave a strangled yell, turning his face away. She batted the sword away a second time and danced around.

Then, she kicked his knees from under him, forced him down, locked a grip around his elbow, and put a blade to his throat.

“Drop it,” she said.

The sword fell to the ground with a metallic thump. She adjusted herself, kept his elbow and the blade to his neck. His body still shuddered from the blows she’d dealt—she could still feel it herself. She guessed that she’d broken a bit more than his nose.

After a careful go-over, during which he remained immaculately still and compliant except for the shudder, she found a second and third sheath and relieved him of those knives. Doneil picked them off the ground where she threw them, for safekeeping. Behind him, Matteo trained his firearm on the fey.

As the roar in her head quietened, she gave her new prisoner a good look.

His skin was warm, at least. That counted in his favor, as did his quick attempt at surrender. There was no sign of his mount, nor of any other fey—the forest was quiet and still around them, watchful. She sent it a quiet prayer of thanks through her woodcraft. After a few seconds, he repressed his shudders of pain into only a mild shake, and his body went utterly still, focused entirely on her and her movement.

She recognized that tactic from her rnari training.

“He’s alive,” she confirmed after a moment. “Not undead.”

“Injured, too,” Doneil commented from his position several paces away. He played with the tip of one of the knives, gaze sliding down the fey’s body. The slight glow on his wrist told her he was reading the male through his healing rune. “Cracked ankle and a stab wound.”

She glanced down. Sure enough, a makeshift bandage showed under the lip of the fey’s armor, and a trail of blood had soaked down his thigh.

Her nostrils flared, taking in the rusted scent of blood on the air, and she resisted the urge to press her blade harder against his throat—the tonic they’d taken made her more prone to violence. Instead, she eased it off.

As she did so, he spread the fingers of his free hand on his injured thigh, a fey sign of submission.

“So,” she said to him. “I’m guessing you didn’t find your priestess.”

“No,” he said. “We did not.”

Now that the edge of battle had slowed down, she could observe him in greater detail. He was dirty. Not filthy, unless one counted the blood, but he’d definitely been in a few hard spots involving branches, dirt, and violence. A combination of blood, both his and demonic, stained his armor plates and soaked into his clothes, and his marble-pale skin was a mix of dirt smears and scratches. Dirt caked on his hair. He’d pulled it into a tail at the base of his neck, a piece of leather string woven throughout it. Some of it tickled the underside of her arm when he shifted.

Beneath, she could feel the solidness of his body. He felt like a slab of stone—all hard muscle and blunt bone structure. Even injured, he sat upright and balanced.

A fey version of herself.

Her gaze slipped up. Matteo was still in the forefront, giving off an air of quiet confidence.

He reminded her of Treng, the way he stood, though it was a firearm in his hands, not a blade. He was definitely a soldier, and an elite one, at that.

Something in his eyes flashed.

She froze, staring as the flash seemed to lengthen, then slide to the side. It was subtle, like catching the view of a retina at night, only slightly different. More temporary, and… moving.

And his firearm—there was a slight glow coming from a slot in its side. It had done that before, once or twice. What was it? A signal that it was active? She’d heard of goblin tech like that—but human tech?

Elrya. They had to find a way to communicate with him. She had so many questions.

The flash gone, his gaze flicked up and met hers, a question in his eyes—likely wondering if he should back down. She gave a small shake of her head.

Beside him, Doneil’s brows had furrowed in concentration.

“Right,” she said finally, withdrawing the knife a bit further. “What in Temdin’s ten hells happened? You are Volaon’s heartsworn, correct?”

They spoke elven. It’s what he had started the conversation with, and what she had decided to continue. Doneil, she suspected, didn’t have a great proficiency in either Common or High Fey—suns, the only reason she knew it was because her mother had been a stickler for traditional languages—and she wanted him in the loop. Remembering the fey’s difficulty, she code-switched some of her elven into older words, closer to the fey root tongue.

He shifted. A rock-hard shoulder bumped into her thigh.

Suddenly, it felt as though every molecule of air had gone still.

She didn’t tense. Not exactly. But she was keenly aware of how close her blade’s edge was to his throat.

“Volaon li Naine, the sun-sworn prince, is dead.”

His words were soft and dry, like the rustle of leaves in the wind, and oddly formal. The tone pulled at something primal in her—an itch that scratched at her magic.

The runes on her bicep began to ache again.

The fey were made of magic, much more than she was.

“Yes,” she said dryly. “I noticed. Do you still serve him?”

The fey tensed. A slight movement, but one that made the adrenaline spike in her arteries.

“I serve the living, not the dead.” On his thigh, the fey’s spread fingers clenched into a fist—the only indication, apart from his tone, of his emotion. “His soul has been taken and enslaved. It is… heretical.”

“Yes,” she said again. “I agree. Everything about this is heretical.”

The fey made a noise in his throat. Then, he shifted, his attention going to Matteo. “He isn’t Zemiari.”

There was that word again—Zemiari. From home. He thought Matteo was from another world.

She was beginning to think so, too. Just too many things weren’t adding up, from his lack of common languages to the oddness of his weapon—and now, the strange flash in his eye.

She chose to brush off the comment, despite the way the fey continued to focus on Matteo. She narrowed her eyes on the fey as she caught a taste of latent sensing magic, similar in feel to her woodcraft, slipping out.

“He’s with us,” she grunted. “Tell us what happened.”

He shifted, a small motion, but she felt his entire being turn with it. Fey were as magic as the gates. Power leaked from them in spades. The sensing magic she’d felt before swung her way.

Her skin prickled with awareness, and she was suddenly made hyperaware of her entire body. She caught a scent—wood and metal, similar to that of Prince Tarris, whose family could trace their lineage back to the fey.

Then, the feeling passed.

“Ambush,” he said simply. “Demons were all around. Strong ones. We fought. We didn’t win.”

“And you got away?” Her eyebrow arched upward. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

“I did. My brethren covered for me.” Though his tone remained mundane, stilted as he pronounced the elven—he was code-switching as much as she was, and it was a struggle to connect the words—a ripple of emotion shivered through his body, and she felt his energy tense, as if for a leap.

She didn’t react, though something similar passed through her as she understood how the situation must have played out. The word he’d used—covered—had a different root meaning and connotation. Realizing that they were doomed, the fey had sacrificed the team to allow one to escape and continue the mission.

The rnari had similar terms.

“We found the horse,” she said. “You were chased.”

“Toyed with,” he corrected. He shifted, his head turning slightly toward her, jawline brushing her wrist. “This demon—he is very strong.”

She shivered, remembering Grobitzsnak’s predatory gaze.

Yes, that was a being who liked to chase down his victims.

“And the fire?” she asked. “Yours?”

“Some yes, but mostly not. It nulled our attack. Some sort of shield.” He shook his head. “It felt ground-fed?”

Ground-fed? She considered that. It hadn’t felt demonic to her. Heck, if anything, it had felt fey. Who else would wield such power?

Her lip curled as an idea came to her. “Nales said this demon could corrupt ley lines.”

Doneil’s teeth flashed in the dark as he mirrored her grimace. “Ten hells, are you fucking serious?”

“Apparently.” She took a breath. “Maybe that’s why my woodcraft is acting up.”

It made sense. If the forest had been corrupted, it likely wouldn’t feed into her perception anymore. She wasn’t a demon.

She looked down at her captive. The paleness of his hair kept catching her attention. Milk-white under the dirt, it reminded her of the moon. A few stray locks strayed free from the tail, splaying over his pauldron. Below, his body gave a faint, rhythmic shudder, stiffening with every breath. His only concession to the pain of his injuries. The smell of dry maple wood came to her again, along with something else.

He was still on a mission. The same mission the rest of his team had been on before they’d been killed.

“The priestess?” she asked.

He gave a short nod.

In the back of her mind, the memory of Prince Tarris rose in the dark.

For the first time in a while, she didn’t tense up.

Her vacant runes prickled at the fey’s closeness, itching to bleed.

She studied him a moment. Then, she eased the blade from his neck and stepped back.

“Heal him,” she said to Doneil.

“Finally,” the elf muttered.

Matteo glanced up at her sharply, a question in his eyes, but she gave him a short shake of her head that the fey couldn’t see and stepped back, easing her blades back into their sheaths.

No, she didn’t trust him. Not fully. And Matteo’s foreignness allowed him to be rude.

The fey stood up smoothly, only a slight hitch on the leg with the bandages. She kept her face calm and relaxed her shoulders as Doneil took over, kneeling before the fey to place his hands over the wound. Magic stirred the air, the gold glow rising from under the cuff of Doneil’s sleeve. The fey turned to her as he worked, lifting his face to hers for the first time since they’d fought.

“You lost your prince?”

She grunted. “He’s alive.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw him being taken to the fortress.”

Doneil went still at that. Though he kept the healing magic working, she could tell he was listening a little extra hard now.

“Really?” That confirmed Nales’ location, at least—provided the demon hadn’t used the gate to transport him back to the demon world. She blew out a breath and tried to keep it casual. “What else did you see?”

“Lots of things. I’ve been scouting.” He turned slightly, gaze slipping beyond her to view the fortress in the distance. His black eyes glittered in the darkness, striking against the paleness of his skin. “You planned to go there, correct? I heard you talking.”

She grimaced. They hadn’t been very loud, but fey clearly had keen ears. “Yes, that’s the plan.”

He nodded. “Then I will come with you.”

“Will you, now?” She considered him, an eyebrow arching into her forehead. He would be useful. Any fey would be useful, and this one was clearly very skilled. If he hadn’t been injured, and she hadn’t surprised him with her strength and willingness to attack, she didn’t doubt that he would have come on top in their fight. He was, after all, the fey version of her, and the fey simply had better biology and magic on their side.

But she still didn’t trust him. And he could see it in her eyes.

“My brethren are all dead, their bodies desecrated, and I need to see my mission through.” Doneil, at that moment, finished his healing and stood, stepping away from the fey who disregarded him like a servant. Once again, his gaze slid to the fortress in the distance, and he took a few steps toward it, brows furrowing. “My priestess, and my vengeance, both lie in there—and so does your prince. Our paths are linked. Let us help each other.”

Uh huh. Her finger tapped against the outside of her armguard. “Right. Well, at this point, I’m not even sure we can get inside, so—”

“I can get you in,” he said.

“What?” Her attention snapped to him. A surge of hope flooded her chest.

“Yes,” he said, raising his arm to make a gesture. “There’s a small crevasse around the side with some stonework. Leads up the mount and inside close to the front.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? And we’re just going to waltz right up to it and walk in?”

“Yes.” He shifted. It was a subtle action, but she felt his whole being shift with it. “With my glamour, we should be able to get in.”

And, with that last sentence, the whole idea came crashing down on her and stunned her into silence.

“Here we go,” Doneil muttered. “That’s the look of a scheming mind.”

Glamour. Of course. The fey could make them invisible. Hells, the fey could even mask their sound and scent, if her encounter with them back when they were still alive was anything to go on.

It had only been her woodcraft, and the stillness in the air, that had detected them that first time.

She smiled.

This might just work.

Chapter 19

“Elrya’s bright tits,” Doneil muttered. “This is fantastic.”

Grit scraped under Catrin’s boot. She grimaced, resisting the urge to skewer him with a look at his words and instead focus on her footing. Gods, she’d never been up this high before, not on a mountain this open, anyway. The enormous amount of space behind her was trying to suck her in—as if it wanted to pluck her right off the mountain and send her reeling back.

Temdin, she hadn’t realized heights were an issue for her. But clinging to a patch of scraggy rock, well aware of the several hundred-foot fall that filled most of the space at her back and side, really put some things into perspective for her.

They’d made it thus far, though. And the glamour was holding.

She let out a breath and glanced ahead. The fey—Caracel, he was called—led the way, his steps as sure and graceful as if he’d been born a unicorn. Calm, quiet, smooth, as if the marble his body was sculpted from carried into his mannerisms. Though blood and dirt smudged his skin and clothes, he still looked the part of a living statue, or a descended god.

Then again, some of her magic was derived from the fey. Kodanh was as old as the glacier, and although for all intents and purposes he was a deity, he was still fey first.

The line between fey and deity blurred after the first thousand years of life, she suspected.

Caracel, she thought, might only be in his first hundred, maybe two. He had more maturity than she’d expect for a younger fey, and his glamour was strong and holding well over all of them.

She shivered at the reminder. That was another thing—his glamour. She’d been doing magic for nearly her entire life—ten hells, half her rnari training was founded in it!—but she’d never come close to how Caracel used it. It was like breathing to him, or a first language. It had taken him all of ten seconds to weave it across all four of them, and, as far as she could tell, cost him almost nothing to maintain. At least, it didn’t seem to. He was easily outpacing the rest of them.

Every so often, the glamour’s magic would prick at her skin.

She hated it.

The glamour also, worryingly, didn’t seem to block scent as well as she’d thought. They’d passed several demons near the trail earlier—flyers, by the look of their leathery wings, sitting stoop-backed in nests that reeked of ammonia—and they’d all lifted their heads and grown agitated, sniffing the air to catch the origin of the scent.

They’d moved on before the things could do more than a sniff or five, but she could see that causing problems for them later if they ran into hellhounds.

Still, it was better than nothing. Much better.

A scrape of a boot snapped her attention toward the back of the group. A sheen of sweat coated Matteo’s face and arms, enough that its smell touched her nose. His firearm was tucked away into his belt, the red light off, which she took to mean it was in its dormant mode.

He’d certainly been wary of the demons. The weapon had come out immediately upon sight, but Doneil had been hasty to wave it down, press a finger to his lips, and motion for him to creep by. He’d complied, but his normally neutral expression had shifted to concern and concentration until they were well past, his head turning back to keep track of the nests.

Smart, that one. She felt bad bringing him along. This wasn’t his fight, not even remotely. He had zero reason to be here.

But they’d explained, best as they could, where they were going, and presented him with the option to stay behind, and he’d given them a resolute ‘no’ on that, and solid ‘yes’ to the mountain.

Just what kind of soldier was he? Half the guards she knew at Pemberlin would have taken that, or at least balked.

Fuck us. We’re a ragtag group.

If they ran into the demon lord, they might manage to escape—he’d likely be laughing too hard to try and keep them.

They passed another hump in the ridgeline, and the small fissure Caracel had pointed out for them came into view. Her shoulders relaxed down as they turned inward around a wedge of rock and the sudden, sheer drop on one side vanished from sight.

Soon, a different type of tension prickled at her. She slid her gaze up to the crevasse, watching it loom closer.

Gods, this is really happening.

It was surreal. Just days ago, she had been training with Severn Treng on the dusty gravel of Pemberlin’s front drive. Doneil had been braiding patterns into dough. The atmosphere had been light, lazy. Spring had been in the air, the first buds on the trees, the cold impression of winter only lingering in the shadows of the forest and the higher altitudes.

Now, it was like the world would never be the same.

But… she wasn’t afraid. She should be afraid. Infiltrating a demonic fortress was not a safe activity, and there was a good chance that one or more of them would die in there.

She let out another breath, trying to read the shiver that kept fluttering through her nerves. Adrenaline? Anticipation, too.

But not fear.

She was surprisingly okay with the idea of infiltrating a demon’s lair. Excited, even.

I’ve trained for this. Maybe not this, specifically, but something like this. I was never meant to sit guard for a pompous prince—I was meant to kill.

A slight, leathery rustle grabbed her attention upward. The messy edge of a nest was visible over the ridge of rock that now blocked their right sides from the fall, and the jutting, naked form of one of the demon birds came into view. The smell of ammonia clotted her nose like a poison sting. She stared at it, taking in every curve and jut of it. Birds were already ugly without their feathers, but these had a grotesqueness that caught at the eye—part vulture and part southern cassowary, with a huge and pointed beak and claws fierce enough to cut stone.

The bird lifted its head and tilted it to the side, its eye flashing in the light from below.

She stared at it.

An awareness prickled across her skin in a wave. The mercari on her shoulder turned to ice. A low, rumbling sound came from deep in the earth below. Both Doneil and Matteo gave cries of alarm as the mountain began to shake.

Everything cracked open.

A shock wave slammed into them—it hit her chest, made the soft tissue between her ribs vibrate. She cried out a warning, put her hands up in defense as a bright light flashed across the ridge, burying deep into the earth. Magic crackled in the air like a storm cloud, grazing their skin with static.

Her ice runes stabbed into her shoulder with a sudden vengeance, burning with cold.

Ahead, Caracel looked back at her, wide-eyed.

“Catrin—the glamour!”

It was gone. Its absence crawled at her skin.

And, with that flash of light, they were completely exposed.

She cursed as a chorus of surprised squawks lifted off. Leathery wings rustled to life, claws scratching on rock as the birds took to the air.

A glance up told her they were headed for their group.

“Fuck!” she swore, casting an eye up to the crevasse. It wasn’t far, only a hundred feet up.

She made a snap decision.

“Go! Run!”

Ice burning in her shoulder, she switched back and dodged around Doneil. The first bird dove, razor-sharp claws aiming for Matteo.

She smashed into it, shoved it into the rock, and stabbed her blade into its rib cage.

Something hard turned it aside. Black blood spilled over her arm and shoulder, burning in the air, and the bird lifted off with a screech, wings beating furiously.

She yanked her knife out before it got stuck. Snarling, she stepped back as it flapped away, tracking it in the sky. Ice gathered in her arm. She pulled on her power, aimed with her mind, and—

Five red darts of light shot past her head and slammed into the bird, burning hot.

She jumped. It screamed. Its flight faltered. Blood spilt from its wing, enough that she could see some of it drop through the air.

Matteo stood a few paces away, his firearm aimed at the demon. The light on its side was glowing—the same red glow as the shots had been—and his eyes had that flash in them again.

Definitely not normal.

He fired again—another quick succession of red flashes—and the demon above screamed and fell.

To her left, the screeches of other demon birds ripped through the sky. Magic rippled in the air. The ice runes on her shoulder pulsed with cold in warning, filled with power.

They needed to get out of here.

She waved her blades at Matteo, then made a gesture to the crevasse.

“Go!”

The word might have been foreign to him, but he got the gist of it. Another bird came crashing over the rock next to them with a piercing squawk. She lunged forward, a hard slash of her blade slicing through its wing membrane. Warm blood splattered across her arms and chest, and an unearthly, pained keen blasted her ears.

She shoved it off, slashed at the next one—it braked and swooped hard to the front, narrowly avoiding its brethren’s fate—then she was rushing Doneil after Matteo and hustling them both up the steep slope.

A crackle of magic whistled by her. She jerked to the side just in time for another bird to explode on the rock some paces back, its chest ripping apart in a burst of glowing seams—fey magic, by its feel.

The entrance to the crevasse loomed closer. Fifty paces, give or take.

Behind them, the rustle of wings grew more numerous. When she looked back, the dark sky above them seemed to writhe, black shapes swooping and ducking like fish in an agitated school.

Her runes prickled with cold again. This time, a connection surfaced—and a familiar awareness.

Magic.

She didn’t question it. With a shout, she cut down at one darting bird, hacked it nearly in two, and scrambled her landing, blades clunking against the dirt.

When she landed, she grabbed onto the ice as hard as she could and pulled.

The temperature dropped like a stone. A frozen cold descended on the scene, so close and sudden, it lifted all the hairs on the back of her neck. Kodanh’s power flooded through her, flashes of him shivering into her mind—the strong, jagged frills that rose from his neck, the darts of ice-blue that threaded the rough scales of his torso like glacial cracks, the great talons of his feet biting and scratching deep into his ice-cave home.

And his eyes—pale and hard; a murky, frozen white. Snow blind, her mother had called them once, though that was inaccurate.

His mind was full of ice and rock, of cold caverns in a northern tundra. Caves and crevasses, and water crystals so chilled, they could freeze a person through in minutes.

She let the cold flow through her. Then she drew it out, shaped it, and threw it out to the sky.

The nearest birds dropped like rocks, making grotesque cracking and squelching sounds as they landed, half-frozen, on the slope below. Frost slashed away from them in feathered bands, Kodanh’s power rooting into the ground. Another bird dove for her. She stabbed at its chest, felt her blade hit ice, turned her strike into a spin.

Power slid in through her runes, released into the world around her. It flew, producing more streaks of frost on the rocks.

But, already, the connection was faltering.

She sprinted for the door. “Go, go, go! Get inside!”

More birds dove at her as she moved. Matteo fired on a few ahead, forcing them to drop or veer. The sour smell of demon blood rose. She stumbled on the stair, knuckles smacking hard into the rock. Up the mountain, white flashed like magnesium bursts, lighting a thick vein several meters deep into its side. Above, the flock seemed to twist and undulate. Raucous cawing filled the air.

Gods, how were there so many of them? Had the entire mountain come calling? Maybe they were like crows, that way.

Caracel stopped at the entrance to the cavern, and a shot of adrenaline spiked through her—Temdin’s light, was it a dead end?—but he only helped Doneil and Matteo get inside, his sword slashing at a bird that tried to attack.

Seeing her, he hesitated.

She made a violent gesture with her blade, a shout gasping through her throat. “Move!”

He took the hint, ducking in only paces ahead of her as she pounded up the rocky trail.

She skidded in, already pulling on Kodanh’s power. Pain roared through her shoulder as the connection faded. She bit it back, gritting her teeth as light flashed again and illuminated the view of the sky outside.

Hundred of birds raced for them, grotesque forms flying with a surprising agility, all heading for the crevasse.

She tugged on Kodanh, made a gesture with her hand.

With a distinct click, the magic took.

Spears of ice slammed across the entrance. She strained harder, growling through her teeth at the burn, stabbed several more down, and worked to build webs of ice between them. Her arm was on fire. Pain lanced from shoulder to sternum—Kodanh, taking his payment in energy and a taste of blood—but she kept one eye on the door, letting the magic flow through her to seal off the entrance.

She filled the space with more than a half foot of ice.

The sounds from outside became muffled. Birds thumped at the barrier, their talons scraping over its surface, but it sounded like they were in a different world. Their shadows played a shivering pattern on the surface, masked by frost, the light still casting a strobing glow over the mountain.

Then, that glow died. And with it, her magic.

The pain redoubled in her shoulder. She yelled and hunched over, putting a death grip on the hilts of her blades as the sound turned into a low, throaty hiss. She bared her canines to the cave. As the connection withdrew, she chased it, focusing as hard as she could on maintaining it even as blood dripped from the wound.

But, despite her efforts, the ice lizard vanished from her thoughts.

Only blood remained. And pain.

She sagged onto the cold ground, the remnants of his power radiating back from the stone. Her breaths became short and sharp, whistling around her bared teeth. Her arms shook.

“Catrin?”

Behind her, Doneil crept close, a soft footfall at her side. The rest of the group was breathing hard, too, but she was the only one on the floor.

“I’m fine.” She took a breath and rocked back. Her blades made dull metallic clanks on the ground as she picked herself up. “Give me a moment.”

She grunted, hitched herself up, rummaged the light stick from a belt pouch, and cracked it against the stone to activate it. A glow shivered from its end, strengthening as the chemicals mixed.

She sat up and looked around.

They were in a narrow cave, little more than a gash in the side of the mountain. The ceiling tapered above them, its sides sharp and rakish, parts of them wet with run-off. More water trickled off to her back, dribbling in a small waterfall over a large drop-off.

But everyone was there. Matteo stood closest to the entrance, his gun ready in his grip, the red light on its body glowing and active, gawking at the wall of ice that now blocked the entrance. Doneil squatted beside him, looking battered and unkempt, his armor bruised. He held one rnari blade in his hand, blood fresh on the metal. Caracel examined her ice from the back of the cave. The fey was easier to see, at least, standing tall and elegant with his white hair near the wall. His body was scratched and hard-won from the battle, and a fresh wound caught the skin just under his shoulder armor, seeping more blood into his clothing.

After a minute, the muffled scrapes and thumps from the demon birds outside stopped.

By the sound of it, most of them had left, cawing and cackling up a storm. Only a couple still scratched at the ice wall.

Guess they only like easy targets.

Either that, or they were circling around for another entrance. Or to alert Grobitzsnak of intruders.

If he didn’t already know.

She groaned and settled back onto her elbows. That was not something she wanted to worry about right now.

“That is Kodanh, isn’t it?” Caracel twitched his head her way. “The great ice snake?”

Lizard, she thought, but she gave him a pass. The fey root word for ‘snake’ had a closer connection to both the fey and elven words for ‘reptile,’ which might explain the slip—plus, anyone that could name Kodanh likely knew what they were talking about.

“Yes.” Her blades flashed. She put the light stick down and wiped them on her thigh armor as best she could before resheathing them. “Why? You know him?”

“No. My grandmother could call on him.” The fey nodded in her direction. “You must be very strong.”

Yes. Yes, she was. Though Kodanh took quite a lot of her power—he was an exclusionist, leaving little room for other spells.

Still, it was high praise to receive compliments on magic from a fey, especially a heartsworn as himself.

She shrugged it off. “If it keeps working, I will be. If not, I suppose I’ll have to pick up some kimbic tattoos.”

Doneil snorted. “Now that would piss off the Council. I approve.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Really? The Council would continue with mercari spells that no longer work? They can’t be that stupid. They want a functioning army, don’t they?”

“You think they wouldn’t? After all the crap you’ve been through?”

She froze up, shoulders stiff. Anger surfaced, shivered under her skin like a hot, bubbling pit. Her back straightened, mouth opening.

But she shut it again.

This was not the right place for an argument.

“Kodanh is part of the demnir. A… calling, I think you say.” The fey hesitated as he struggled to translate his mother language. He was looking at her oddly, his ink-black eyes intense and focused—as if her new display of power had made him consider her again.

“Probably,” she said, her tone more of a grunt. She stepped her injured side in to Doneil, offering her shoulder to his healing. Golden light flared.

This time, her arm was too numb to feel the weird, crawling sensation of his magic—only the relief. She let out a breath as the pain slipped away, and turned her attention to Matteo.

He’d moved into a crouch, still by the entrance. The red of his firearm flared in the dark like a window to a cooling forge-fire, reflecting off the ice wall beside him. His eyes, openly staring at her, had that strange retinal flash she’d seen before.

Deliberately, she moved her other hand up to her face, tapped at the edge of her eye socket, and tilted her head.

Briefly, a frown passed across his brows—then he understood. He copied her motion, tapping a finger to the bone of his right eye. The flash happened again, slower this time, the surface of his retina catching a brief reflection, then it faded.

She gave a nod.

Beside her, Doneil finished his healing. He let out a breath and shifted. His gaze went to the wall of ice at the entrance.

“Well,” he said. “That was subtle.”

Catrin cringed. The bird’s raucous shrieks could still be heard on the outside. Every so often, one of them would grow close enough to scratch its talons against the ice.

“The entire mountain will know that we are here,” Caracel observed, a grim expression taking his face. His voice was smooth and luxuriant, the elven-fey-Janessi mix he spoke growing easier over time and use.

“Yes. We need to move.”

She met his eyes for a moment, then picked up her light stick and shifted to shine the light farther into the cave. Behind him, the crevasse’s path continued on, leading inward.

Well, that made their decision easy.

“Looks like we’re going that way. Let’s move.”

Chapter 20

She’d never liked tunnels. They made her feel caged, as if the walls had enveloped her and were growing smaller with each bend and twist. Half of it, she knew, was in her head—she just wasn’t accustomed to them, not the way a dark elf would be. She was used to having a tree canopy above her, or the high-ceilinged corridors of the Raidt palace and training grounds. Fresh, free-flowing air, or at least something close to it.

This was too like the paths to the second armory, or the winter storerooms, neither of which she liked—and they didn’t have floors cut by sharp, jagged, ankle-twisting outcroppings of stone.

Temdin, she thought as her foot slipped down yet another awkward slope, slapping a hand to the wall awkwardly for balance. When I find Nales, I may hit him for making me come in here.

“So,” Doneil said, breaking the several minutes’ silence. “Do you think demonic fortresses keep their dungeons upward or downward?”

She grunted. “Nales is the demon expert. We can ask him when we find him.”

“Given that he likely lied through his teeth to get the demon to set you free, I doubt we’ll need to ask that when we find him—he’ll already be in it.”

“Hopefully intact,” she said, her breath hitching as she climbed around another outcrop of rock, a jagged part of it digging into the hollow of her hip as she passed. “Your runes can’t regrow limbs.”

Ahead, Caracel paused and gave them a strange look, his expression firm and rippling with a frown. His dark eyes slipped from her to Doneil, and back.

Black humor, she surmised, was not a fey trait. Either that, or the language barrier hadn’t translated the joke well.

Temdin, he looked good, though. Like a god descended, or a hero from one of the Raidt foundational epics. Ghostly and ethereal. Every so often, the mercari on his armor would catch in the glow of her light stick and flash like a school of fish underwater. And, every so often, his power shivered in the air.

He used magic the way most people breathed.

“Perhaps your priestess and our prince will be together,” Doneil said, switching into the Common Fey-Elven mix they’d been using and lifting his voice for it to carry. “They are royal hostages, after all.”

The fey’s face rippled. “The blatspel demon will need Lady Yena for the gate. Its maintenance and guardianship are part of her sacred duty.”

“He’ll want her alive, then,” she said. “That’s encouraging.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Although, she doesn’t need all of her limbs to maintain the gates.”

Without a glance back, he vanished around the next corner.

She cringed.

No, that humor definitely hadn’t carried over. She grunted as her foot slid down a short incline, jarring against the broken rock.

Perhaps she needed to do a stint with the dark elves. See how they worked with their caving. It wouldn’t help untangle the fuzz her woodcraft was currently in—it still jangled, wriggling in her brain as a series of messy, half-finished, discordant sketches. Hells, it even hurt, presenting like a low-key headache—but it would at least help her footing.

“Having some trouble there, Twelfth?”

Behind her, Doneil was apparently regarding her with some amusement. Though his tone seemed strained, and he was definitely picking at the pathway more carefully than he would have usually, he hadn’t yet managed the scrapes and slides she had.

“Oh, shut it.”

Temdin, I hate caves.

Gritting her teeth, she scraped around another outcrop—and almost ran right into Caracel.

She jerked to a stop, narrowly avoiding a collision, and snapped her attention to the end of the craggy passage.

A faint green glow shone from ahead.

She dropped her voice to a small whisper. “What is it?”

He made a noise in his throat, unsettled. “This is crystal light.”

Crystal light? Unconsciously, her eyebrows lifted. That’s what the fey used to illuminate their castles and cities. The Raidt still had some, in the inner sanctum of the main temple.

What was it doing in a demonic fortress?

She made to move forward, but he stopped her, suddenly catching her arm. She jumped, visions of Volaon’s steel-handed grip cracking through her mind.

Her free hand flew to her blade as he turned toward her, but she stopped herself from drawing it.

Barely.

She forced her shoulders to relax. “Yes?”

His claws scraped over the leather as he adjusted his grasp, examining the tattooed script visible under her armor. “You summon Kodanh through mercari, yes?”

She remembered to breathe. “Yes.”

“Do you have other spells?”

“Yes.”

“Do they work?”

She frowned. This time, when she answered, she put a question in her tone. “Yes?”

“What are they?”

Her eyebrows lifted. Asking about some spells was quite private, given that more than a few families had spells sourced through their lineage. Her first one, for example, had been the tree-growing one passed down from her mother’s line.

Plus, it was embarrassing to admit she only had basic wind-calling.

“Wind calling, first level, and a matrilineal growth spell for a specific subspecies of Dogwood.”

“Ah,” he said, as if she’d just told him something he’d expected. “They are different, then.”

He released her arm and moved forward.

She waited. When he didn’t continue, she slid her gaze briefly toward the ceiling and, putting a false sweetness into every syllable, started after him. “And this is important how, exactly?”

“Calling spells require connection. The other spells do not.” He looked back, a perfect eyebrow rising back at her. “If you want to call on Kodanh’s power, you need access to the fey world. Now that it is shut, you have to wait for the gate to open.”

Understanding dawned. Her mouth opened, brain working to process it.

That light on the mountain, the shock wave of magic—it had been gate flare.

Somewhere in this mountain was a world gate.

That’s why she’d made the sudden connection to Kodanh. And why his power had vanished with the fading light. And that was also why Caracel had been so concerned about his priestess’s gate-maintenance ability.

She’d thought it an odd comment at the time, but now, it made sense—Grobitzsnak had a gate in his basement, and he could use the priestess to work it.

And the relocation of the demon fortress suddenly made a lot more sense. It sat right where Ulchris used to be.

The two had likely just changed places.

Why they would do that was beyond her. She had only the basest recollection of gates.

But it did, at least, explain some of her magic. Spells that relied solely on this world were fine. Anything that relied on a connection to the fey world was out—until someone opened the gate.

She couldn’t rely on Kodanh.

“Thank you,” she said. “That is useful to know.”

He gave a nod and continued on, moving like a ghost.

Hearing Doneil and Matteo catch up around the corner, she tossed her light stick back for them to use—Doneil caught it with a swear, as she knew he would—and resumed picking her way up the increasingly jagged and awkward path.

The soft, eerie glow turned into a bridgeway bearing the ruins of an old road. She hesitated when her fingers hit the top. She’d expected crude paving stones, but the quality and ornamentation of the path surprised her. A thick, woven pattern was engraved deep on the inside ledge of the bridgeway, cracked and chipped by age and wear, along with several others next to a broken support column that had fallen across a caved-in door that cut off access toward the left, and several carved statues snarled out from an alcove in the wall, bristling with stone weapons. She eyed them, noting the intricacy of the work.

She climbed up slowly, casting a wary eye down the new pathway.

Nales’ words from earlier came to mind.

‘Demons aren’t just evil, mindless thugs, Catrin. They are a multifaceted series of races with their own minds, ideas, and structures.’

She’d been wrong to think of demons as simple, evil things. Whatever ignorance had led her to that line of thinking had done her a disservice, one she was now paying for.

The Cizeks had subjugated her entire kingdom, rnari and all, with a demonic sword. She’d assumed it was raw power that had brought the surrender, but, logically, one would need more than simple power to craft a weapon like that, and a lot more than a normal level craftsmanship to lock its use into a bloodline.

Temdin, she was out of her depths here.

As Matteo and Doneil scrambled up next to her, Doneil helping the human up the straight, slippery slope, she crept away, drawing a blade. She gave the shadowy, arched ceiling a suspicious look, more than a little reminded of the arched ceiling in the terrace at Pemberlin, then turned her attention to the walls, where a series of deeply-etched stone reliefs faced the statuary nooks on the opposite side.

The first clusters of crystals lay embedded in a carved stone frame about shoulder height on the wall. Reliefs of guardian statues and script work shaped the wall under them, much of the lettering bearing enough of a resemblance to the mercari adorning both her skin and armor that a small jolt ran through her and she had to do a double-take.

She stepped back with a frown and took in the rest of the hallway. “Is this fey?”

It sure looked it. Old fey, perhaps, but definitely fey. Never mind that she recognized the script as rentac, the demon language—the way it was carved here, and the way the stones were put together, had a definite fey influence.

Caracel didn’t immediately answer. When she peered up, her heart stopped.

Gods, he looked like a deity—perfectly balanced and composed, his body lean with muscle under the perfect fit of his armor, the mercari embedded into it catching the light with a quicksilver gleam. The air seemed to shape around him, the way it did with the Raidt’s more-powerful magic users.

For one long second, their eyes met.

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze sliding along the wall. He didn’t tense, exactly, but he certainly wasn’t relaxed. The carvings discomforted him as much as they did her. When he spoke, she detected a slight strain to his voice.

“Yes. You are correct. It does resemble old fey relics. Pre-rending.”

Ah. Score one for the elf. She let herself relax again. Pre-rending, if she remembered her history correctly, was before the purported world split, when the four realms—fey, demon, goblin, and Gaia—synchronized as one.

She’d thought it a fictional telling, but she was beginning to question that.

Four worlds, one path. That was the fey belief.

But that was history. Ancient history.

The worlds didn’t work like that anymore.

Of course, given what she’d seen in the forest, and with this place, it seemed as though they might have all crashed back together—and left the fey out of it.

Was that the demons’ motivation? To overcorrect a long-lost power imbalance, except in their favor?

One thing was for sure—this was bigger than the Cizeks. Bigger than the Raidt, too.

She shifted, moving farther along, a hand tracing over the carvings in the walls. The rentac was illegible to her, but its form preyed on her senses with its familiarity, the designs looking like a close cousin to the mercari runes that made her armor.

She shook her head, detaching the thought. Now was not the time to wonder. She had a job to do. And a lot of demons to get through in order to do it.

“We should hurry.” She grimaced, wincing at the way her woodcraft slid and split in her mind. For a second, the scent of rot and sulfur intensified, almost overwhelming her senses. “With that racket at the entrance, they’ll definitely know where we are. Doneil, could you…”

She stopped, frowning. There was a new sound above her, a rippling noise, like leather on paper. She whirled, hands racing to her blades and head snapping up.

Something big and flapping fell on her.

“Look out!” Caracel shouted, drawing his sword.

Skin and bone engulfed her in a tight wrap. She jerked back, shoved an arm up, blocking the jaws that snapped close to her neck. A sharp claw scratched over the pauldron next to her throat, slashing down and over, catching on her chestplate. She stumbled into the wall with a yell, eyes stinging as the scent of rot and sulfur and stinking hair smothered her face. A thick, rough membrane pressed into her elbow, tendons flexing as the demon screeched.

Then, Caracel was there.

A cut with his sword sliced a wound in its wing membrane. Light appeared. It flinched back. He slashed it on the second swipe, his blade cutting a neat slice through its front left leg, movements quick and snappish, like a striking cobra.

She shoved hard and threw the thing off her. It ripped away from her and slammed into the opposite wall. Caracel chased it, slashing at it with his sword.

She stumbled against the carved relief, gulping in air, heat flooding her as she recognized the demon, its spindly legs and coarse, wiry hair a neat replica of the one she and Nales had fought on the terrace at Abiermar.

Temi demon. Second Circle. Venom barb on its tail.

Her eyes tracked up, finding its distorted, bat-like mouth, the rows of teeth that flashed in the green light. The scent of blood rose in her memory. Then, anger. Her body began to shake.

Before she could recognize what she was doing, she was moving.

Caracel made a small noise of surprise as she roared past him. Her blades cut hard into the demon’s torso, one sinking up to the hilt. She dragged on it. The demon bucked and twisted. Its scream pierced her ears like a train whistle. Blood poured over her hands, slicking her fingers. Spatter sprayed over her face.

It tried to buck her, jerk her to the side. She resisted the motion, felt Caracel try to parry behind her, heard him yelling something. Above her, the demon’s slashed and bloodied wings flared, as if it could fly away.

She screamed and shoved it against the wall.

Finally, Caracel found a way in.

His sword arced through the air and found the demon’s neck. Its shriek cut off with a gurgle. Its head rolled forward, thudded wetly down her back armor, and hit the ground.

Suddenly, everything went limp.

She jerked her blades out as the demon fell.

The tunnel grew quiet. All that moved was her and Caracel, breathing hard next to each other, the scent of blood and adrenaline thick in the air.

The demon lay in a crumpled heap in front of them, limbs bent and awkward like a dead spider. Its head sat a yard to her right, the snarling maw relaxed in death.

Slowly, she stepped away. A glance to the side took in Caracel’s concentrated face. In the green glow, his black eyes gleamed, partly reflecting the demon kill.

Farther back, Doneil and Matteo were openly gawking. The light on Matteo’s gun had flared to life again, though he kept it pointed at the ground. Doneil had half-drawn one blade, his stance clearly having stopped himself from leaping into battle.

“Stars, Catrin. Do you need to work off some anger?”

“Always,” she said. She attempted to wipe her blades off on her armored thigh and grimaced when it only smeared on the blood and dirt already there. She shoved them back into the sheaths, making a mental note to unsheathe them before it dried too much. She wiped her hands off on the nearest rock face, then picked up a jog. “We’re moving fast, right? Let’s go.”

Chapter 21

The road continued on for close to a Janessi mile, dim and old, the cracked and broken stonework occasionally slick under her feet, before it began to narrow. As the blood dried cold on her skin, she kept an eye on the ceilings, trusting the jangling bob and weave of her woodcraft even less than she had before.

They paused when the stamp and rustle of activity came to them on the path ahead. Silently, she held still for Caracel to re-cast his glamour spell. Then, she drew her blades—wincing as they stuck briefly in their dirty sheaths, and stole out into the castle proper.

Her stomach did a flip when they stepped out. She swallowed hard, casting a quick series of glances around her.

They were in.

The interior of the castle was a mix of worn flagstone and weathered stonework. Whoever had built it had clearly taken advantage of the mountain’s natural caves and tunnels. Unlike the straight-edged walls of most castles, this one swayed and twisted like a snake’s tail. Slabs of heavy stone hemmed the corridor in a fine, smooth masonry that looked as though it had been repaired once or twice. Crystals glowed from small alcoves, casting half-circles of white light every twenty feet.

As she looked to both directions of the corridor, she fought the sudden, clawing urge to panic.

Gods, we don’t even know where we’re going. This place takes up an entire mountain.

Fortunately, Caracel didn’t share her doubts. After a quick glance in both directions, he turned to the right.

They picked up a quick, quiet jog.

Not two minutes later, a large squad of demons ran past.

She flattened herself to the wall close to Doneil, heart leaping into her throat. The entire squad was deadly silent, and when they drew closer, she saw why. Though surprisingly humanoid faces peeked out from under steel and leather helms, the silver-tinged eyes held a vacant, cloudy focus, and the once rich brown skin had darkened into a sick, ashy color, spider-webbed through with black veins.

The undead.

She clamped her mouth shut, not daring to breathe. The closest ones ran by less than a foot away. Close enough to touch.

When they passed, she was shaking.

She caught her breath in slow, shivery gulps, peeking down the corridor where they disappeared.

They were heading right where she and the rest of the group had just come from.

Too close. That was too close.

The halls turned from weathered, tan-colored stone to a cleaner-cut stone carved in a different manner. Sometimes, the mountain’s natural caveform slid in; at other times, an older style surfaced, similar in age and texture to the old road they’d traveled earlier, though better lit. The crystals continued, some cracked and broken, their light decaying, others obviously repaired or replaced.

They wandered for close to an hour, tense and wary, Catrin never laying down her blades. The smell of sulfur clogged her nose, and her woodcraft had turned into a dull, pulsing headache. Tension tore a line through the back of her neck.

Then, when the despair had clawed its way up and lay choking in her throat, they found something new.

An intersection opened up, grander and more severe than the rest. Her attention snagged on a polished balustrade that curved elegantly into the space, and the clean, polished tile that lined the wall going up in a simple pattern. Crystal lights, larger and more exquisitely carved than the ones they’d previously passed, their patterns resembling sea shells, glowed with the soft white of moon-quartz, embedded in diamond-cut frames of obsidian. A lush carpet covered the center of the stairway in a deep burgundy color, reminding her of wine. Or blood.

She stopped at its bottom, staring up. Though the scent of sulfur permeated nearly everything in the castle, it smelled lighter up the stairs. Her gaze slipped up the slope of the stairway. Above, where the second flight switched back to connect with the next floor, a stronger version of the walls’ crystal lighting shivered and danced across the tile of the upper floor, visible through the gaps in the balustrade’s carved support spindles.

This light, though, had a different feel to it. Thick and energetic, like a storm pulse.

“There’s something in there.”

Behind her, Caracel’s voice was soft, awed. At first, she thought he was talking about the light, but his words didn’t make sense, and his voice was more distant than she expected.

She turned, and her body gave a start when she saw what had caught his attention.

Suns, I need to pay more attention to my surroundings.

The door was huge, standing what would have been two stories tall on a normal building if the castle’s ceiling hadn’t been so high, and absolutely covered in rentac script. Writing in paper and metalwork, stone and wood—hells, even carved into the threshold of the door—took up every clean nook and cranny, some looking as old and formal as the script they’d found on the ruins earlier, with other, newer ones seemingly tacked on as an afterthought.

One of them, a piece of thick paper with script that appeared to be written in demonic blood, by its dark, rust-tinted coloring, had been affixed just above the door’s handles, seemed to be significantly newer than the rest. It was bigger than many of the others, and nailed in place.

Several cracks were visible in the wood, as if whatever it was protecting from had already started to break through.

A heavy frown took over Caracel’s face.

“There’s something in there,” he said again, his words hushed and quick. “Can you feel it?”

Looking at Doneil’s face, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The elf stood more than six paces from Caracel’s back and had the look of a man who had just heard a dire wolf growl on the other side of his bedroom door.

She grimaced, braced herself, and slid her mind into the throbbing, painful world of her woodcraft.

For a second, everything was as she remembered it. The world slid and shivered together as if drunk—like her mind was a boat crashing repeatedly into the rocks with every swell.

But, as she struggled to detangle the sensations her woodcraft was reading, her attention caught on something in the near distance. A lump of energy, similar to how a fire would appear in a forest. A big fire, honed like a dwarven forge.

Then, it sensed her.

A head shot up, turned in her direction. Blazing eyes crashed into her mind.

Shards of pain drove through her head. She let out a throaty hiss as a line of fire sank in and traced the ink of Kodanh’s runes, its energy scratching like a thousand tiny claws. A huge presence reared in her mind—she caught a glimpse of feathers, and talons like an eagle’s. A large, sharp, carnivorous bill. Eyes a solid gold, flecked with blood.

She cut the connection with a throaty swear, switching back into her specific mother dialect for it.

Doneil’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “Damn, Cat, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

She ground her teeth, wincing at the echo of pain that flashed through her skull. “What in the ten hells was that?”

Concern lined his face. His eyes slid up across the door, once again taking in its scripts and writing. “I do not know. It didn’t call to me. What did you see?”

“Something big and angry with sharp claws.” She winced, rubbing her head. “I suggest we avoid it.”

With a small shake to rid her head of the leftover ache, she glanced back to check on Matteo. His expression had turned to concern. He gave her a once-over, clearly worried.

She shook her head again, this time following it up with a dismissive gesture from her hand. She stopped it mid-air when she noticed the amount of blood and dirt that still covered it.

Gods, she was disgusting. She felt it on her, like a layer of vomit. She must look like an absolute nightmare—like one of the bog-ghasts in old Death Veil stories.

Given the situation, her appearance was probably an advantage. The next time she got into a fight with a demon, she’d be coming at them covered in blood and death, wielding spelled blades that were just as bloody.

Her lips twitched at the thought, the dry humor finally getting to her.

If there weren’t so much at stake, she might have enjoyed this castle raid.

“I vote we go up,” she said. “We’ve found nothing so far. That—” She gestured to the carpeted stairs, gleaming tile, and the light that danced on the wall above, “—looks more promising.”

Caracel considered it.

“I don’t know,” Doneil said slowly. “Castles usually keep their torture chambers in the lower parts, in my experience.”

“Toured a few of them, have you?” Her voice dipped, sarcasm laced in her dry tone. “This isn’t a normal castle.”

“Only the ones in people’s bedrooms, Catrin.” Doneil’s lips twitched up at the corners with some thought before his voice took on a more somber tone. “It depends on what they’re into, I suppose.”

At first, she didn’t get it. She frowned, parsing the words and reading the ghost of a smile on his face.

Then, it clicked.

“Was that a sex reference? Temdin’s holy ass, why?”

To her surprise, Caracel let out a chuckle. She looked his way, and her grimace froze in disbelief. For the first time, a smile graced his lips, elegant and thin, and his eyes held a wry, tired humor.

She felt a little something in her break.

They were on an important mission, deep in enemy territory, a joint rnari-Fey-Cizek mission of unprecedented account, rescuing royalty—

And Caracel was going to remember them for sex jokes.

She allowed her eyes to flutter closed.

Elrya save me. Do men ever think about anything other than their own dicks?

A door thumped closed up the stairs. Voices came from above. She froze, attention focused on them.

After a moment, they passed.

It wasn’t much, but it sounded more promising than the squads of undead soldiers they’d seen thus far.

Though Caracel’s expression was far from confident, frozen in a grimace, he seemed to agree.

“All right, let’s try it. Normally, torture dungeons are in the lower reaches of the castle, but I think we are better to look upstairs for our people—they are valuable, after all. Additionally, it’ll give us a better idea of castle layout.”

She doubted that last part—thus far, the castle had been anything but logical in its layout, clearly a result of several ages of construction and the mountain’s own, twisting layout, and she didn’t expect that to change when they went upstairs—but it was different up there, and more richly decorated, and that was enough for her.

Nales, you better be alive after all this.

As they crept up the stairs, pace wary, footsteps muffled against the thick carpet, that storm-like energy pulsed in the air again. About mid-way up, Caracel must have noticed it, too. He stiffened and twisted, his entire manner shifting to locate the source.

Then, the largest crystal Catrin had ever seen came into view.

It was the size of a pony cart and floated gently in the air over a small, rippling pool, rough cut with three chunks of crystal reaching out like thick, twinned tree trunks. Its top ended in a series of craggy points that reminded her of the spiky ends of Grobitzsnak’s antlers.

An unearthly glow shivered within it, light dancing and darting like a silent storm. Each shift and movement hit her skin like a physical sensation, its power buzzing like electricity.

Everyone stopped when they saw it. For several long seconds, they didn’t move, wide-eyed and focused on the crystal.

Then, when the seconds passed and nothing happened, they began to move again.

She let go of the breath she’d been holding and shifted into analytical mode.

Okay, what in the bright fuck is this?

It wasn’t demonic. There was no scent of sulfur—only a slight touch of ozone, as if someone had bottled the business end of a thunderstorm.

The stairs opened up into a massive passageway. The crystal took up the first in what was either a series of tall, interconnected rooms or a massive, segmented hallway. A second crystal was visible at the far end, just as large and floating over a similar pool of…

Catrin did a double take.

That was not water. It was too thick and opaque. Metallic. Mercury, perhaps? No, it felt different—just as the crystal felt different from the lights embedded in the walls.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant as a light source. The touch of its energy was enough to tell that much.

She exchanged a long glance with Caracel. By the expression on his face, he was having similar thoughts.

He tilted his head up the hallway, indicating a direction to the left, and she nodded.

They moved on.

Up here, the halls were quieter. Less echo-y. As if the stone absorbed all the noise. Her tension ramped up, the grip on her hilts hard enough to make her muscles ache. They found one room that looked like a guardroom. It stood empty, but the smell of sweat and sulfur was more prominent, and there were racks of weapons on the walls along with a few provisions hung in sacks over a small counter. A half-dozen simple wooden chairs formed a casual circle, with others near sharpening and cleaning stations. A lavatory followed, the stench obvious. The castle had interior plumbing, though, and a washbasin cut into the stone wall.

Several more doors were locked, but one opened into another weapons cache.

At the far end, past a room of barracks, they found a torture chamber.

They ducked in as the noise of tramping feet came from ahead of them. Caracel closed the door before any of the demons or undead made it around the corner.

When they passed, Catrin sank into the room and blew out a noisy breath, pushing a hand into her braids. “Fuck.”

“Well, we found a torture chamber, at least,” Doneil said speculatively.

She heard more than saw his gaze wander around the room, a few soft footsteps sounding behind her. Ahead of her, Matteo was taking in the room with a shuttered expression, his body as tense as a bridge wire. His jaw muscles clenched hard, rippling in his cheeks.

Gosh, we take foreigners to the nicest places.

She wondered if he was regretting coming along with them.

Probably. She was regretting it.

But, if she hadn’t come, she would have been chewing herself up with guilt.

She forced herself to breathe.

They were still alive. They hadn’t been captured yet. So far, except for the time with the gate flare, Caracel’s glamour was holding.

They could do this. In and out. That’s all they needed. They could figure out the rest after.

She breathed out another long breath, straightened up, and looked around.

It was a larger room, and definitely in an older style. The smooth, straight stonework of the hall ended past the threshold, replaced with a weathered brickwork that matched some older chambers they’d found downstairs. Cages of varying sizes decorated the room, including three hanging from ropes and chains that she recognized from the Raidt’s own facilities—older torture cages, meant to dangle above fire, or above a crowd, from back when the regime had employed cruder methods.

Last she’d heard one used was when one rnari trainee had locked another trainee into one as a dare. How she’d managed to get him to go inside in the first place, she often wondered—but then, men did become occasionally stupid around women, and she knew of at least one other upper-Circle who liked to talk men into doing things against their better judgment.

But, as she looked around this room, one thing kept nagging at the back of her mind.

“Is it just me,” she asked. “Or does everything seem... outdated?”

“It’s not just you.” A frown covered Doneil’s face. “It is outdated. Even humans are using better torture methods nowadays. Electricity and whatnot. And there’s no… smell.”

He was right. In a torture chamber, one expected to encounter certain smells—the activity wasn’t precisely clean. Even if it hadn’t been used in a while, something should have lingered.

Here, all she could smell was cold and dampness, and a bit of must and mold.

Rust flaked off onto her hand when she touched one of the bars. A loose cobweb had broken free and entwined around the lock. She picked at it, squishing it between her thumb and forefinger.

No, this place hadn’t been used in a very long time.

Reality hit her again, all at once. Her mind crumpled inward, emotion bubbling deep in her chest. Slowly, she closed her fist, staring hard as the knuckles turned white under the blood and dirt.

A normal castle would take time to search. If she’d been on her own, or with a few other rnari, they could scour a castle like Pemberlin in an hour, if they were careful.

But this castle wasn’t like Pemberlin. This castle was a literal mountain. And they’d already been here an hour.

It would be next to impossible to find Nales on their own—not unless they got lucky.

The rnari didn’t believe in luck.

“We should capture a demon,” she said. “We need to get information.”

Caracel shifted. As usual, his face was a mask, but it seemed harder than normal. Like her, he was worried about his charge. She could see the tension eating away at his edges, the same way it ate away at her own.

He shifted again, this time rolling his shoulders. She could see the thoughts weighing in his mind.

“I agree,” he said, finally. He hesitated, a heavy frown on his face. “One of the human-like ones.”

She chewed on her tongue, thinking. “Can you speak rentac?”

The skin on his nose curled in disdain. “No.”

Great. Even if they did successfully capture a demon and they were willing to talk, they wouldn’t be able to communicate with them.

For a moment, the impossibility spiraled around her. She closed her eyes for a moment, tamped it down, and turned the spin of her mind into a grimace.

She drew her blades and headed for the door. “Hope they’re bilingual.”

She led this time. The others fell into step behind her. She heard the soft thud of the door closing. The light from the next hallway flickered, the crystal light quiet and bright, casting white off the stones.

She stepped into the next hall, turned, and stopped dead.

Grobitzsnak stood not ten feet from her, and Prince Nales lay crumpled at his feet.

Chapter 22

Everything came crashing to a halt. Her blood froze to ice. A dull roar rose in her ears.

She barely dared to breathe.

If he’d been tall in the forest, he was enormous in the hall. Eleven feet at least, and solid. He towered with his presence, broad-shouldered and with a thick body of hard muscle. The thin moonlight might have hidden his form before, but here, he was stark, strong, and obvious. When he spoke, a pair of canine teeth became visible—long and curved, like a lion’s. His voice made the air shake with power.

Blind panic clawed at her chest.

Grobitzsnak wasn’t alone in the hall. Another demon stood close by, a humanoid like the others she’d seen. His armor was different, more fitted and elegant, heavier in design and a deep black that shimmered under the light like carved charcoal. Rentac script decorated its curves, a filigree inked in bronze. Rich brown skin showed between the gaps.

Not one of Grobitzsnak’s undead legions.

Her gaze slid down to Nales, crumpled on the floor between them.

Seconds stretched.

His chest rose and fell softly.

Relief surged through her.

He was alive.

She could work with that.

The greater demon finished speaking. His tone still made the air tremble, an aftereffect of his power. Gods, how had she missed him? Even casual, the strength he held bat at the air like a visceral presence. If she hadn’t shut off her woodcraft, she would have felt him coming from a mile away—dark and shivering, like a perpetual, shifting thunderhead.

But then, he’d done that before, back in the forest.

She hadn’t felt him coming at all.

The other demon spoke again, a question, and Grobitzsnak made a dismissive gesture, clawed fingers catching in the light like beetle shells. When he spoke next, the words were sharper, louder. An order.

He walked away.

The other demon watched him go. Then his gaze fell to Nales on the floor.

His lips peeled back, revealing long, thick canine teeth, and he spat out a word. A snarl came from deep in his throat, and he slammed a savage kick into Nales’ gut.

Nales saw it coming, his arms jerking down to defend himself, but the power of it knocked him back. A sharp cry came from his lips as he thudded into the wall.

Catrin’s muscles tensed. Fear and panic slammed through her, the urge to leap out and attack overpowering. Only the memory of Grobitzsnak stayed her body.

He was too powerful, and still too close. Less than a minute up the hall. Easy enough for him to turn around and discover them.

And then, she would have zero chance of getting Nales out.

The slap of wet meat being hit continued. Each blow made her flinch.

She gritted her teeth and gripped her blades tighter.

After a half-minute, the beating stopped.

The prince lay in another crumpled heap, looking worse than he had before. His breath rasped through split lips. Fresh blood dotted the ground. The demon stepped back, pausing as if to survey his handiwork.

Then, with a guttural oath, he bent down, took hold of one of Nales’ legs, and began to drag him.

Toward them.

Her heart raced. Slowly, she stepped back around the corner, her movements utterly silent. She held a hand out for the others, three fingers splayed away from her blade’s hilt in a signal, but she needn’t have bothered—every one of them had heard the voice, read the tension in her body language.

She gave a silent thanks to the gods that Caracel’s glamour had held.

As Nales and the demon approached, Caracel’s hand curled around her bicep. She didn’t flinch when he leaned in close to her ear.

“We need him to show us where they are keeping people,” he murmured, his tone soft. “Do not attack them. Not yet.”

Her grip tightened on her blades, but she held her ground. Nales’ breath hitched with pain as he slid by. He shifted weakly on the floor, curled and tense. The scent of blood and stomach acid came to her. He had thrown up at least once, probably from a previous kick to the gut. Her entire body trembled with violence as the demon hauled him past, taut as a bowstring.

After they’d passed, Caracel’s fingers left her arm. Silent as a ghost, she rose to her feet and followed.

The demon dragged Nales through the halls. Twice more, he stopped to give Nales another kick, or to spit in his face, but the attempts were more half-hearted—going through the motions rather than dedicated to genuine pain.

They passed another floating crystal, its power dancing across her skin, the liquid shivering underneath it. A brief moisture touched her nose, then the metallic scent of blood. She let go of a breath and decided not to think too hard about the contents of the liquid and followed the demon down the stairs. Nales cried out and curled up as he bumped down, attempting to soften the blows with his arms. One, she thought, was definitely broken.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of dragging, they came to a large, circular door.

Despite being in the older underbelly of the castle, the door itself looked newer. She perked up as she analyzed its surface, finding more and more hints of a new installation, and none of the crude, rusted wrought iron she’d found in other parts of the castle.

The demon pulled the door wide and dragged Nales through. She ran to catch up, she and the rest of their small group slipping through before it shut.

Inside, the room was full of cages and torture devices, both old and new. A quick glance around at the grisly objects told her everything she needed to know about the place.

This is where they would be keeping him.

The demon dragged Nales to a cage—a relatively large and generous one, she thought, until she noticed that it was attached to a large door on the wall with heavy scratches gouged into its threshold. Likely a place they set wild animals loose on prisoners.

Yeah, no. That was not going to happen. Not on her watch. Not with her blades so ready and eager.

She parted herself from the group without a word, a silent, deadly urge running through her. The demon opened the door with a squeak, tossed Nales in like a rag-doll, and closed it again.

When he was busy locking the cage, she lunged into the attack.

The demon must have sensed something, because he turned a half-second before, but she still slammed him into the cage bars. He yelled, twisted under her grip, and she shoved him, keeping him off balance, chasing him along the outside of the cage.

With a buzz, Caracel’s glamour snapped from her skin.

The demon’s eyes widened, taking her in.

A deep, primal part of her reveled in the fear her blood-mangled appearance caused him.

She shoved him again, slammed a kick into his left side. He blocked but still got knocked against the cage bars once more, and she took a moment to examine him.

He was softer than she’d expected, and more humanoid. Silver eyes stared up at her from a dark brown face, giving him the look of an elf—until one noticed that he stank of sulfur and the tattoos that ran down his cheek were in rentac, not mercari.

He struck out at her after a few seconds’ scramble, gripping her arm above the elbow. A smile tucked the edge of her mouth.

She shoved him once, twice. Turned away a strike aimed for her face and smashed her hilt toward his nose. He blocked it at the last second. She let him get a hand on her elbow, tug her into a lock.

She spun and dropped, throwing him several paces away to where the rest of the group was waiting.

Caracel was on him in a heartbeat.

He roared, his sword stabbing down like lightning. The demon dodged it once, but not twice. Caracel’s sword skewered his shoulder, and a scream split the air.

It cut off with a wet smack when Caracel kicked his face.

Caracel straightened, shaking with fury. Behind him, Doneil and Matteo stood by the wall in stunned silence. Both had drawn weapons, though they weren’t now needed.

“I’ll just stand here, then,” Doneil called over. “Being pretty.”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s best to play to your strengths.”

A wheeze of breath and a rustle of cloth made her turn. Nales had pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, his entire body hitched to one side. His bloodied gaze watched her, tense and wary. Sizing her up.

She walked over to the cage, looped an arm through the bars in the cage door, and gave him a glance-over.

“So,” she said after a few seconds. “Your deal fell through.”

He swallowed. “The Great Lord Grobitzsnak decided I was being less than honest.”

“He should have expected that the moment you told him you were a Cizek.”

He looked at her again. A small part of her gained a large amount of satisfaction from his hesitation as he, once again, took in the astonishing amount of blood that covered her. Some of it lay so thick in places that it was beginning to move in one piece.

Behind her, the skewered demon made a gurgling sound. Caracel was bent over it, doing something.

“So,” Nales said, hesitant. “Are you here to kill me, or rescue me?”

“That depends.” She leaned closer and dropped her tone. Her accent thickened around the Janessi syllables, turning them guttural. “What, precisely, did you tell the demon back in the forest?”

“It was a repeat of what I’d said to him in Janessi,” Nales said. “I told him I could get the sword, and that Pristav Castle was easy to capture.”

She waited. “And?”

“And a few other things to sweeten the pot.”

“Such as?”

“Passcodes to the armory, locations of weapons caches, updated maps and customs.” He grimaced. “He only half-listened. His only focus was on the sword. He asked for a location tattoo and a blood service.”

Ah. That made sense. A blood service contract was the magical equivalent to slavery. If one disobeyed the contract holder, they had a direct line of punishment. It was unavoidable, and lasted for one’s entire lifetime. Though common among demonic tales, only the old houses in Gaia still used them—mostly to stop family secrets from spreading.

Grobitzsnak couldn’t wield Andalai himself, but he could make a puppet out of someone who could.

Prince Nales, however, had to agree to it.

Her gaze slid over his varying cuts and bruises. “Let me guess—you said ‘no.’”

“I said no.”

“And he decided to work you over until you did.”

“Yes. Something about letting me dwell in my own despair and humiliating me until I wasn’t even a shadow of my former self.” He winced. “He offered to pass me around for his army’s gratification, including the undead.”

Catrin went very still. Old, deep anger stirred in her. She felt two sets of stares bore into her shoulders. Doneil and Matteo, waiting by the wall in silence.

After a moment, her gaze slipped back up to Nales.

“Would you like me to kill him?” she asked.

The words hung in the air, the offer like a knife. She held his stare.

A second ticked by. Then another.

When he didn’t answer, she let it go.

“What about the kiss?” she asked.

Behind her, Doneil started. “Kiss?”

Nales winced, the seriousness from a moment earlier broken. “I’m sorry about that. I had to get you away somehow. You were dispensable, otherwise.”

Her stomach churned at that reminder, but she pushed the feeling down. Her eyebrows arched upward. “And he believed in that? In love?”

“No.” Nales hesitated. “He believes in possession and control.”

Her jaws tightened.

By his tone, he did not mean the magical kind. He meant physical. Good, old-fashioned subjugation.

Her back molars ground together. Briefly, the image of Tarris’ eyes came to her, liquid jade in the torchlight.

That hadn’t been about love, either.

We’re done here. With a rigid stance, she straightened and pulled the cage door open. Metal screeched.

“Doneil,” she called. “Your turn.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He was already brushing her out of the way, helping Nales out of the cage. She heard him hiss. “A kiss, Nales? Temdin, no wonder she wanted to kill you.”

Healing magic stirred. She turned away. Caracel stood two paces from the wall, a dour look on his face. The demon lay slumped at his feet.

She eyed him. “He doesn’t know where your priestess is?”

He grunted. “Lost consciousness before I could ask.”

By his tone, the inconvenience frustrated him. She glanced around at the room, noting the other cages. “That’s unfortunate.”

He grunted again. She took it for a dismissal and slid her gaze elsewhere. Matteo had taken a defensive position against the wall, the light on his gun active. Like usual, a certain amount of concern and confusion highlighted his expression, but he’d pushed it into a concentrated mask.

He’d been impeccable on the infiltration, so far, which was incredible—considering everything, she doubted he had much of a clue as to what was going on. It was only yesterday that he’d discovered that magic existed. Had she been in his position, thrust suddenly into the company of foreign strangers, on a hastily-planned mission involving crazy amounts of magic and demons, unable to even understand the language, she doubted she would have handled it so well.

Likely, she would have stabbed someone.

She caught his attention with a wave, then turned the gesture into a slower wave like she’d seen Doneil do, tilting her head to get the meaning across.

How are you doing?

He let out a quick breath—was that a laugh? If so, she could feel the tension and black humor dripping off it—but he returned the gesture. At the end of it, he closed his fist and slid his thumb into an ‘up’ position.

She stared at it. She had no idea what that meant, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it right now.

We have got to find a way to communicate with him.

She glanced back to the fey, then down to the wounded demon on the floor, giving him a more thorough examination. The humanity in him surprised her. It wasn’t like looking at a troll, or at one of the goblin’s hill clan cousins where the line between savage and civil was a paper-thin cut—he was very obviously clean, sentient, and a high-ranking individual in whatever organization system these demons used for their army.

Even now, with the subtle difference baring themselves to her perusal—the cheekbones that jutted out a little too broadly, the thicker bones of his wrist, the slight upturn of the ridge above his eye—he could still pass for an elf. If one dressed him in different clothes and stuck him on the edge of the Raidt, she would have assumed he was a hybrid.

Only the rentac script tattooed on his face, and the slight scent of sulfur in his blood, gave him away.

Something to ask Nales about.

Actually, she had quite a lot of somethings to ask him about.

Her gaze slid up to where Doneil was still healing the prince. His skin had regained some of its color, and he looked to be bleeding less. Bruises still marked his face, but they faded as she watched. A few smears of dirt traced through his hair, and it fell in messy, jagged locks across his brow.

His eyes, though…

Doneil had slipped into silence as he worked, and the prince’s stare focused on a point midway between him and a blank part of the wall across the room, his brow making a deep, contemplative furrow.

Shit. She knew that expression. He was planning something.

Abruptly, that faraway look focused and looked to her. “Could you kill him?”

She opened her mouth. It was a simple question, but a complicated answer.

“No, not likely,” she said. “He’s too powerful.

“Then why offer?”

“Because the rnari upper levels are a notoriously crazy and suicidal lot,” Doneil grunted. The healing magic still worked, outlining his face. Nales had been a lot more injured than she’d first thought. “She might be able to kill him, but it would take weeks of skulking about in this place, memorizing routines and patrol routes, dodging magic, blending in, until she found a way to sneak into his bedchamber and knife him in his sleep.”

Doneil paused. A frown cut down through his face. Likely, he was following the same lines of thought she had just gone down.

His eyes narrowed on Nales, suspicious. “Why ask?”

Nales straightened, rubbing a patch of skin on his arm that was still sticky with his own blood.

“The demon has the destruction orb of Cnixe, one of the Seven. It’s how he can corrupt the ley lines.”

Caracel swore, his lips curling back from his teeth in distaste. “Truly?”

Her jaws tightened. She knew precisely where Nales was going with this.

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not. We are getting you out of here. You can summon your forces and deal with the demon and his power orb after.”

“Er…” Doneil lifted his hand, a puzzled expression on his face. “What is the destruction orb of Cnixe?”

She glanced to Caracel. When he didn’t make a move to explain, she went ahead. “The Seven were once part of the divine energies that made the worlds. After the Sundering, they supposedly collapsed unto themselves, forming seven orbs of immense power. Three of them, Yinilli, V’ithi, and Andro’t, serve in the highest fey temples. The other four, including Cnixe, were either destroyed or lost.”

It was an old story. She only knew it because she’d done a lot of research into specific mythologies, and the Seven happened to cross them.

“And it just resurfaced in the hands of the demon we’re up against?” Doneil’s expression twisted. “Lucky us.”

Indeed. Lucky them.

“We can’t.” She held up a finger when Nales made to interrupt her. “That’s not a won’t, that’s a can’t. We simply aren’t capable of what you ask right now.”

He could make her. They both knew it. He could invoke the Undersworn Pledge, and she would have to comply—or be killed for treason.

By the way his eyes calculated, he was thinking about it.

“We have other priorities right now. Magic orbs can wait.” She deliberately put a shoulder to him and addressed Caracel, gesturing to the demon on the floor. “Doneil can heal him, and Nales speaks rentac. If this demon knows where she is, we’ll find her.”

The fey eyed her. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll find another demon who does.” She stretched her neck. Her body still felt strong, but the urge to commit violence had slowed, and the tiredness was catching up to her—a sign the rnari tonic was starting to turn from its peak.

“It’s our only option,” she said when she was finished. “This place is too big. We can’t get lucky twice.”

She’d barely finished the sentence when a door at the far end of the chamber scraped open.

Volaon stepped in. Then Jorire. Their attention snapped across the hall, black eyes training on Caracel. Behind them, the other two heartsworn entered, a small, delicate figure trapped between them.

The priestess.

Chapter 23

“Guess you don’t need that demon, after all.”

Catrin unsheathed her blades. Behind her, Caracel jerked his sword out of the demon’s shoulder. A slicing gurgle followed as he slashed through the fallen demon’s unconscious throat. Metal rang on the ground as Nales picked up the demon’s former sword.

She strode forward. “Matteo! Look sharp!”

He wouldn’t understand her, but the situation was pretty obvious—one hostage, five hostiles to kill. None of the undead had cleaned themselves up, and they were all obviously… not right. Volaon himself had a new, nasty slash wound from sternum to shoulder, making his stance hitch slightly, but his movements remained smooth and strong.

She flipped the blades in her hands, adjusted her grip, and rolled her shoulders.

“Any magic I need to know about with them?” she asked Caracel.

On the other side of the room, the fey drew their weapons with a chorus of sliding metal and cloth.

“If they haven’t used it by now, it is no longer available to them. Fey are bound through life, not death.” He paused. “Death is the realm of demons.”

She looked sharply at him at that last sentence, her mind flipping back to the ruins they’d stumbled across earlier, and the fey belief of a more unified four-worlds in ancient times.

And to the apparent orb of Cnixe that actually existed.

Then, the battle began, and there was no more time.

Darts of red sizzled past her, Matteo’s aim sniping the first of the fey in the head before the rest of them clued in. The fey fell almost immediately, blood and brain matter exploding from the side of his skull.

In an eerie, shivery motion, the remaining fey swiveled their heads toward Matteo.

He didn’t stop firing, but the fey began defending. Arms came up, protecting their head with their bracers and the flesh of their forearms.

They sprinted for him in a silent rush.

Catrin cried out and made to intercept. Matteo kept firing, but began backing up very quickly.

Gods, how she wished for her magic.

Then Caracel did something, and the atmosphere shifted. Time slowed into a bubble. Ahead, the undead fey moved as if the air had turned to sludge. Matteo, by contrast, skipped backward. Red darts of light cracked into the thickened field, pulsating.

She got close to Jorire, dug her feet into the ground, and leapt.

Time sped up abruptly. Jorire spun and sliced her sword, and Catrin jerked down, driving her blades into the opening.

The fey’s body was stiff and hard. Cold. Her blades came back with thick, black blood. She staggered away, cut another slash into the back of the fey’s thigh.

Then, Nales was there.

The prince bowled into the undead fey. Steel clashed as Jorire blocked and snarled. Nales dodged, defended. Though his movements with the sword were balanced and trained, he rocked backward against the fey’s strength.

Catrin prowled around, waiting for an opening.

Beyond, Doneil intercepted the third. He and Matteo took the fey down together in a rush of flashing red lights and slicing blades. Caracel was fighting Volaon off to the side, a quick-step rush of slashing steel.

Jorire snarled, obliterated Nales’ guard with a downstroke, and sent him staggering back, chasing him.

Catrin rushed her from the flank and risked a leap. Jorire moved, but she twisted in mid-air. Both of her blades dug through the fey’s neck, and her momentum took them both in an awkward fall to the ground.

Her back thudded against the floor, the fey halfway on top of her and still moving. She dug her blades in a little harder and was rewarded when the body went limp.

She’d severed the spinal cord.

Good to know that works. With a grimace and a movement that was more a forceful nudge than a kick, she pushed the fey off her. A shadow moved to her back—Nales, sword in hand, protecting her until she stood. She rolled to her feet and surveyed the room.

Most of the other fey were down. Only Volaon still moved, clashing in a relentless battle against Caracel. She took a moment to view the dead, looking for signs of movement, then moved on.

The priestess had backed far against the wall, her eyes wary as Doneil jogged over to her. A large amount of dark blood splattered the left side of her neck, but after a moment’s glance, Catrin decided it wasn’t the priestess’ blood. Her former guard lay on the floor several paces away. Most of his head was gone, disintegrated in blackened chunks from Matteo’s shots, which explained the blood on the priestess’ neck. The guard had been standing right behind her.

Matteo was still across the room from her. He must have made the shot from there. A lot of shots, as evidenced by the guard’s burned and pock-marked body.

She decided to process that later. Her attention turned back to the fight.

It was clear that Volaon and Caracel had trained together for a long and dedicated time. Given the nature of the fey heartsworn, that was a must. Caracel parried and countered almost every one of Volaon’s strikes with a practiced memory.

But he wasn’t attacking. And he was losing stamina.

As she watched, Volaon almost got him. Caracel leapt back, the blade narrowly missing his gut.

She jerked forward, then stopped. Hesitating.

Then, magic tinged the air, sharp as metal. A voice whispered close to her ear.

“Kill him.”

Her head snapped around. Across the room, the fey priestess was staring at her. Their eyes locked. The scent of magic lifted again. She watched the priestess’ mouth move.

“Caracel is his heart-brother. He can’t do it.” The priestess’s gaze moved from her to the fight, a hard mix of grief and anger rippling through her expression. “Volaon li Naine is still in there, rnari, feeling his dead flesh move. Release him from this torture, and I can release his soul from this degradation. This is the role I give to you.”

A shiver ran down her spine, and she sucked in a breath. A fey priestess was as close to the gods as one could get, and this one had just given her an order.

For a second, she didn’t breathe.

Then, her jaws tightened.

She stepped forward.

Caracel broke off, breathing hard—another non-attack. Tension drew his face into a tight mask, and his body was shaking with more than just exertion.

Volaon lunged again, blade slipping up between them in a stabbing motion that had Caracel reeling off to the side to dodge. The prince pressed, and an angry clash of steel drove the fight toward her.

She ducked around Caracel’s shoulder, caught Volaon’s sword with her left blade, and jabbed her right to his neck.

He shoved the hilt of his weapon down and blocked her. She jerked her hand away when he made a grab for it.

Her mind flashed back to the moment she’d seen him in the forest. His silhouette in the trees. The way the moon and firelight gleamed off the blood and pale skin. His hair, messed up and disheveled. The quiet seconds before he’d attacked, before his cooling flesh had closed on her arm and she’d realized he was undead.

Seeing him in the light, everything appeared in stark, obvious detail.

The gore had congealed long ago, combined with an awful blackness that reminded her of demon blood. Scratches and scrapes marred his body, along with thicker, more serious wounds. Some, he’d clearly gotten before he’d died, because the blood had spilled over his skin and clothes and stuck there, but others were clearly posthumous—simple cuts without much blood at all, despite their deepness.

Dead muscles flexed underneath them, gray and rock-hard.

Whatever power reanimated him had no care for the limits of a mortal body—it simply used him like a parasite, threading through his dead limbs like a puppets’ strings. Already, parts of him were tearing from the excess strength he used, wounds ripping further instead of healing. The slash across his chest was black and revolting, giving off an odd, oily smell that held a tinge of rot and gouged deep enough to see the muscles flex. One of his arms was definitely fractured, but he still swung his sword with the strength of a bull.

The priestess’ words rang through her mind.

‘Volaon li Naine is still in there, rnari, feeling his dead flesh move.’

She stepped in and slammed the heel of her hand into his face.

He hadn’t expected it. He jerked and stumbled back. She ducked the sword slash, lunged forward, and caught his arm before the backswing. Her knives sliced straight for the back of his neck and chopped down hard.

His hair got in the way. Several chunks fell off, some sticking to the metal. The tip of her blade connected with the bone in a jagged crunch.

Volaon twisted. She jerked back and spun a slash into the back of his knee instead.

There was no indication of pain. She wasn’t even sure he could feel any—he was dead, after all. For several long seconds, the only clue that she’d managed to hit her target and sever the ligaments was a heavy hitch to the side.

Then, he tried to follow her, picked up his leg, and couldn’t set it down properly.

His lunge fell to the ground. She caught his sword arm and slashed deep at the underside of his wrist, cutting the tendons. The sword clattered to the ground, and she kicked it away.

A gravelly rumble came from deep in his throat. His body shuddered. Muscles and tendons pulled. She stepped away.

Prince Volaon li Naine rose to his feet, an angry snarl twisting his face. He stumbled toward her, arms going out, one leg useless underneath him. The fey’s canine teeth bared at her, his gray gums swollen and leaking dark blood.

She let him come, stepped into his dead embrace, and drove her left blade deep into his throat and through the spinal cord at the back.

He froze. Then, he went limp.

She jerked her knife out when he began to fall and slid back a pace, ready and wary. On the ground, Prince Volaon lay in a crumpled, limp heap. As if someone had folded him up and dropped him there. His eyes were half-open, a slip of their blackness peering out.

She didn’t know precisely how necromancy magic worked, but she had a feeling he was still in there. Trapped.

Magic peeled the air. The priestess stepped to her side as if she’d always been there. She seemed to almost glow, the white of her like an imprint on her mind, regardless of the blood and dirt that desecrated them. Instead of the other feys’ unmarred marble skin, a series of light blue tattoos ran down in lines from her face, neck, and arms. Others, in a faint light gold, threaded into the fabric of her gown.

Her presence seemed to make the air shudder when she moved.

“Thank you,” she said. “I will take it from here.”

This time, the words didn’t come in the eerie whisper she’d used before, but from her mouth, regularly.

She bent down next to Volaon’s side, and magic began to spin. A light incantation followed, too fast and lilting for her to follow.

Catrin stepped back, sheathing her blades, and almost ran into Caracel. His expression tense, he ducked around her, but not before she felt the denser spin of his own magic at work.

So, they were going to have a magic ritual for this, and likely for the other dead fey around them, too.

She’d leave them to it. She had a prince to argue with.

She made a beeline for Nales. “We’re leaving.”

His jaw tensed. “No. We need to get that orb.”

“We need to get you out.”

He still held the sword, she noticed. Her gaze slid over to the dead demon on the floor. They’d steal the scabbard on the way out.

Nales pinned her with a look, his eyes fierce. “Catrin, I don’t want to force you.”

“No,” she said. “You really don’t.”

She returned the look with calculation, narrowing her eyes. It wouldn’t be hard to knock him out. Dead easy, in fact—he was human, and she a Twelfth Circle rnari.

Doneil could carry him. That would leave Matteo free to use his firearm.

Nales probably wouldn’t forgive her. She didn’t care.

Doneil would back her. Probably.

He didn’t speak, just looked at her. She had a feeling he knew precisely what she had just considered.

She sighed. “It’s not a matter of won’t—we simply don’t have the manpower to go after it.”

He made a gesture to Matteo. “He gives us a boost.”

She grimaced. Yes, he and that gun were quite a bit more effective than she’d ever imagined them. He stood in the open, his back to one of the cages a few paces from him, body angled to see both doorways—good, at least one of them was paying attention to the exits—but he glanced up when they all looked at him. His eyes met hers, and his eyebrow arched upward in a question.

At least he looks to me for direction, not the prince.

“And when he gets picked off by a spell?” she asked. “Not only will we have the death of a very helpful, bystanding foreigner on our blood, but we’ll be stuck. He doesn’t know, and we can’t explain. He isn’t one of your soldiers. He isn’t even one of Gaia’s soldiers.”

“I can protect him,” Doneil said. “I have a close-quarters shield spell, and I’ve studied long-range tactics.”

Her teeth ground. She pinned Doneil with a look that he ignored.

Great Goddess Elrya, I am going to murder him later.

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

“Catrin,” Nales said warningly.

“No,” she said. “The fey are going through the gate, after which we’ll be on our own, without the protection of the glamour spell. We need to leave the fortress. We won’t make it twenty minutes if we try to infiltrate deeper. Do you know what’s protecting it? How many soldiers? How many of them are undead, or have magic?” She took a rasping breath, anger making her bare her teeth. “Do you even know where this orb is?”

A small pause followed her words. Doneil glanced over to Nales. Nales’ expression tightened, and his grip clenched on his sword.

“No,” he said, finally. “But we still have to find it.”

Magic stirred the air, like a bell. An electric jolt buzzed through her nerves.

“I know where it is.”

The fey priestess was standing again, apparently finished with whichever ritual she’d performed over Volaon’s body. Catrin glanced around. Most of the other bodies had moved, no longer in the limp, rag-doll poses they’d taken when they died.

She hadn’t seen the fey moving about and re-posing them, but there was an echo of magic in the air, and a whisper of the Veils. As if a number of spirits had just gone through to the beyond.

“I know where it is,” she repeated, her voice quiet but clear, the Janessi lilting but fluent. She made an opening gesture to Nales, her thumbs bringing the palms of her hands up as if opening a small book. “And I agree with you. The demon who abides in this castle cannot be permitted to keep it. It is far too powerful and dangerous.”

She was walking toward them now. Caracel followed behind her, his face stony.

By the look in his eyes, he and the priestess had already had a discussion, and he had not liked the results.

“Don’t you need to get to a gate?” Catrin asked.

That had been the plan, anyway. Caracel rescues her, they disappear through a gate and back to the Fey world, and the rest of them figure out a way to get out of the fortress.

“We do.” The priestess glanced from her to Nales, reading their faces. “I know where that is, too. I can work it. That will give you access to your magic.”

She nodded at the tattoo on Catrin’s arm. Caracel must have told her about it, because it was currently hidden by both her armor and a thick coat of blood and other things.

Gods, she was filthy.

But her magic…

Giving her access to Kodanh would certainly shift the scales. They’d have two long-range attackers, and she could control where opponents came from, not to mention freeze a lot of them.

What she’d done with the bird demons before had been barely a scraping of his power.

The old lizard was powerful.

She thought about it. “If you open the gate, won’t that alert the demon?”

“Yes. That is why we should only do so if we need to.” The priestess was soft-spoken, but her words sounded sharp and exact. She looked Catrin in the eyes, and some of that otherness came across again, reminding her of who she was.

Her blood stirred. She gritted her teeth and resisted.

She turned to Nales. “Treng entrusted me to keep you safe. That means bringing you home intact, whether you like it or not. You don’t have to be conscious.”

He ignored her threat. His mouth quirked.

“Actually,” he said—and damn him, was that quirk to his mouth a smile? “Treng did not specify your job. He simply offered your services.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to argue.

Instead, though, her frown deepened.

Bright tits, he was right. His words had been ‘offer.’ He hadn’t specified what for.

She’d just assumed she’d been hired as a bodyguard.

“Gods fuck it,” she muttered.

“Besides, even if he had, I still outrank him,” he reminded her gently. “You are still under my command.”

“A command that, if you exercised, would no doubt have consequences for you,” she shot back.

“Not a whole lot of consequences, if we’re being honest.” He blew out a sigh, suddenly seeming tired. “Look, you wanted a way out of some blood-oath you owe the Raidt crown?”

She looked at him sharply. Adrenaline spiked in her blood, and her heartbeat picked up. She remembered Tarris, the royal jade eyes, the firelight, the Council that ripped her apart at their leisure, and her lip curled.

She wasn’t going to win this. Tarris’ transgression had been little more than a blip in his radar. Calling a rnari into his service would doubtless be as inconsequential to Nales’ life, even if it did cause tension between the Cizeks and the Raidt. For her, it would be a different story.

Following the direction of a fey priestess, however…

As if echoing her thoughts, the fey spoke again.

“That orb is of the utmost importance,” the priestess said. “I will take it back to my people. We can keep it safe.”

I’ve already done a service for you, she thought.

But she was already losing this fight, and the others were all sure to die without her.

She sighed. He relaxed when he saw her shoulders go down.

“I still think this is a stupid idea,” she said.

“It’s honorable,” he said. “We’ll be stopping an all-out war.”

“We’re all going to die,” she informed him. “Horribly. And then, we’ll be resurrected and used in his army.”

His grim face looked up at her. “So let’s go get it over with. But first, I need to get a book.”

Chapter 24

“A book,” she grumbled, stalking her way up the stone corridors, her eyes flashing under the light of the crystals. “I can’t believe you’ve got us risking our lives for a book.”

“It’s a special book, and it’s on the way.”

“It’s a book.”

And she also couldn’t believe the fey had gone along with it. Yena li Vaness, who in addition to being a full-fledged fey priestess was also a member of the same royal line as Volaon had been and came with a bloodline of powerful magic, walked close to the back of the group, Caracel bringing up her back. Once again, glamour buzzed over Catrin’s skin, though this had a different feel to it which made her suspect it was Yena’s and not Caracel’s. That would make sense, given her obvious advantage in power—it would leave him one less thing to worry about when fighting—and it had already saved them from being exposed to three squads of demonic warriors.

Doneil had healed her. She hadn’t needed much. Apparently, Grobitzsnak had discovered her quite by happenstance on Abiermar’s fête. He hadn’t hurt her, but he’d killed all those who had been with her. She also confirmed that the greater demon had been as confused as the rest of them about the malfunctioning of the gates and his sudden appearance on Gaia, and then reiterated the importance of retrieving the orb of Cnixe.

Conscious of the others, and how the volume of their argument was rising—Doneil and Matteo only a few paces behind them—Nales stepped closer and lowered his voice.

“Look, do you want that loophole or not?”

Oh, seven suns. She hissed through her teeth, her tongue on the edge of some very unprofessional swearing. “That was Doneil’s idea, not mine. If you care to recall, I thought he was bat-fucking nuts for even suggesting it.”

“It’s true,” Doneil piped up from behind them, proving that elven hearing worked quite a bit better than Nales had assumed. “I’ve never seen her laugh so hard.”

That seemed to keep him quiet. For a few moments, anyway. He didn’t glance at Doneil, but his expression turned back to that stony concentration she had grown to recognize. He still looked like shit. Dirt and bits of old blood smeared his face, and his clothes looked as through he’d been dragged for quite a lot longer than she’d seen him be, but his stride was strong and resolute, matching hers with a steely determination, and the demon’s sword hung loose and ready in his hand. It looked good on him, she had to admit.

They got to the next corner, and she checked around it before they continued on. Midway down, as they were passing a few rooms that rumbled with the sound of grinding machinery, he spoke again.

“What happened between you and Tarris?” he asked.

She flinched.

Of course, that question would come up. Even if he wasn’t a royal, he’d be curious.

Rnari weren’t sent away from the Raidt very often.

She shrugged it off. “What’s there to say? I broke his hand. Given our families’ histories, it was deemed best that I spent a short while training elsewhere until I learned better manners.”

Another small silence moved between them, but it wasn’t empty. She didn’t need to look at his face to see that the gears in his mind turned.

“Bullshit,” he said. “I don’t believe that for a second. What really happened?”

“Drop it. It’s none of your concern.”

“The Raidt wouldn’t send a warrior of your skill away for a small thing like that—there are healers. Prince Tarris knows how to fight. I’ve seen him. He’s no weakling—”

She gritted her teeth. “Drop it.”

“—so they must be hiding something.”

He stopped, pulling her with him. She tensed at the hand on her arm, but he quickly dropped it, a deep frown on his face as he looked her up and down. “What is it?”

She brushed him off, continuing on. “It’s none of your concern is what it is. Raidt business.”

Gods help her. Doneil was being awfully silent. She could almost feel his temptation to say something.

Nales frowned. She began to walk again, leaving him behind.

She got five strides before his soft voice followed her.

“It wasn’t a training accident, was it?”

Oh, for the love of—

“I broke his hand because Prince Tarris is a dickless asscrumb who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer!” she yelled. “There! Are you happy?”

A demon that had been blending into the wall beside them growled.

Apparently, she’d been loud enough that it heard her right through the glamour.

“Fuck!” The word turned into a growl as she leapt off, giving the thing a savage kick with her grieves. It snapped at her, the scent of oil rising as its camouflage shifted. Teeth clamped shut inches from her leg.

She drew her blades and stabbed it through the skull.

The demon went limp immediately, blood welling from the wound.

She jerked her blades back, wiped the blood off on its scales, and re-sheathed them.

Nales stood a pace behind her, frozen in ready position.

“A book, Prince. We’re going out of our way for a book.”

“It’s a very important book.”

“It’s a book.”

“Is Tarris li Talanos really a dickless asscrumb?”

She sighed. In the back, the two fey were looking on, both of them either part of a royal line or close to one. Between Doneil’s black humor sex jokes and her airing of the Raidt’s dirty laundry, they were getting all sorts of information to titter over in the Fey world.

Suns, if she wasn’t exiled now, she would be soon enough.

She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well let them get the whole story. “I decided not to give him the chance to prove he wasn’t dickless.”

“Ah. Hence the hand-breaking. And the exile.” He grimaced. “They wanted you swept under a rug.”

“Yes. My father swept me away before they could make it official. It was the only way to avoid even more political awkwardness between the families.”

Nales lifted an eyebrow. “They care that much about what your family thinks?”

“They have to. It would be politically bad for them to fall out with my parents. Dad’s line has been protecting the royals since the Raidt elves came down from Sinya.”

“Ah.”

They passed into silence again. Thankfully. One of the crystals down the next stretch had burnt out. They slunk by in the dark.

In two minutes, a familiar scent caught her nose. She perked up, repressed the urge to cast around with her woodcraft—the low-key pressure headache let her know it was still unhinged—and forced herself to look around, noticing the details.

“We’ve been in this hall before,” she said.

“Yes,” Caracel said from the back of the group, proving that fey hearing was just as good as elf hearing. “It was just before we went upstairs.”

“I sense something ahead.” Yena lifted her head, a gold glint entering her eyes from the crystal light at the sides of the hall. She appeared smaller, somehow, more delicate, and she still had that glow. It looked like moonlight, she realized, as if Yena stood under both the crystals and a full moon.

Or gate flare.

“It’s an old, strange thing,” Caracel told her. “You will see.”

And, with that, Catrin knew precisely what they were talking about. An image of the ancient, sealed door flashed through her mind—and the massive creature that lay behind it—and she shuddered.

Yes. It was definitely a good idea to keep her woodcraft closed.

Nales was watching the two fey, his eyebrows drawing into a frown. “What is it? What are they talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” she said. “We’re going to walk past it.”

Sure enough, in another ten minutes, they came to the intersection with the door.

Unfortunately, they did not walk past it. Nales stopped. Several paces away, Yena stopped, as well.

They both regarded the door, and Catrin had a sudden sinking feeling in her gut.

“I can read these,” Nales said. “They’re sealing scripts. Meant to keep something inside.”

Catrin snorted. Even without a working knowledge of rentac, she’d been able to tell that.

“There’s something big on the other side,” Yena said. Her eyebrows furrowed, and a hand came up to her mouth. She took a step forward. “It’s… old.”

As she took another step closer, and her hand reached out tentatively, Caracel flashed a dead, sarcastic expression toward Catrin that wasn’t hard to interpret.

It would seem she wasn’t the only one who was tired of royal stupidity.

“It’s desecrated, Your Grace.” Gently, he took her hand and steered it away. “It would not be a good idea to go closer—it is clearly strong.”

She pulled her hand away and shrugged him off. Her frown turned into a hot anger. “It’s hurting. I can feel it. It’s one of the old ones.”

As one who communed with fey gods, Catrin supposed she would be susceptible to this kind of scenario.

“It’s dangerous,” Caracel reminded her.

“It’s likely the forest lord Grobitzsnak corrupted all those years ago. Her name was Franas,” Nales said. “I can’t imagine what else he might seal away with this much power.” Then, proving he had definitely not exhausted his quota of idiotic royal ideas, he continued: “What if we let her out?”

Temdin. Maybe I will keep hitting princes.

“This is not the time for opening magic doors in demonic fortresses,” she growled. “Not when there’s something big and scary and magical right behind it.”

As if on cue, a low rumble came from behind the panel. A wave of magic crackled through the atmosphere, and her woodcraft exploded across her brain. She grimaced, blocking it out. “See? Leave the magic door.”

He looked back, catching her gaze. Then, in a twist of irony, he began to feed part of her own argument from earlier back at her.

“Do you know how many demons are in this castle? Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. If we can lure a few of them away…” He squinted upward, to where the stairs promised a fancier set of hallways. “We’re close to the library. It would be a good distraction.”

She stared at him.

Great Goddess, they’re actually going to do it. They’re going to open a magically sealed door in a demonic castle and let out an ancient power. For a distraction.

“I’m starting to think they should require intelligence tests for royalty,” she muttered, low enough so that only Doneil could hear it. Then, louder. “I advise you to not open the door.”

“It’s hurting,” the priestess said. “If we leave it here, it will continue to do so—and Grobitzsnak can continue to exploit its corruption.” She tilted her head up. “I think we should let it go. If Grobitzsnak wants to keep immortal deities as pets, then he can live with the consequences of one getting out. Besides—” she gestured to the paper script that lay across the door, looking more slapdash and hurried than the others. “—that last mark is not very strong. I expect he already had trouble with this one, likely during the gate malfunction. If we broke that, it will probably break the chain on its own.”

Catrin played that through in her mind.

Well, at least they’re giving us all time to run.

Yena and Nales looked to each other for a moment. Then, they both stepped forward, their hands lifting. Yena’s magic stirred the air.

Catrin and Caracel exchanged another deadpan look. She slid one of her knives back into its sheath and, grimacing, cracked open her woodcraft.

A wave of pain and energy assaulted her mind, loud and angry. She winced, wrestled mentally with it, and whittled it down to a sliver.

The thing was right at the door. Big, loud, and immediate. Energy burned inside it like the sun.

Fuck.

She let out a slow breath and braced herself, signaling to Doneil.

“Get ready to run.”

The priestess lifted her hand, fingers splayed and delicate. Magic sparked like a note of music.

The paper fell away.

Catrin tensed, waiting. Her heart raced, eyes darting between Nales and the door.

Why isn’t he moving?

Then, the thing inside gave a big heave of its energy. She hissed as pain spiked into her head. The air drew inward, as if the room were taking a breath.

Something large smashed into the inside of the door with a massive boom.

She darted forward—Nales was backing up now, she noticed, practically racing for the stairs. She got in front of him, bracing as a second wave of energy crashed into the panel.

The large doors burst open with a splinter of wood. Whatever was inside had smashed the locking mechanism on the second try. Blackness appeared in the gap, and the wood rocked against the chain.

Its links looked as flimsy as a necklace.

Something moved within. A massive avian foot emerged, cobalt-blue, with dry, cracked scales and talons big enough to claw a horse in half—as if some giant, prehistoric chicken had bred with an equally massive eagle.

It slashed at the chain, making it rattle and ring with a fury.

Then, whatever was inside screamed.

The sound broke her ears. She shoved Nales up the staircase. Caracel scooped Yena into his arms and rushed up the stairs, faster than she’d ever seen him. Matteo and Doneil were already halfway up the second flight, sprinting for the next level.

Adrenaline raced in her blood. She didn’t look back when the creature banged against the door again, too busy shoving at Nales—gods, humans were slow. The sounds of the chain scraping up the door rang through her bones, urging her faster.

When they hit the second flight, it quieted for a moment, and she risked a look over the banister.

Yellow eyes, tinted with darts of red and flashing a bright gold in the dark, looked back at her through the gap between the now partially-open doors. A large, stony crest reared up between its eyes, its top scraping the left panel’s inner edge. The beak was strong and curved slightly—not like an eagle or other bird of prey, but like a ground dweller.

The chain still looped in front of the doors, blocking them from opening fully, but it looked comically thin and strained beneath the obvious strength of the colossus within.

She urged Nales on. They both flew up the stairs, taking them in twos and threes. One of the giant crystals shivered its light in the hall above, rotating gently over its pool. She barely spared it a glance. They reached the top and ran on in a broken line, putting as much distance between them and the bird as possible.

Behind them, Franas let out another roar, its energy spiking through her woodcraft, and banged against the door.

Chapter 25

“Did we just let a giant chicken loose in the demonic fortress?”

Catrin let out a breath. It was Doneil who had asked the question, and his face still looked incredulous, like he’d been stunned.

“If you use the royal ‘we,’ then yes, we did.” She pinned Nales with an exasperated look. “So, now that we aren’t running for our lives quite as fast—can we agree to not open any more magical doors that we find?”

“We’ll need to open the door to the orb,” Yena said. “And the one to the gate.”

Caracel had finally let her down from his grip, but her speech was still breathless. Like Doneil, she also seemed stunned, and wasn’t quite walking straight, her steps taking more of a wandering lilt than Catrin liked.

Then again, the priestess had spent the last couple of days in the unloving care of the fortress’ demonic master. She wondered when the fey had last eaten—and what the meal had been like. She doubted very much that Grobitzsnak kept a fully stocked fey kitchen in his domain, and Yena was likely more accustomed to meals befitting both a royal and a high priestess—exquisite, sacred, and well-prepared.

She grimaced as her mind wandered.

No, she did not want to think too hard on what, precisely, Grobitzsnak fed his prisoners.

“But—” Doneil glanced back, looking more like an elf whose Name Day celebration had come early. “Really, was that a giant chicken?”

“The great spirit Franas takes the form of a ground-dwelling bird that was common in demonic forests of this latitude in ancient times. Although it ate predominantly grubs and roots, it was very capable of defense,” Nales said.

“So, it’s a giant demonic chicken.” Doneil’s smile took on a happy, mischievous quality. He tilted his head. “It’s working, I think. At least two separate groups of demons have gone after it so far. I can hear them shouting.”

Catrin groaned. She heard it, too. The first squad had missed them by a hallway and had been greeted by an unearthly, uproarious scream that had lifted all the hairs on the back of her neck and sent a shiver down her spine. The second squad had been greeted similarly, along with the distinct clanking crack of a breaking chain and the thud and scrape of heavy, clawed footsteps.

She wanted precisely zero part of that.

“Where’s this fucking library of yours?” she asked.

“Up ahead,” Nales responded, his curt tone suggesting that he, too, wanted to push the giant demonic chicken and ancient magical door episode far behind him. “Very close.”

They ducked around another corner and ran up a long hallway, narrowly avoiding a third squad that raced past. As she plastered herself to the wall, she caught a whiff of the soldiers. Brown skin mixed with a grayer cast and faces populated with eyes that stared without blinking and veins that sat dark with old, dead blood. The stale odor of rot mingled with the scent of sweat and sulfur.

Only a handful of the soldiers actually breathed. The rest were undead.

Back down the hall, the giant ancient chicken let out a roar. Energy spiked. Magic crackled, touching the air.

The next thing she knew, she and the rest of the party had landed on the floor, and her muscles were screaming as if each of them had been pounded with electricity.

She pinned Nales with another look—like the others, he lay gasping for breath like a beached fish—but, a second later, a series of screams echoed up the hallway, along with another, quieter roar. The sound of swords ringing mixed into the din.

Okay, so maybe it was working. They still had to avoid the thing.

She rolled slowly to her feet, ignoring the paralysis in her thoracic cavity. By the time she stood, the bottom of her lungs was starting to respond.

“Come on,” she said, pulling the prince to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Another group of demons ran around the corner, the rattle of their armor lost in the ringing of her ears and the yells from back down the corridor.

They stopped abruptly. Catrin felt their attention rake over her and the rest of her group.

Belatedly, she realized that the buzz of the glamour spell was gone.

Fuck.

She staggered upward. Numbness still crawled through her lungs, but an enemy wouldn’t care about that. She pulled out her second blade and limped into a jog. A chorus of drawn steel invited her in.

Five of them. And three of them undead.

She went for the live ones first.

The leap was more of a lurch, but she signaled a feint with her shoulders and took the first demon off-guard. Blunt force rang through her wrists as he blocked her first strike, and a prickle of pain batted up her bones. She was gripping too hard on the hilts—could feel that in the tension on her wrist—but the nerve endings were still dead from the spell, and she couldn’t feel the muscles to gauge anything.

She disabled his guard with brute strength, slid her knife into the opening, and jabbed it into his throat.

He jerked. Warm blood spilled over her fingers. Her hearing came back sideways, delivering the sound of his gurgle.

Caracel cut into the undead one going for her back. She shoved her opponent down with a kick and spun into the next, the movement sloppy, dull, and blunt. A dart of light sped past her shoulder, and Matteo’s shot sniped out the next demon’s eye in a chunk of blasted blood and bone.

She stabbed her knife into his other eye. An extra shove forced it into his cold, undead brain.

He fell like a heap of bricks. She jerked the knife out, giving it an extra pull when it stuck. Rnari blades weren’t typically meant for stabbing people through their face, but she hadn’t been about to waste the opportunity.

Caracel finished with his demon—the other live one—and lopped its head off.

Three down. Two left. The feeling was coming back into her bones.

A pike stabbed at her. She dodged back, her feet light and nimble. In a flash, she’d doubled into a spin. Her left knife rang hard as she smashed it into the stem of the pike and drove herself into the demon’s open guard. He made a grab for her. She cut his fingers off. Cold blood sputtered against her skin like drops of acrid rain. She stabbed her blade into his throat, leaning too far in to nudge it into the spine at the back and ignoring the rush of cold that spread over her selectively numb skin.

Thanks to the thick curve of the blade’s end, it sliced into it neatly.

The demon fell. Half his head ripped away from the wound, the neck gaping like a mauled, bleeding mouth.

Matteo sniped the last undead demon’s face, two blackened marks gouging deep past the bone, and Nales arrived in time to cut its head off.

Both body and head toppled to the ground in a spurt of black blood.

She glanced around, took stock of the group, made sure there were no more demons around, then looked at Yena.

“Glamour?”

“Franas fried it,” Yena said, walking up. She shook out her hand as if it stung. “I can guard against that spell, but not while a glamour is up.”

Great. She glanced over to Caracel and grunted. “I’d rather not be knocked down and vulnerable. How about you?”

He gave her a curt nod. “Agreed. We’ll proceed without glamour.”

She nodded back and snapped her gaze around. “Nales—library?”

“Around the corner,” he said, and took off on his own. Alone.

I’m going to have to train him better than that.

Doneil and Matteo caught up. She glanced back and began jogging.

By the time she turned the corner, they had both veered toward the wall and adopted the quiet shuffle-jog she recognized from stealth training.

At least that was one pair she didn’t have to worry about training.

She caught up to Nales, shadowing him silently. He led them, blade out and ready, adopting a similar quiet jog. She quietened her breath. The enormous halls spread out around them, tall and gaping, silent. Far away, the clashes of blades and beast rang like a violent, distant festival. Magic pulsed through the air, shivering like pond ripples. Once, that sharp, crackling spell snapped into the atmosphere, but Yena must have been dampening it. It slid across her skin, little more than a shock of static.

After a few minutes, a sound interrupted the quiet—the tromp of feet and jangle of armor as two demons ran.

She pulled Nales to a stop, two paces from the corner, and stared, listening hard as the thump and jangle drew swiftly closer.

Ten paces. Then five. Then one. Shadows appeared on the floor ahead of them.

She lunged across the distance, a short, three-strided sprint, muscles bunching in her legs, and slammed into the first demon.

He yelped and shoved at her, shock turning swiftly to fear then anger. She grabbed his arm, spun, kicked out his knee. When he buckled, she used his momentary disability to smash the hilt of her blade into his face. His nose crunched like winter ice.

The second demon swung at her. She ducked. In the next second, Nales lunged at him from the back, stabbing a sword straight through his gut and out the front.

The demon growled, and they both jerked to the side in a clash of metal, Nales pulling a shorter blade from somewhere and jumping into an offensive. Fire bloomed into the air as he activated his kimbic scripts.

She wrestled with the first demon on the ground, trying to get her blade through his face. He struggled, making her rock with his strength. Then Matteo jogged in front of her, his gun drawn.

She looked up at him, down at her demon, and back.

Then, she reversed her grip, let the demon get his hands free, and jerked her hands away from the kill zone.

Matteo fired, the first shot sniping through the side of the demon’s hand and chewing into its cheek and the rest pounding hard into his head and chest. The demon jerked.

A moment later, it slumped forward, half of his face missing. Blood spread on the ground, black and oozing and warm.

She knifed him in the nape of the neck just to be sure and stepped back, glancing up at Matteo.

He gave her a hand gesture that she didn’t understand. She let the confusion show on her face and sheathed a dagger, allowing her gaze to slip past him to focus on where Nales had finished with his fight.

She gave him a double pat on the shoulder as she slipped past.

Nales’ demon was smoking. Some parts of him still glowed, like embers on a cooling fire. His head lay several paces away, also smoking.

A glance back told her that Yena and Caracel were still with the party, lingering at the edge with Caracel’s sword drawn and his larger body hovering protectively at her back.

She turned her attention back to Nales. “Library?”

“This way.”

The fight had blown any attempt at stealth they had. They raced up the hall, strides long and fast, their own armor flapping and rustling. They ran into another two guards around the corner, and the prince engaged immediately, sidestepping into a controlled lunge that swung his sword into his opponent’s foot and pivoted into an upward stroke on the rebound. A blast of fire cracked into the demon’s chest just as the sword made its second connection, piercing evenly through a gap in the armor.

She took the narrow angle and caught the second guard as he rushed in to help, a mirror of what she and Nales had done in the last fight. With his back to her, it was easy to swing her blade into his neck.

She hugged him to her, used her knee and hip for leverage, and pulled back until her blades cut through his spine and his head fell off, bumping her arm on the way down.

They killed three more guards in similar ways, Matteo jumping in with his firearm to assist. His shots chewed through skin and bone, some of it decorating her face and armor as she charged in, trusting him to stop shooting if her attack messed up his targeting. Her hands were wet and tacky with blood, and she could feel the stickiness on the hilts of her blades, no matter how much she tried to wipe it off. Sweat pricked her skin, mixing with the blood and dirt and gore.

The next few halls were a race of hallways. Air caught at her skin. Her bloody hands brushed the hair out of her face until it stuck with the rest of her. She smelled the wet scent of copper and rust in her nose, tasted it dripping in through her lips as she ran, the edge of sulfur making the back of her tongue squirm.

She wetted her lips and spat in one corner. It didn’t get rid of the foul taste.

Then, after another corner, Nales’ body snapped upright. He slowed under a crystal, sweat and blood gleaming on his skin in the light, eyes alert and calculating.

With a quick veer, he darted ahead and through a small, nondescript door.

The library washed over her in a hushed dimness, walls and supported arching high into the ceiling shadows.

When her eyes adjusted, two goat-headed demons were staring at her and Nales, dressed in flowing beige robes. What she guessed was a surprised expression froze on their faces, eyes wide and mouth agape. One dropped the book it had been holding.

Blades rising, she lunged for the closest one.

“No!” Nales threw out a hand, fingers splayed, breathing hard. “Hold!”

She stopped. Barely. Her blade lay inches from the demon’s furry neck.

She gritted her teeth against the strain in her muscles from the sudden stop and waited.

“They’re a different sect, not controlled by the greater demon,” Nales said between breaths, sagging as the exertion caught up with him. “Let me talk to them.”

She grunted. “Then talk, Prince.”

It was somewhat amusing that he had taken the time to explain it—and ask her permission for it—when less than half an hour ago, he’d been threatening her with the Undersworn Pledge. Nothing had changed. She was still under his command. But he was treating her as more of an equal.

Tarris wouldn’t have done that. To him, the rnari were tools to use—his soldiers. Some of them, he’d befriend, but there was something divinely broken in their system that left a foul taste in the back of her mouth. She had just kept her head down until it had slapped her in the face.

Stupid.

She never took her eyes from the demon. It stood stock-still, only the faint tremble of its shallow breaths and the shift of its pupils any indication that it was alive. It stared at her, as intent on her as she was on it—likely more so, considering it was at the business end of a blade and she was not.

Nales hesitated once. In her peripheral vision, she saw him glance over, his blood and dirt-smeared face stark in the crystal light. Then, he turned to the other demon.

As the rentac spilled into the air, low and guttural, she eased her stance, never taking her blade from the demon.

Nales paused. After a small hesitation, the other demon replied. His tone was uncertain, then strident, pleading.

At her back, she felt the others come into the room. Yena and Caracel came forward, the priestess a hushed presence in the air. The demon she threatened tensed and drew in a deeper, ragged breath, its irises shifting and eyes widening even further at the appearance of the fey.

Hmm. Interesting.

Nales spoke again, this time in Janessi.

“They’ve agreed to help us,” he said. “Let that one go.”

Her eyebrows twitched. “You sure?”

“Yes. Trust me.”

She didn’t want to. But she realized she was out of her depth.

Demons were an entirely different world to her—one that Nales had, apparently, studied.

Slowly, she eased her blade from the demon’s neck and stepped back.

The demon visibly relaxed. There was a distinct clatter of teeth. Then, as if all the movements it had wanted to do in the last thirty seconds came to it at once, it skittered back several steps, hooves clattering on the stones, and stumbled into a table. Its clawed hands grasped at its edge and ruffled the papers and ink bottles.

Outside, the sounds of running guards echoed through the hall. More troops, heading for the forest lord.

Nales grimaced, glancing at the door, then at their small party gathered just inside.

“Guard the door,” he told Catrin, backing away.

Both he and the other demon ran into the nearest aisle, the pale light of the demon’s crystal lamp casting over stacks of thick, leather-bound tomes and neatly rolled scrolls.

She gave their retreating figures a flat stare, an eyebrow arching into her forehead.

I can’t believe we’re actually doing this. We’re massively outnumbered. We should be trying to get out of here, not pillaging Grobitzsnak’s library—and most definitely not trying to steal his power orb from him.

But the fey had agreed to this. Had, in fact, insisted. Her gaze slid over to Yena and Caracel. Caracel stood, still as a statue, a silent, glowering sentinel. Yena held a similar expression, though without his careful control. The anger and the determination on her face were plain as a sunburn, and, like before, the priestess seemed to glow with power. Her presence pulled at the air to snag Catrin’s attention.

She tightened her grip on the hilt of her blades, caught Matteo’s attention, and gave a nod toward the open doorway. He nodded back, melting into the shadows and squatting down to lower his profile.

She settled in against the wall just over a pace from the doorway.

Nothing happened for a few minutes. Some hushed murmurs and conversation came from further into the library, and she recognized Nales’ voice when it lifted. The glow of the goat demon’s light fell farther back, its light catching a few of the ceiling struts. She watched it, watched the shadows lengthen and stretch as they moved.

More sounds came from outside. Another squad. She held her breath as it went by outside, the soldiers running in an apparent hurry, listening to the tramp and stomp of their boots and the flap and jangle of their armor. Her stomach flipped when she realized that only a few of them were still breathing.

They paused on the corner for one heart-stopping moment, all the movement coming to a halt. Voices came, sharp and quick—a question and answer.

The squad began to move off again.

But one pair of feet ran toward her.

The demon called out when he came through the door. His sword was out, waving side to side as he ran, but he held it by the backhand, close to his body.

His speech trailed off at the expression on the goat demon’s face.

And, more likely, the sense that he was in sudden and immediate danger.

Some people called it a sixth or seventh sense. In her experience, it was more intelligent than that.

She cut through his throat before he knew she was there and kept pulling until her blade sliced through his spinal cord. The sword clattered to the ground, his head and body thudding after it.

The goat demon let out a cry of fear and shot back, scrambling past a table of stacked parchment.

She wiped the blood off on a soft part of his armor, slid back into the shadows by the door, and settled back in. Ten paces behind her, the red light from Matteo’s gun glowed steadily, hidden from the door by the splay of his hand.

Nales and the other goat demon came out of the stacks a few minutes later, muttering a fast and hushed conversation in rentac. Their pace faltered when they saw the dead demon on the floor.

There was a book in Nales’ hands, several inches thick and about the width of a dinner plate.

She eyed it. So far, it didn’t look worth hauling around. Unfortunately, Doneil was already approaching them, holding out a cloth sack that he’d pulled from his belt pouch.

So, he was volunteering to be a mule.

She sighed. That would keep Nales’ hands free for swordwork, at least.

The goat demon’s eyes bugged out, and an appalled expression made his entire body flinch back. He held out a hand—three-fingered, with hoof-like nails at the end that tapered like a normal goat—and, after a small amount of hesitation and a slightly louder, pleading tone in rentac, Nales handed the book over.

He walked to the nearest table with it, grabbed some parchment that gleamed with a wax coating, and set about folding the book into it.

She gaped as he offered it back, protected in its parchment wrapping, with a tight knot of sinew holding it in place.

Doneil took it and, with some help from the demon, slid it into his sack and affixed it into place on his back.

The demon gave a small bow to Nales and waved at the rest of them. As a group, they filed out of the door.

About halfway down the next hall, Catrin’s brain caught up with her.

“Did the demon just gift-wrap that book for you?”

Nales’ smile was quick and thin, a small tug on his lips. He didn’t look at her, but she saw his eyes spark. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” A shrug rolled off his shoulders. “We got to talking. He’s a nice fellow. Top of his class at—” He said something in rentac that slipped right through her mental grasp.

“What’s…” She hesitated.

He said the name again, the end of it going up in tone to form a question. This time, he did look at her. Under the blood and dirt, he was smiling.

“Yes,” she said. “That.”

“It’s one of four main universities in the demonic world. Yantil, the demon I was speaking to, holds several grades in one of their scholarly research levels.”

Scholarly… research levels?

She stared. “Did he know you were stealing it?”

“Oh, yes. He agreed it was better served in my hands than in Grobitzsnak’s. In the demonic world, scholars are a separate sect. They exist independently of the warlord governments and bloodlines and abide by their own ethics and codes of conduct.”

Like the rnari were supposed to be, in theory. Except with books instead of blades.

“I also had a knife to his friend’s throat,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That helped. Quite a bit.” He turned his gaze ahead again, the smile still brimming on his lips. “You should really learn rentac, Catrin. It’s an incredibly useful dead language.”

She eyed him. He was, she thought, very pleased with himself—jovial, even. Odd, given that they were all likely going to die in the next couple of hours.

“Doneil,” she said, her tone light. “Did you give our prince any of that rnari tonic?”

There was a small hesitation. Then,

“Yes.”

She sighed and clapped a hand down on Nales’ shoulder. “Don’t worry. It affects humans a little different. The euphoria will pass. Soon, you’ll be back to screaming terror and bloodlust like the rest of us.”

He glanced up at her, alarm in his eyes. “What?”

She ignored him and moved on, gliding up to Yena’s side.

“All right, Your Grace. Where is this orb?”

Chapter 26

The only reason they were still able to move in relative ease, unchallenged, was because Grobitzsnak had not realized they were there.

Considering he’d found them pretty quickly in the forest, she wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed them wandering about his castle, but perhaps the encounter in the forest had been blind luck. Less than an hour had passed since the jailbreak and, as far as she could tell, there had been no magical signal that told him his prisoners were free, and no sudden alarm that the demon dragging Nales hadn’t returned. By Nales’ own concession, he had been a gift for the demon to torture, a reward for something the minion had done well. The demon hadn’t been expected to return that night.

Their distraction, the giant magical bird they’d set loose, could also be seen as a coincidence rather than something intentional. The seal they’d broken had been slapdash, hurried. New. And it was more than plausible that a shot from the gate flare that had obliterated Caracel’s glamour spell earlier could have loosened the seal enough for the bird to break through.

The castle lay calm and still. Quiet, now that they had left the section with the bird in it. Yena’s senses had sent them upward, and, with the bird in the far distance, she’d taken the risk, re-applied the glamour spell, and they’d slunk through the many, many hallways like a band of ghosts.

Gods, this place was big.

Finally, though, they appeared to select the correct hall—one that shifted away from the dwarf-like carved stonework of the inner mountain with the cave surface rippling in the shadows between support arches and shifted into a hand-carried masonic style that reminded her more of the older caverns under the Raidt.

The hall was quiet. Subdued. As if each bump and scrape sent a ripple like water shivering through the air. The ceiling was lower here, the walls more close-knit, cast in bright crystal light that shivered and undulated.

After five minutes, the hall stopped and dead-ended into a small chamber. Catrin sidled against the wall and leaned out, checking it over. A hushed presence at her side announced that Yena had decided to join her. The priestess’ small hand lifted to rest on Catrin’s bracers, fingers curving over the leather heedless of the blood.

“It’s up ahead,” Yena said. “I can feel it.”

Catrin took another look at the corridor, following Yena’s focused gaze. The walls cupped into a staircase on the left, one side going up, the other leading down. She risked opening her woodcraft just a sliver, cringing as pressure crashed down through her head and her mental image of the walls began to slide. Power pulsed above then, low and gentle. She caught a mental image of an ocean glimmering under sunlight, its waters wrinkled like an un-ironed sheet.

Was this the orb of destruction?

It didn’t feel very destructive. But it did feel familiar—like the floating crystals they’d passed.

Pushing her woodcraft aside with a mental blink, she followed the arch of the ceiling. It curved upward to the left, following the stairs.

A tower?

With the shape of the staircase—circular, and tight in its curve—and the way the ceiling sloped up into a point over the supporting arches, that was her best guess. If the fortress had folded back into the mountain again, she expected they would have simply drilled back. Solid rock was stronger and more easily maintained than the cubes of weathered stonework around her. Why waste the protection?

She eyed the tight stairs. Single file only. It would really suck to be caught up there.

Yena nodded upward toward the orb.

“There’s someone up there. Magic user. You should let me deal with him.” She hesitated, her head tilting to the side, like a bird when it’s trying to see something. “He knows I’m here.”

Fantastic.

“Will Grobitzsnak know we’re here, once we take the orb?”

“Yes.” The response was immediate, accompanied by a short nod. “It’s feeding him power.”

Even more fantastic.

Her back molars ground together. Catrin hadn’t felt anything, but she did not doubt the fey. Their senses, especially magical, were better than hers. She sighed, and looked back down the corridor. It was the only exit. If it filled with soldiers, she wasn’t sure how well any glamour spell would hide them.

A demon had already seen through it once, which meant it wasn’t infallible.

“We’ll need to be quick. Doneil, you bring up the rear with Matteo. I’ll be ahead of you. We’ll let the fey go first.” She cringed at her word use—one didn’t let the fey do anything; they simply did it, much like some princes she knew—and turned to Nales. “You, stick with me.”

His eyes sparked, and the quick tug of his mouth told her he hadn’t missed the order—and that the rnari tonic was still affecting him. But when they moved, he fell in behind her. Caracel slipped past, and she felt the glamour spell buzz against her skin with proximity.

She unsheathed a blade and followed the fey.

The second she stepped foot on the stairs, she knew there was power.

It had felt like an ocean before—and, in a way, it still was. But now, instead of the light, wrinkled sea she’d seen before, the very stones around her seemed to hum with a swell.

Less than three feet of water would knock the average elf of their feet if it had a current. This felt like fathoms.

She struggled to breathe. The air turned to syrup, energy buzzing against her teeth like the fey’s glamour spell. She could feel it in her bones. Parts of her skin had gone numb. It felt like her eyes were going to buzz right out of her skull. She resisted the urge to squint as the sensation rolled over her.

By her side, Nales tripped once, his sword making a sharp chink sound where it struck the stone with its point. He held it the same way the demon in the library had, on the backhand with the point trailing low to the ground like the tip of a walking stick.

The fey walked ahead, Caracel leading with Yena following softly in his footsteps. Past them, light appeared on the stone, dancing like water. She was reminded of the crystal they’d passed earlier, the way its light had flickered and danced, utterly silent, caressing the shivering wrinkles of the small pool beneath it.

A shadow crossed it once.

She tensed as a low, harsh voice spoke, its grating words hissing into High Fey.

“Come in, star born. Sate an old man his due.”

Gods, it was hard to understand. The words were old, and an odd energy shivered through the air as they came, folding over them like old paper. She caught the smell of hot copper and stale, clotted blood like when she had her monthly bleed. She bared her teeth and wrinkled her nose, the smell overpowering.

In front of her, Yena tensed.

Then, with what looked like great difficulty, the small fey forced herself to relax her shoulders.

“Good morrow, Dark Father.”

The tone was light, lilting. Polite.

It had an undertone of steel that drove down into her spine.

Magic shivered, cold as ice. Her runes prickled. Yena sped up, ducking past Caracel. When she got to the top of the stairs, she lifted up her hands, pushed through a wall of magic, and attacked.

Magic cracked through the air like a thunderstroke. Catrin jumped, one hand going to her ears. Sulfur and another smell, dark and shivery, like thick air in a dark cave, choked the air. Energy warred, snapping like the explosive lights the Teilanni set off for summer fêtes.

A second wave of magic rolled over her like electricity. Her muscles numbed in a wave. She staggered into Nales, felt his sword clunk against the wall again.

For a second, she forgot to breathe.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, one magic started to win.

Reeling from the power, Catrin gritted her teeth and put one foot in front of the other, fighting against the energy that beat at her like the pressure of a thousand thunderheads.

The tower opened into a small, square room. She caught a brief glimpse of the space—gray stone walls, tools and herbs and weapons at the sides, orb in the center, floating over a stone dais—before her attention was drawn irrevocably to the magic fight taking place to her direct left.

She wasn’t sure what the demon had been expecting when he’d sensed Yena on the floor below, but she doubted it had been ‘bloodlined fey high priestess.’ Yena had the creature flattened to the tower’s old bricks, crackles of magic billowing from their encounter. The thing was a quadruped, with long, gaunt limbs that ended in digits that looked more like tree roots than anything mammalian. Desiccated skin hung in wrinkled lumps, a series of nasty sores running along the undersides of his arms and at his knees, chest, and elbow. A bald head revealed a stark, scabbed face with a sharp nose and a mouth full of ugly, triangular teeth.

He might have been human, once. Or elf. But that had been a long time ago, and evil had twisted his bones since.

In front of him, Yena’s face was a snarl, the long fingers of her hands flexed into claws, the tattoos on her skin shivering with power—as if she existed in two places at once. Caracel stood at her back, tense, guarding her.

“I may not be able to fix the world,” she said, her voice deadly calm. Anger fluttered at its edges. “But you, Dark Father? You, I have power over.”

She made a violent gesture with her leading arm, and swiped down.

The creature screamed. Magic snapped and broke, fractured like a split rock.

He crumpled to the floor and sagged. Bone snapped, then cracked, and his head curled under, eyes closing, and a gauntness appearing at his temples. A cacophony of crunching bone rang through the room as Yena’s magic crumpled him into a small, fleshy ball.

Slowly, the magic dissipated. In a few seconds, the pressure in the room eased off.

Catrin could breathe again.

She sucked in a breath. It felt as though her entire chest had been kicked—from the inside.

“What was that?”

“A Void Wraith. A creature of the between. Very rarely do they cross into Tir Na n’Og.”

Behind her, Doneil’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “I can see why.”

“I have limited combat magic, but a void wraith is special.” Yena flexed her fingers, then turned to regard the orb. “This, too, I can be helpful with.” She made a gesture. “You see the reflecting mechanism?”

Now that the magic battle wasn’t beating her brain senseless, she could examine the orb better. It was smaller than she’d thought it would be, about the size of an apple, and floated softly in the air, a storm of light rushing silently within, with a small, star-shaped pool that rippled like quicksilver beneath it. Her mind flashed, reminded of the floating crystal she’d seen earlier, the way their light had pulsed and jerked like crackling fire.

She nodded. In her peripheral vision, the others slipped into the room, their faces lit up by the orb’s flickering light.

“It’s part of an old network we used to use. Energy transfer. Now, if my guess is right…” Yena pulled the sleeves of her cloak up to her shoulder, revealing slender arms of taut musculature and tattoos that wound an old, angular alphabet into the more recognizable mercari, and reached into the pool below.

It wasn’t water. It was more viscous than that, coating Yena’s skin like a covering of smooth, metallic mud when she pulled back. To Catrin’s surprise, her tattoos seemed to repel it, leaving a chaotic imprint cut through the mud that glowed a faint blue at its core.

The priestess felt around for something, her expression unreadable. Then, disgust crossed her face.

She pulled back, clutching a beating heart in her hand. The liquid oozed off as she held it up, her thumb pressed in an indent between ventricles.

Slowly, light became visible. Tiny fragments of white crystal, stitching across the heart like constellations.

“An Ilmari entrapment spell. He bound the orb to himself.”

Catrin watched the thing beat, entranced. “Is that his heart?”

“I do not know.” Yena tilted her head, the light reflecting in her black eyes. “Let’s find out.”

Her thumb pressed sharply inward, its claw gouging deep into the heart’s flesh.

Magic crushed the air. Once again, she felt that sensation—like a thunderstorm pressed in on her mind and body. A scraping roar raged up from the bowels of the castle, pained and loud. Angry. Filled with power. Blood spurted, thick and red, dribbling over Yena’s fingers in a slick ooze.

She crushed it with the rest of her fingers, claws cutting deep. Magic thrashed, energy cracking like a horsewhip. Catrin flinched. Crackles and arcs of electricity crawled over Yena’s hand like tiny feet, biting into the flexing tendons.

Then, the crystals burst with the sound of cracking glass. Light flared briefly.

The heart collapsed in on itself.

Yena held onto it for a few seconds more, her face twisted as she kept her claws in the thing. Sulfur sputtered into the air as smoke from its surface, and more thick blood choked out of it as the thing shrunk and convulsed.

Then, finally, it sagged.

With a look of disgust, Yena set it on the stone edge of the dais and wiped her hand off.

“No,” she said. “Not his. This was a stand-in. Probably carved from some poor soul. It looks a little small. Oh, well.”

Acid touched the back of Catrin’s throat. She stared at the lump of flesh.

A little small.

It still flinched occasionally. The smell of sulfur hung in the air, along with something else. She’d smelled it before, in a tannery.

The heart twitched, and something dropped in her stomach.

Right there, she decided that she wanted nothing to do with the more serious, darker magics.

She’d stick to summoning spells. And kimbic, if the mercari equivalents wouldn’t work anymore.

Magic zipped. The light shifted. With a jolt, she realized that she’d been so engrossed in the disgusting, flaccid lump of the dead heart that she’d missed whatever Yena had been saying about the orb. When she looked up, the fey was lifting it out of the air the same way she would lift a ball off a shelf. A small imprint of the orb’s former position lay curved in the air like a soft frost.

At once, the thick, humming sensation in the walls went still.

The energy diminished. Like removing a ray of sunshine from a castle window.

The walls seemed to dim. Frozen back into regular, solid rock, rather than the awareness she’d felt earlier.

“It is done,” Yena said.

As if on cue, another roar boiled up from deep within the castle—loud and solid, furious, full of hate.

And magic. She couldn’t miss the magic.

“I thought you said he’d be weakened,” she said dryly.

“He is. He can no longer draw power from the orb.”

Catrin waited, but the fey didn’t continue. Instead, she tucked the orb into a pouch at her waist. Its light vanished from the room, and Catrin squinted to blink the orb’s after-image from her eyes. When her eyes adjusted, Yena had stepped back to Caracel’s side, a hand resting on his arm for protection.

“And that means…?” Catrin prompted.

“He can’t destroy the world anymore, but he’s still going to be a mean fight,” Nales said.

In the explosive crash of magic, she’d forgotten he was there. He stood at her flank, his face shadowed and grim. This close, she could smell him, blood and sweat, his presence quiet but solid at her side.

The greater demon roared again, louder, full of snarl and teeth. The walls shook with it, and she felt the floor vibrate under her feet.

It sounded closer.

Her mind envisioned the tight, curled stairs behind them. Their only exit.

She unsheathed her daggers. “We should go. Keep the gate closed until we need it. Let’s see if we can avoid him. Can you still use glamour?”

“Yes,” Yena responded. “The orb will give me a boost.”

“Good.” She turned to the stairs. “We’re going to need it.”

Chapter 27

It felt odd to be giving orders, especially to a fey high priestess who had just crunched a sentient being into a painful, broken lump with some seriously powerful magic, but the rest fell in behind Catrin. The halls rushed past in a whir, one after the other.

She had no idea where she was.

Six squads had passed them, all heading back toward the small tower that had once held the orb, and they’d flattened to the wall each time. She held her breath at the scent of rot that went with them.

It seemed that most of Grobitzsnak’s troops were undead, their mottled brown-gray skin devoid of life.

She grimaced.

The undead were harder to kill.

Ten minutes later, their luck ran out when she walked out into an empty hallway and a crackle of magic exploded into her side.

Pain screamed through her—erupting, and all-consuming. Her entire arm was on fire, flames rooting deep into her flesh. Energy whipped into her face, splitting her skull in sheer agony. The mercari on her armor flared bright gold, trying and failing to shield her.

Boots pounded the floor. She heard shouts, yells. The whining discharge of Matteo’s gun from somewhere close. Swords clashed. Someone stepped over her, shielding her.

The fire stopped. Abruptly. Healing magic flooded into her. Slowly, she became aware of Doneil’s touch on her arm.

After several seconds, the pain began to lessen. Golden magic spun through her side, knitting muscle, smoothing skin. He pried her hand, finger by finger, from the hilt of her blade. She sucked in a breath as some of the flesh stuck, ripping free. He healed that, too.

Then, he was finished.

He helped her shaking body to sit up. She sucked in air, forced her eyes to look down the hall. Four dead demons lay on the ground, with Nales and the two fey standing around them. One of them must have hit her with a fire spell. The demonic equivalent of Nales’ Kimbic Two, it felt like. Doneil and Matteo stood by her. One of the demon’s heads had the distinct look of being chewed up by shots from his weapon.

Everything, from start to finish, had happened in less than a minute.

Nearly every part of her shook. Her mind still reeled from the fire. The runes on her arm prickled against the new skin, sensitive.

She struggled to get up.

“Easy, rnari,” Doneil murmured, his hand holding her down on the shoulder. “Let it flow through.”

Anger spiked, hot and sharp, mixing in with fear and confusion, but it was an automatic response. Some part of her recognized the shock threading through her mind like a fog, the way she’d begun to dissociate. She needed to sit down, let it run through as he suggested. Take the time to mentally address it and shove it far, far down into her psyche. Otherwise, it would ride with her for the next several hours, a direct line to fear and panic, influencing her every decision and ready to split her into dissociation. A single lapse could make her go from alert and functional to numb and frozen—deadly in a fight.

She shuddered again, just her spine and shoulders this time. Then, slowly, she grounded herself. Took a minute to sort out her thoughts, process her emotions, and address the shock and trauma deep within her.

When she stood, she was still shaking, but it wasn’t as bad. Acid crept into her throat as she realized the smell of her burning flesh hung in the air. Matteo caught her eyes, shock and concern stark on his face.

Ah. Apart from his own fracture, this would have been the first time he’d seen any sort of major healing. A minute ago, she’d been screaming on the floor, a quarter of her body lit up like a bonfire, her flesh making smoke in the air. Now, she was walking again.

It was a shocking thing to witness, even for those who were familiar with healing. Some primal part of their brains simply couldn’t process the swift transition. The first time she’d seen one, she’d almost thrown up. Others had been reduced to gibbering lumps, the shock too much for them.

She touched his wrist, then held out her arm so that he could see the bare, unblemished skin between her shoulder pauldron and bracer. It was still hot to touch, some of it red and flushed with the regeneration, but it was healed.

They exchanged a nod, and she dropped the arm, giving herself a shake and rolling her shoulders as she walked it off. After a few steps, another shot of healing magic hit the air—Doneil, likely helping to ease Matteo’s own shock. Her newly-healed flesh buzzed briefly with its proximity, like an echo.

She gave herself another shake, pushed it all behind her, and headed for the group.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

Yena nodded. “Yes. We are unharmed.” She gestured to the mangled remains of one demon. “This one had a special seeing script.”

Ah. So that’s how they’d gotten through the glamour.

Not that she’d trusted it completely. By the way the demon earlier had simply heard its way through, the glamour spell had already proven vulnerable.

It was likely sheer luck that Grobitzsnak had not seen through it before. That, and he’d been distracted.

Caracel was wiping the blood off his sword with a piece of the demon’s clothing. Nales stood nearby, silent and stoic, ready to move. His sword was in his hand, sitting at an angle similar to how Treng had held it.

“How far is the gate?”

Yena tilted her head, focus going to the mid-distance, like Catrin’s did when she was consulting her woodcraft.

“Not far. Below us.”

So, they needed to find some stairs, and to beware of demons that could see through glamour. Catrin let out a breath, some of her earlier frustration sliding back in. This place was too big. The halls seemed endless, stacking one after the other. She had no idea of the castle’s layout. The magic, and then the run, had obliterated any mental map she’d been attempting, the pieces fragmented in her mind. She had a vague idea that they should be going left, but without the woodcraft, and with her normal meticulousness smashed down like a storm dam, she didn’t trust it.

“The library is to the left.” Nales gestured with his sword, its tip swinging up and pointing toward an intersection back up the hallway. His voice was without inflection, and he sounded tired. “We can orient ourselves and take the stairs we found earlier.”

Her instincts screamed, a distinct repulsion at stepping back into the paths they’d already walked, now more likely to be filled with enemies. It was also close to where they’d released the forest lord earlier.

Suns, that thing’s magic had already knocked them on their asses once, and stripped their glamour in the process.

But they didn’t have very many choices.

Her breath hitched. And then what? Theoretically, the fey would go through the gate. Then, the rest of them would be left, without glamour, attempting to sneak out of a fortress full of demons and the undead—all of them likely heading to the gate once they activated it.

It’d be like trying to fight their way through a never-ending stream.

Her teeth gritted together.

That was going to be an interesting run.

Caracel watched her. She wondered if he had guessed what she was thinking.

She gave herself a shake. Nothing for it but to do it. They didn’t have a choice—and they would be much worse off without the fey.

“Okay,” she said, pivoting. “Nales, you lead.”

They picked up another jog and were off again.

The halls rushed past in a whir, one after the other, as if someone had duplicated them in a repeat. She wondered if it had been an architectural style in the demonic world—a way of showing wealth and power—or if it had the simple purpose of confusing enemies. Currently, it was doing a really good job of the latter.

Fortunately, Nales seemed to know where he was going.

Three more squads passed them, undead bodies running in a hushed rush of weapons, armor, and pounding boots, some so close, the stench of rot smothered her nose and caused acid to trip from her throat. The fourth squad sparked with magic.

She was ready for it this time. She ducked into a roll, and the spell whistled over her head, heat igniting the air. The mercari on her armor flared in defense, and the two fey leapt into action.

A demon screamed, and a fountain of blood exploded from the middle of the group. Two others followed in quick succession, and Catrin had a sudden keen understanding of just how powerful the orb of destruction was—Yena certainly hadn’t been remote-exploding bodies on the way up to the room.

The other five fell to a combination of sword slashes and hits from Matteo’s gun. Bright pain seared her hip as one of the demons managed to slash her thigh before she killed him. She grunted, reversed her grip, and stabbed her blade into his neck, leaning into the pain to shove all her weight into the flesh until the blade’s edge ran through the back of the throat and into his spinal cord.

The demon fell like a bag of bricks. She limped free for a few strides before Doneil caught up with her. Magic shoved into her skin, knitting the wound in a stinging pain—a quick patch job, without finesse.

With a hasty glance to check on the group—all present, unhurt, and accounted for—she tucked back into a jog, she and Nales leading.

When they closed in on the pathway to the library, the smell of death hit her like a wall.

The hallway was filled with corpses.

They were a mix of demons, mostly humanoid, but some of them not. Several hellhound bodies lay among them, differentiated by their fur and structure, along with a few other creatures she hadn’t seen before. Something stopped her from stepping out, some sense that triggered a warning and a second look. The corpses were all strewn out, their limbs and bodies askew, like they’d been thrown.

And, without fail, every one of them was missing a head.

Whatever had killed them had gone through and meticulously crushed or ripped them off.

A series of thick claw marks lay in the stone wall, some of them twenty feet high. One, lower on the wall, held a blood smear, as if something had smashed one of the bodies there and wiped it along. Giant, four-pronged footprints amid and on top of the bodies gave no subtlety as to the perpetrator’s identity.

She gestured to them with the edge of her blade. “Our favorite giant chicken was here.”

Behind her, Doneil gave a low whistle. “And she was pissed.”

“Either that, or she really likes biting heads.” She grimaced, a sudden image of the bird snapping at her own head. “Something to watch for.”

To that, Doneil said nothing.

She picked her way through the hall. The smell of blood drenched her nose. Some of it was old, having clearly been dead before it was spilled. Gray-skinned corpses, dead long before the bird had crushed their heads, lay in slumps, veins black against their gray-green skin. Some of their armor had great slash marks on it, as if the bird had attempted to pry them open but found its claws were too big. Others had simply been crushed, blood imprinted into them from a heavy foot.

Nales jogged closer, keeping pace a half dozen feet away. He didn’t say anything, just looked over the corpses with a grim, assessing eye that surprised her.

“That bird was angry,” she commented. “Very angry.”

“She has reason to be. Grobitzsnak tortured her, corrupted her power, and used her like a battery of pain—and all evidence points to him having kept her locked up. He’s had her for three centuries, Catrin.”

Three centuries of imprisonment. On top of what it he had done to her.

Yeah, she’d be pissed, too.

She hesitated. “How sentient is she?”

In her experience, the forest tended to feel things in moods. Not actual, concentrated thought.

But she hadn’t met many forest lords, and none of them face to face.

Nales grunted. “About on par with your Kodanh.”

Ah. Fairly sentient, then. As an elemental being, Kodanh had a keen intelligence—but it was like that of a wolf or lion. Not so much simple as less bothered with small things like organized civilization and more concerned with power and territory.

Other summon spirits had complex, multi-faceted rituals tied to them—rites done over the summer moon, regular offerings left at temples, that sort of thing.

Kodanh took payment by use and in blood.

Simple, primal, but effective.

If someone had done to Kodanh what Grobitzsnak had done to Franas, his vengeance would be a long and violent affair.

So, that’s why they set it loose.

They passed the library. The door was open, the same crystal lights glowing from inside, but she saw neither of the two goat demons they had encountered before—only smears of blood on the floor where she’d killed the others.

Then, somewhere below them, magic pulsed.

Catrin halted. A scream followed it, shrill and piercing. The footfalls of something enormous thudded in the near distance, one level below them. She felt a different magic, booming and chaotic, burning like a caustic haze, fighting it.

Grobitzsnak, dealing with the monster they’d unleashed.

Yena swore viciously, a litany in High Fey. Her face twisted. “The gate is that way. They’re right next to it.”

A hardness settled in her gut. Of course they were. Nothing could ever be easy tonight.

Catrin’s grip turned to steel on her blades as her mind raced, weighing their options.

“We could go around,” Doneil suggested. “It might take longer, but it would be safer.”

“There’s only one hall that leads to the gate,” Yena said. “And they’re in it.”

“Maybe they’ll move,” she said.

Below, another crash of magic shuddered through the castle. For one long, heart-stopping second, the crystal lights on the walls flickered.

“Could we fight him?” Nales asked.

His head tilted, gaze focused on the vacant hallway in the direction of the magical battle as he, like the rest of them, tried to pay attention to his instincts to follow it.

Catrin gave him a blank, disbelieving look. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“You already offered to kill him once. I figured that we may have an advantage, given that he’s currently busy. I imagine Franas would be happy for the help.”

“I don’t think Franas is happy about much of anything right now.”

Another crash echoed through the castle, this one accompanied by another deep, drawn-out shriek. All of the hair on the back of her neck lifted.

They all waited for several long seconds, listening. Around them, the smell of death sat in the air, a coarse, humid reek. She wrinkled her nose.

“We must get to that gate.” Yena’s voice shook.

Catrin made a frustrated sound in her throat. “Why? What is so special about this particular gate that you need to get to it? Why not come with us, cool your heels at Pemberlin for a bit, maybe switch over to the Raidt if you feel the humans aren’t up to your speed—suns knows they’d be happy to have you. There are other gates. They can’t all be broken.”

There was a small silence.

“Not broken, no. Changed,” Yena said, her tone wavering, rich with emotion. A frown cut down her face, and her nose twisted into a snarl. She shook her head. “I want to kill him.”

Ah. So that was it.

Catrin let out a breath. “Yes, well, so do I—but we have other priorities. We all need to get out of here.”

There was another small silence. In it, the castle rocked again, the semi-distant roar vibrating up from its depths. Magic clashed together like two siege engines, the effect dulled into a violent, discordant hum by the layers of stone between them.

Then, between one second and the next, everything stopped.

Catrin froze. The pit dropped out of her stomach. Around her, there was a ripple of expression.

Was it over?

Yena frowned, her body tense. “I can’t sense him anymore.”

Shit. Without the fight happening, they were blind again.

Catrin exhaled and took a moment to rub the bridge of her nose, cringing at the blood and grit on her skin.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

She drew her blades. “Right. Glamour back up. Let’s see if we can get around him.”

Chapter 28

They tried to go a roundabout way, away from the bodies. It was hard. Twice, they got caught in dead ends and had to double back. Once, they realized that the path was curving along the other side of the mountain. They ran into six separate squads, two of them with seeing scripts that saw right through them. Yena eviscerated both magic users into shuddering clumps of bloody, broken armor.

When they finally did find a proper, out of the way path, tracing their way back toward the gate by trial and error, it turned out that all their efforts had been useless.

Grobitzsnak was still in the hallway in front of the gate, doing something with the bird.

“Fuck.” Catrin put extra emphasis into the swear, biting her teeth together to keep herself from screaming her rage. “Elrya’s holy tit, can’t we just get one break?”

Technically, the gods had already been kind to them. They had found their charges relatively unharmed, acquired both a book and an orb of destruction, and were all still alive and in one piece.

But, with the sight of Grobitzsnak in the other hallway, bent over, doing something with the bird’s corpse, and the sight of the ornate gate-room doors so tantalizingly out of reach not far behind him, she felt the gods would permit the blasphemy.

“Gods fucking damn it all,” she hissed, pacing away from the corner to a place out of Grobitzsnak’s earshot, teeth bared at the rest of the world. “Gods fucking damn it!”

“Let me guess,” Doneil said dryly. “He’s still there.”

“Yes.” She took a breath, lip curling. “And he doesn’t look like he’s moving.”

And she highly doubted the glamour would fool him a second time. Not after a battle with his magic still loose and active.

By the looks on the fey’s faces, they didn’t think so, either.

“We could fight him.” Yena bared her teeth. “I bet I could win.”

“You need to get on the other side of him.” Her gaze snapped up. “Caracel, please tell her. Either we leave this mountain and find another gate, or you two need to do your damnedest to get on his other side.”

Caracel said nothing. Instead, his vision was half-focused, contemplating something.

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

Great. Thanks for that.

Yena’s jaw muscles rippled in her cheeks. She stared at the end of the hall, dead-eyed and intent. Her fingers tensed into claws at her sides.

She still wanted to kill Grobitzsnak. Catrin could feel it.

“I think we should leave,” Catrin said. “It’s the safest option—for everyone. Pemberlin would be delighted to house you. We can find another gate. You will be delayed, but you will be alive.”

“We don’t even know if the other gates are still working,” Yena said. “This one could just be a fluke!”

“And, chances are, they could be just fine. Hells, I bet your people and the goblins are working on a solution right now.” She cringed at linking the two races in a single sentence—the fey did not like the goblins—but they were the ones who, historically, operated and maintained the gates.

Yena’s gaze was sharp, angry. “You want to kill him, too. Don’t even deny it, rnari.”

She let out a frustrated breath. Her mind flicked back, remembering how Yena had crunched the Void Wraith to the wall. How, with the power of the orb, she had exploded body with barely a thought.

“If we don’t kill him, hundreds will die.” Nales’ fingers flexed, and he rubbed the inside of his forearm where the tendons sat. Like Caracel, his gaze was unfocused but pointed toward the corner, brows furrowed in deep focus. “Even without the orb, he still has an army. He won’t be able to corrupt a ley vein, but he won’t be an easy take-down. He’ll hit Brighton first, use the population to feed his army. His demons would spread to the surrounding farmland. Pemberlin would be next.”

Catrin settled him with a dead-eyed look. “And if we fail, that will still happen and he could then use us to make it happen.”

“If it could prevent hundreds from dying, it is worth it.”

She shook her head. “If we get out, we can send someone ahead to warn them.”

“It wouldn’t be much warning. Grobitzsnak was planning to attack tomorrow.”

She bowed her head and rubbed at her temples.

Doesn’t this demon need to sleep? Suns. And why is he so hell-bent on attacking?

Who knew? Maybe that’s just what demons did. Or maybe their world was just that much better than the demons’, and he wasn’t wasting his chance.

Fuck.

“You really think you could take him?” she asked Yena.

The fey hesitated. “Yes. Probably.”

Catrin didn’t say anything for a long moment.

In the other hall, magic pulsed. Big enough to shake the air like a drum. They all flinched.

A sound followed, wet and sharp. She heard him shuffle. Heard him heave the bird around.

He was strong. His magic felt old. Powerful.

He was also alone. And potentially worn from the battle he’d fought—she doubted Franas had been a pushover.

She bowed her head and pushed the pads of her fingers into her temple again.

Gods, I am not actually considering this, am I?

“This is a terrible idea.” She heaved a sigh and turned to Yena. “How long would it take you to open the gate?”

“A minute, maybe two. It depends on what state it’s in. The last time, it was very slow.” Yena paused, her eyes flicking up to Catrin. “Are you really considering this?”

“Like Doneil said, us upper level rnari are a notoriously suicidal lot.” She laced her tone with sarcasm. “Are you sure you can open it?”

“Yes.”

That, at least, would give her a connection to Kodanh.

“Fine. Let’s do this. But I want you on his other side before you attack. If we distract him, can you get around?”

She had no idea how the fey’s glamour worked—considering the power fluctuating from around the corner, she had her doubts—but he hadn’t seen her earlier, and both Yena and Caracel were nodding.

“Good. Make sure you’re on the other side. Retreat into the gate if you have to.” She had no idea how she had become the ringleader of everything, but Caracel was nodding.

“We will.”

Quiet descended around the corner, but Grobitzsnak was still doing something. She felt it, like scratching at the marrow of her bones. She rolled her shoulders and took a few silent steps away from the group, listening.

Was he going to move?

The group fell dead silent as a scraping sound started, and the flutter of butterfly wings tickled the inside of her abdomen. She thought of the one that had been in the kitchen, recklessly tumbling its flight across the stone arch of the oven. The heat in the air as she’d taken it into the safety of her caged fingers and let it go outside.

She waited, still as ice, holding her breath.

All at once, the magic heaved and let go with a shock that made the air shudder. Some of it whipped through the floor, snapping at her feet.

She shot back—too late.

He’d sensed her.

The scraping sound stopped. A dreadful, thick quiet fell through the hall. Every inch of her froze.

“I know you’re there. Come on out. Let me see who has been crawling through my halls.”

The tone was toying, the words in Janessi. Either he already had a good idea of who might be crawling through his halls, or the touch of magic had given him a little extra insight.

Fuck.

“Get that gate open. I’m going to need it. When we start fighting, try to get around us. Don’t hit him with anything until you get on the other side.” She glanced behind Yena. “Doneil, you and Matteo stay here. Watch our backs for the undead horde.”

She took a shuddering breath, trying to calm the shake of her throat, and swallowed back a lump of fear. Her heart was pounding. “Nales, with me. We’re the distraction.”

The prince nodded, drew his sword. “He likes to play with his food.”

“Good.” She grunted, drawing her own blades. “Because I’d hate to have him wipe the floor with me before the gate is open.”

Her entire body shook.

Bright tits, this is a bad idea.

Before she could think better of it, she rolled her shoulders, whispered a quick prayer, and strode boldly into sight.

Grobitzsnak’s stare hit her like a brick wall. She stiffened as the air seemed to thicken around her, flashing back to the beat of his power in the forest. He was more at home here in his castle of stone. The very walls seemed to hum and shift around him.

It took everything she had not to balk. Instead, she held her shoulders back and met his stare, direct and unflinching, her face a mask of steel.

“You,” he said. “The rnari warrior.”

His voice was bemused, but an uptick of surprise quilted its edge.

He hadn’t expected her. Interesting. Though she did not like the way his tone had turned thoughtful at the end. He’d said her title like weighing a measurement.

She took a smooth, calm breath and flicked her gaze over him, letting her lip curl. Slowly, she leaned her weight onto her right hip. A relaxed gesture.

“Yes,” she said. “Me.”

Nales stepped up two paces to her right. The demon’s gaze flickered his way, lingering. The ghost of a smile touched his lips.

No. She definitely did not like this. Any of this.

What in the ten hells are we doing?

The demon shifted. Slowly, deliberately, he dropped down from where he’d been standing on top of the bird. Magic raced through the air. She tensed as some of it hit her, but it was only a feeling spell. Latent, testing. Like the flicker of a snake’s tongue. Each step he took felt like a hammer.

She clenched her grip tight on her blades, then relaxed it, watching him.

He moved like someone who had all the time in the world—as if he controlled every facet of the confrontation and could bat them aside like flies. His power quickened the air, made it shift and flex, to thicken like syrup.

But he also moved like a predator.

She pinned it down, watching him advance. It was subtle, but it underlaid nearly everything he did, from the smooth glide of his gait to the casual way he flexed his clawed fingers.

Very deliberately, she let herself shudder.

His gaze snapped to the weakness. The air thickened, energy spiking as the movement attracted him. He pierced her with a sharp, narrow focus.

She let out a slow breath, her mind racing. She could use that—but how? They needed to start the fight before that gate opened, then distract him from noticing the fey, which meant they needed to start the fight soon.

But they couldn’t attack him yet. He was too smart. Would likely suspect something.

Plus, she didn’t want to get her ass kicked too quickly.

He paused, ten paces out. His arms folded across his chest, one finger tapping at the bottom of his bicep.

“True coincidences are rare things,” he mused aloud, his voice light and even. His considering gaze flicked over them again. It settled on her. She was closer, a greater unknown. He’d already beaten Nales. “Did you let the ancient one out?”

Did he mean the bird? Franas?

She grunted. “It was a joint effort.”

Hopefully, he wouldn’t think too hard about his other escaped prisoner. Hopefully, he didn’t yet know that they’d escaped—though she highly doubted it. He’d already said he didn’t believe in coincidences.

“I see.” Once again, his gaze flickered over Nales. It lingered this time. “Where is the orb?”

“Not here,” she said.

Technically not a lie. She didn’t have it on her person. And if he couldn’t sense that, he wouldn’t sense it on Yena around the corner, either.

If he had, this conversation would already be over.

Nales spoke, his tone lilting and ambient. Light. “If you hurry, you might be able to catch it before it walks out your front door.”

The demon stilled. Suddenly, Nales had his full attention. She felt it in the air, like a fire. Every atom of air seemed to stop at once.

Silently, she rejoiced.

Thank the gods he can lie better than I can.

“Ah,” the demon said, realization sinking in. “You mean to challenge me.”

“Oh, yes.” Nales swung his sword, light and nimble, a simple rotation. “I have a few hits to repay you for.”

His voice was ready. Eager.

The demon chuckled. “You have no magic to speak of. This won’t be much of a fight.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Her gait slid forward in the slow, smooth stalk of an assassin. She shifted her grip on her blades and allowed a slow smile to tighten the edges of her lips. “Give me five years, and I could grow a nice little line of dogwoods for your front lobby.”

She grimaced inwardly at the awkward line, but she had other things to think about. In her head, she calculated. Long legs, long arms—he’d have a large reach. She didn’t see a blade on him, but his clawed fingers had mean-looking business ends. He’d attack like a bear, or an upright mountain lion. Quick, fast lunges, try to grab her. Pound into her with his magic.

She breathed out, a shivery feeling running through her, aware of Nales to her left. Everything sharpened around her as years of rnari training kicked in.

Slowly, she lifted her blade, never taking her eyes from his. “I’ve been wondering—is there an actual eye behind that mask, or will my blades just sink into shadow when I break your skull?”

He growled, took a step forward—an instinctual movement, a predatory urge to answer a challenge, and one she had been counting on. His growl ripped through the air.

“Why don’t you come here and find out, rnari?”

Magic crackled to life, hot and raging, thick as a blade. Her instincts screamed. She jumped, landed in a roll, just as her training had taught her, and lunged straight at his face.

The rnari valued speed and strength, in that order. Accuracy was second nature. She had one lucid, satisfying moment when the snarl under his mask switched to a start of shock and surprise.

Then, magic crushed her.

Pain assaulted her skin. The whole world flipped. She smashed hard into the floor, gasping for breath, and immediately shoved her body to the side. The mercari on her armor flared briefly before a second wave of magic slammed her into the wall.

Gods, they were useless. The first chance she got, she was going to find something that actually defended against magic.

She landed on her feet, barely. Then the demon grabbed her and threw her down.

The entire world went white for one long, stunned second.

When it came back, the edges of her vision seemed to blur. Grobitzsnak stood above her, looming and dark, a small knife in his hands. Blood dripped from its blade. Vaguely, she became aware of a sharp pain from her gut.

Okay, so he did use blades.

He reached for her. Clawed fingers caught the light, aiming for her throat.

A fire spell burst over his back.

He snarled, turned. Metal met metal. There was a quick glimpse of Nales fiercely defending himself, almost tripping at the speed Grobitzsnak chased him with, the faint outline of a shield formed in front of him. Magic snapped through the air.

She gritted her teeth and shoved back to her feet.

Come on, Yena. Anytime now.

In a textbook, scroll, or battleboard, battles were laid out in steps. Moves and counters. Strategies. Calculations of strength and speed, magic, resistance.

In an actual fight, it was rarely that neat. Even in her placement tests, the spars had been brutal, bloody affairs.

When you had a team of healers, you could do that sort of thing.

Plus, it was good for conditioning.

She shoved the pain back and sprinted. Grobitzsnak’s back was open, and she wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to stab him in it.

Two paces out, he spun and lunged for her.

She jerked back, beating a quick, fast-stepping retreat. Claws slashed down on her bicep. Pain seared. She snatched her head back as another clawed hand raked the air inches from her face. The wound in her abdomen screamed. A dense magic, low and jangling at her senses, built in the air.

She shoved in and engaged him.

He blocked her first strike, but her elbow thudded hard into his sternum, and her backhand skidded off his shoulder. Claws swiped across her chest plate.

She twisted, stepped in, and stabbed a blade toward his face.

Like most living things, he flinched back.

Magic pulsed.

She had one sublime moment where the shadows under his mask seemed to shift—where she could see the skin of his mouth, feel his breath on her arm.

Then white-hot pain seared through her mind.

Her mercari snapped up with a hiss, flashing gold. Vaguely, she was aware of herself stumbling back. She slashed at the air. Clawed hands blocked her with a quickness that drove a stake of fear straight into her heart.

When the pain lessened, a bony mask was towering over her.

He held her in a hard grasp.

Nales stabbed him from behind.

The prince’s sword went straight through the side of his abdomen, coming out on Catrin’s side.

Bless him.

Grobitzsnak stumbled forward. She attempted to shove her blade in his face.

He threw her back with a snarl.

She slammed into the wall hard enough that the entire scene flashed white for a solid second.

When she came back, everything was ringing.

Pain lanced through her arm. He was still holding onto her, she realized, dragging her like a rag-doll. Her arm must be broken. It felt loose, and painful. Not moving in the proper way. From this angle, it looked a bit off, too.

She blinked, trying to clear the hair from her eyes. Blood kept dripping down, stinging into her sclera.

Nales was fighting. She could see him, fire and steel. Furious. Skilled.

The scene began to swim, as if her head were loose. She was losing consciousness again.

Then, cold touched her arm.

For a second, everything seemed to slam to a halt. The demon was still moving, his claws still dancing with blood, his breath a roar in the air, and Nales was still charging, his blade leading, fire in his hands—but it slowed down.

White bloomed behind her, coming from farther down the hall, outlining every gap and break in the two doors at the far end, and the cold deepened in her runes.

Then, the power connected.

Time sped up again, back to normal, and Kodanh’s touch whispered through her like frost.

Slowly, her mind picked up the pieces.

The nice thing about Kodanh was that he was a wholly practical summon. He saw a problem, and he fixed it where he could. His cold lanced through her mind with more efficiency than any rnari tonic could claim. Within seconds, she went from barely conscious to awake and violent.

Her gaze slid up to where Grobitzsnak gripped her arm, and her teeth bared in a grin.

With the gate open and the fey theoretically under glamour, sneaking their way around the edge of the battle to the gate, Matteo had joined the fight with Doneil close to his side in defense. Grobitzsnak snarled in their direction, the faint outline of a hasty shield clasped in the air like a flimsy umbrella as he defended against the firing weapon.

He’d turned his back to her again.

She braced herself, reached for her power, and slammed it into him.

She put her entire body into the blow. Ice smashed like a tidal wave, chunks and plates of it shoving into his back, spears slicing through the air.

She thought he would let go. Instead, his grip tightened. Pain screamed through her arm.

He jerked her up and threw her back into the wall.

But she was awake now. And fast.

She twisted, braced the landing with her left arm, and scrambled up, a keen grip on her remaining blade. Spears of ice materialized in the air behind her and floated in place, lethally sharp.

Her face twisted. She bared her teeth and snarled.

“Let’s see how you bleed.”

Her ice slammed in. Magic crashed. Spears shattered like glass, snapping and crackling. Several sliced him. She lunged and slashed with a snarl—one, two, a third aimed for his knee. Ice and cold followed her. She pressed him as he stumbled back, shoving when she got the chance, cutting a quick slash at every opportunity she found. Blood splattered on the stones, both her own and Grobitzsnak’s. He stumbled back, almost crashing into Nales. The prince took the opportunity to stab his sword through the demon’s abdomen. Again.

She was getting more respect for him every minute.

Grobitzsnak roared. Nales’ kimbic fire lit up with a burst of heat.

Then, a wall of magic crashed down on top of them.

It was like the inside of a thunderstorm. Pressure surrounded her head, thick, active, screaming, beating at her with a thousand hands. She felt Kodanh deflect most of it, felt the burn and flare of her armor’s useless mercari try to keep up against the overwhelming power. Stinging pain snapped through her wrist. She staggered, yelling as the pain passed into her muscles.

He punched her, and she went down. A second wave of magic followed, frying her from the inside. Pain crashed through her bones like molten lead. Her muscles jerked, screamed. Every nerve felt like it was doused in acid. For one whole second, her vision went pure white, spots of pain crackling like filaments of lightning. Nales cried out somewhere close.

When her vision returned, Grobitzsnak came into her sight. She struggled to move as he bent over her. She felt her body lift.

He slammed her into the wall hard, a clawed hand around her throat. His other hand slashed at her arm—she must have tried to cut him. Agony ripped through her wrist.

He threw her again.

When she landed, she was slumped against the floor ten paces from where she’d started, and the demon was advancing on her.

Magic shifted through him, smooth and dark. She felt her stomach drop out from under her at the touch of his power. His one hand lifted, palm upward, claws curling inward, the glow of his eyes intent and predatory—and angry. Very angry.

Oh, goodie. She’d managed to piss him off.

Matteo continued to fire. The demon didn’t care. His shots snapped into the demon’s back shield, faster and more insistent, desperate. On the far right by the other wall, Nales was attempting to rise, having obviously been flattened. One of his arms was loose at his side, likely broken.

She struggled back as Grobitzsnak approached. Pain screamed through her arm. Its bone slid loose, stabbed into her flesh. She was bleeding from a head wound. Tasted blood in her mouth. Her hand still gripped her blade, trapped under her hip. She’d lost the other one by the wall somewhere.

The magic in his hands whispered, a deathless, subtle noise that crawled straight into her head. Her mouth went dry as a vision of the Death Veils came to her, of souls reaching out to her from beyond.

Her stomach dropped.

Necromancy. He was planning to turn her.

He’d stopped playing.

Sheer panic shot through her. She kicked off, desperation fueling her retreat as she scrambled against the floor.

He smiled.

Kodanh’s power pulled through her numbed lips. She tasted ice and blood. Pain and cold shook through her. She dragged it, desperate, kicking her heels at the floor to scramble back. He smashed through the flimsy ice wall she’d managed to construct, batted her spears away with a power that flashed like lightning.

He lunged. She rolled. Agony ripped through her shattered arm. The air shook, columns of broken ice shattering as she defended herself. She felt a breath on her and ripped to the side again blindly. Frost blanketed the floor in her wake. Blood came from her nose.

His spell missed, flying over her head in a caustic hiss.

Relief flooded her. She sank to the ground, gasping for breath.

Then, she realized that he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her.

Three paces from her head, the foot of the dead forest lord twitched.

Oh, no.

She gasped for breath. Every single one of her muscles shook. It felt like his magic had pounded every inch of her, inside and out—as if he had, personally and with sharp claws, punched every cell in her body. Sharp pains at the side of her chest told her there was at least one broken rib. The throb of her arm was blinding. She was down to one knife, somehow still gripped in her good arm.

And the ancient forest lord was moving.

Grobitzsnak strode toward her.

Shaking, she pressed a fist to the ground, hissed through the bite of cold, and froze a wall between them.

He looked at her flimsy wall with something resembling disdain. It was less than an inch thick.

“You are broken and weak.”

He shattered it with a strike of his arm. Shards of ice rained down on her, making her flinch. She couldn’t move as he stepped alongside her, a foot landing close to her abdomen.

“I will enjoy taking you.” His voice curled with the promise, tone bloodthirsty and triumphant. “I will make it last. I will wring every last scream from you until your mouth is silenced and I own every inch of your body.”

She shivered. He loomed over her space, the hunger in his eyes taking in the shake and shudder of her battered body—the way she struggled, gasped for breath.

His power made the air shudder like a roll of thunder.

Where are the others? She was vaguely aware of them, some ways to the right. The clash of weapons, snarled swears, shouted orders. The darting light of Matteo’s gun. A large amount of movement caught her attention. Her head slumped over, following it.

Grobitzsnak’s army had arrived.

The hallway seemed to undulate. Tens upon tens of soldiers, all running toward them. Her team, all bundled together, Nales out front, slicing through the ranks with his sword, Doneil behind, defending Matteo with a loose, magical shield as the soldier aimed his shots, one after the other, slowly moving backward.

“They can’t help you,” Grobitzsnak told her. She felt him kneel beside her. Clawed fingers slid around her throat. In his other hand, the Death Veils began whispering again. “Your turn now, rnari.”

Fear and anger bottled up in one panicked, disjointed bundle. Ice gathered in her runes, hard and cold. Kodanh’s gaze slid through her like a knife.

She was about to let it all out at once, to blast him like she’d done before, when another spell smashed straight into his chest and knocked him away.

To her left, the rising forest lord gave a horrific, rattling cry and fell to the ground like a load of unmanaged bricks.

She snapped her head around just in time to watch Caracel rise like a fallen god through the creature’s thrashing body and slice through the rest of the bird’s neck. Gore splattered across his robes and face. He looked across the distance to where Grobitzsnak had fallen and flicked the blood off his sword, his intent clear.

Yena stood several paces back, runes blazing, limned from the glowing light of the door behind her.

The fey had made it to the other side of the hall, between Grobitzsnak and the gate, and had joined the fight.

Chapter 29

The priestess yelled. Runes burned in the air, barely forming a spell before it came launching at Grobitzsnak, the power of the orb of Cnixe as obvious as a lightning strike. He growled, defending, backing up. Magic cracked together like a thunderbolt. It throbbed in her skin, pulsed against Kodanh’s ice.

Caracel turned and leapt, his own power blazing within him. With a single strike, he shattered through the ornate doors holding the gate within. Power boomed, wood cracking and splintering. White light flooded the hall.

The gate’s power washed over her. Ice flooded her veins. Her connection to Kodanh strengthened. She felt the ice lizard move, closer to her than he’d ever been—as if she were both here on Gaia and standing in his great ice cavern in Tir Na n’Og.

“Catrin!” Caracel turned, brandished his sword. “Help the others!”

A second shock wave rocked through the room—Yena, advancing, a keen snarl on her face, her runes blazing white with the orb’s power. Her eyes lit up with a feral gleam for the greater demon’s destruction.

Catrin understood. They wanted to kill him themselves.

That was perfectly fine with her.

She lashed out at his side, slammed twenty hard, thick spears of ice between them—Kodanh roared, solidifying them into one giant mass even as they both flinched away—and then, she was sprinting for the fight with the horde.

Ice crashed behind her. But, by then, Grobitzsnak had something else to worry about as Yena’s magic snapped around him like a noose.

In that moment, with the orb’s power fluctuating through the air like thunder, she took back every sarcastic remark she had ever said or thought about their little quest to get the orb. This was a fight she was happy to limp away from.

But, ahead of her, another fight was swiftly filling the halls with noise.

Her crew had done well. More than fifty corpses lay on the ground in varying shades of dead. Most bore the brunt of Matteo’s shots through their heads, pieces of them riddled and pockmarked with burns, but a few still moved on the ground, disabled by sword cuts but not quite dead.

Doneil and Matteo had backed up to a spot close to the wall, Nales in front and leading.

They were becoming quickly overwhelmed.

It was one thing to say ‘Grobitzsnak probably has around five hundred undead in his army,’ and quite another to actually see them. The entire corridor undulated with movement. Eerie, silent except for the tramp of boots, the jangle of armor, and the smack of moving bodies. The undead didn’t breathe, but they occasionally made grunts when the air was bumped through their lungs and throat.

Catrin stopped in the middle of the corridor. Behind her, the break and crash of magic made a sensation like fireworks in her wake—the shift of light that hit her skin, the pulse of power.

Ahead of her, Nales, Doneil, and Matteo gathered in a small group, rapidly retreating from the undead horde. As she watched, Nales spun out to meet two bodies that launched out from their run, his swordplay the blunt, hard-hitting style she recognized from Treng.

Shaking, gritting her teeth against the relentless scream of pain in her abused arm, she braced herself, drew her mind inward, and pulled hard on her connection with Kodanh.

The great ice lizard answered with an earth-shattering roar.

He had an ancient voice—cold and distant, powerful and unforgiving. The howl of an endless storm screaming through mountain passes and over the cold-hearted ice of the winter tundra.

The atmosphere screamed with his power.

An icy blast flooded the hall. The air froze. Tiny crystals floated like glittering sparkles, perilously cold. A ghost of the great lizard formed above her, a spiritual avatar near as large as Franas had been. He put his thick, massive legs on either side of her, protecting her body with his armor.

Ahead of her, Doneil noticed and gave a shout. His eyes grew wide when he took in Kodanh’s massive, ancient form standing over her.

She winced, feeling the ice lizard’s presence shift above her. This was going to hurt.

Clamping her teeth together, she focused her energy, and pulled harder on her runes.

They burned like hot oil. Cold flooded her system. Kodanh roared.

Shaking, she lifted the single blade she had left, directed his magic, and pushed.

He roared a second time, full of fury, drew his power up, and slammed it into the oncoming horde.

She staggered as pain lanced through her shoulder—Kodanh, already taking his cut. She bit back a scream, forcing her focus on the storm that crashed into the horde.

Gods, let there be some live ones in there. I don’t want to die.

Slowly, she slid her control through his. He shifted his aim. A wall built up, slowly but surely, making those closest to the group into a latticework of ice. It grew like a wave, cresting at the top. More ice smashed down, raining spears on others farther back. She directed it up, pushed it to grow, to thicken.

Then, she directed the entire thing to curl.

Dizziness slipped through her, with a lightness so strong, it made her stagger. Pain glanced through her like lightning.

But, after a few seconds, the wall of ice gave a tremendous crack and rolled forward, breaking bones, entrapping bodies, and crushing them all together. Fire spells beat against it, insignificant and weak. Another surge of cracking ice blew their sources out like name day candles.

She rolled the ice back and crunched it into a large, mangled wall, killing or seriously maiming those inside. Splotches of red burst in the ice like fire seeds, spreading into feathered, crystallized trunks.

Abruptly, the pain from Kodanh’s pull lessened.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Good. This wouldn’t kill her.

After a solid minute of freezing and crunching, the ice wall stopped. Above her, Kodanh shifted. Bowed his head.

She braced herself, knowing what was coming.

The specter clamped down on her arm where the summoning script lay, and her runes sliced with pain. She bit back a cry as the blood began to flow.

All summonings came with the cost, and a power grab that strong couldn’t be sated by energy and pain alone. Fortunately, the blood and death from the demons had fed most of his need, because the great lizard let off after less than twenty seconds. She was aware of Doneil and Matteo gaping, of Nales watching with a serious, shuttered expression. Doneil had his hand on Matteo’s gun, having obviously stopped him from shooting at Kodanh. She was vaguely aware of the fight behind her, of spells being unleashed, the corridor rocking with expended power.

It all seemed so distant with Kodanh over her.

After he’d fed, Kodanh lifted his head, her blood still wet on his lips. A rumble went through the corridor.

Then, he faded from view like the fog drawn by a winter’s wind.

She staggered, dropped to one knee. Doneil sprinted forward, catching her before she fell the rest of the way. Healing magic slammed into her, so bright and thick, it took her breath away for three long, seizing seconds. She gasped, sputtering into his hold as pain spiked through her arm, the magic knitting broken muscles and bones. Feeling sprang back all at once, making her gasp with shock.

He stopped her when she tried to check on the fey battle with Grobitzsnak.

“Don’t worry, rnari, the fey have him well in hand.” His tone curled around his teeth as he worked. “Be still. You’re not fixed yet.”

She complied, taking a moment to recuperate. Her breaths came shallow and fast. Nales stepped up behind Doneil, his sword held at rest but ready, half-angled toward the wall of ice. She felt Matteo flank her other side, a silent, protective presence.

Behind them, her ice wall glittered like a stark, macabre seascape frozen in time. The crystal light at either side made patches of radiance from within, illuminating frozen bodies and blood, cracks and bubbles, swords frozen in the ice.

She could feel the horde on the other side, beating against it like a muffled, chaotic swarm of bees.

She half rose, intending to strengthen it, but Doneil’s steel-handed grip on her shoulder forced her back down.

“He took his price, didn’t he?” He reminded her, touching his fingers to the blood on her arm. “The wall will hold.”

She relaxed back down. Or tried to, at least.

Then, behind her, something cracked.

The magic battle had raged so long, it had become background noise—like a low, throbbing, never-ending headache.

Now, it stopped. And it felt like everything stopped with it.

She turned just in time to watch Caracel lop off Grobitzsnak’s head.

The demon’s body hung in the air, mid-defense, the spell he’d been weaving still glowing in his hands.

Then, he fell to the ground, and the fight was over.

On the other side of the wall, the blows from the undead stopped.

She let out a slow breath. “Remind me not to piss of the fey.”

It was the first time she’d spoken since she’d been fighting Grobitzsnak, and she’d been through a lot in the last five minutes. The words felt coarse and tacky. She tasted blood in her throat.

“Yes. I can see why the Raidt keeps them as friends,” Doneil said dryly. “That orb gives quite a boost. If she’d had its strength before, I doubt Grobitzsnak would have been able to take her in the first place.”

“I wonder what he was keeping it in his castle for,” she said. “Seems more reasonable to carry it around. He can’t have been corrupting ley lines with it all the time.”

Her gaze flickered briefly up to Nales—gods, even that hurt a bit. The prince was quiet. Not tense, but wary, his attention on the fey.

She read his body language, clenched her teeth, and followed his gaze.

The two fey, bloody and triumphant, stood over Grobitzsnak’s corpse, deep in conversation. Power still shook the air, latent but destructive, and the light of the gate flickered behind them. Yena’s runes burned red on her skin like a northern sun.

After a few moments, they straightened and headed their way.

She patted Doneil’s shoulder. “Help me up.”

Shivery weakness lanced through her as he pulled her up. She locked her knees when a sensation of dizziness rolled through her. The taste of blood came back to her throat. She ignored it and flexed a hand to test the healing of her previously broken arm, her fingers itching for the hilt of a blade. Pain stabbed a warning through her nerves, but faded quickly into a familiar blunt buzz.

By the way it felt, Doneil hadn’t fully healed the break. Just a quick patch job to get her back on her feet.

The fey stopped several paces away. Yena’s runes still burned, the orb of Cnixe clutched in her hand. The air flexed around them like a sheet of hot metal.

Catrin winced at the flickering light of the gate and made a gesture to the orb. “That has served you well.”

“Yes. It has.” A pinched look came over Yena’s face. Then, with a casual movement, she pocketed the orb.

A ringing sound Catrin hadn’t noticed before stopped, and the silence sent a shock through her.

Actually, it was very quiet. Even on the other side of the wall.

“Grobitzsnak’s thralls died with him,” Yena said, either reading her mind or taking an educated guess on her body language. At this point, Catrin didn’t care. “Come. I have something to show you.”

She turned and led the way to the gate.

It felt surreal to pick through the corpses of the fallen, to smell the scent of blood and death and magic around them as the gate threw everything into a sickening, dizzying relief. The gate itself was a maddening pulse. Its light flickered like a storm. The entire scene shivered and danced. The two doors guarding it stood wide open, splintered from where Caracel had flung them into the walls. Old rentac script marked the stone archway, similar to what she’d seen back in the tunnels. Inside, a small cavern bared to the mountain’s naked rock. Shards of crystal light sat in groups and clusters, shining in the black rock like stars. One long vein glowed like a slash of white on the other side.

Embedded below it, encased in a circular, ancient arch of stonework, sat the gate.

It was mesmerizing to look at, flickering and dancing, its surface like bright quicksilver—viscous, bending and weaving, uncertain, catching every last drip of light in the room and glowing with it. It reminded her of the pools she’d seen before, under the floating crystals. With all of the blood and gore coating her skin and armor, it was hard to tell if it had the same scent.

Sometimes, within that light, she got flickers of different worlds.

Yena waved her hand. Magic shifted. A deep rumble shook the room, and the surface of the gate began to ripple in earnest.

A second later, the surface cleared.

A forest glade appeared on the other side of the gate, and a deep part of her relaxed. Her woodcraft flickered, grounding. The scent of soil and sap rose in the air. Birdsong trickled in, along with sunlight, making the forest pathway shiver and dance with the breeze.

She breathed in the scent, felt the touch of her woodcraft respond to it. The doorway pulled at her mind. Something about the lights, the hint of magic that lingered just beyond.

Beside her, Doneil had gone very still.

Yena caught the look on their faces. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

Catrin swallowed hard.

“Your ancestors are from here. Tir Na n’Og calls to all her children.” Yena hesitated. A few whispered words passed between her and Caracel. “Thank you for helping us.”

“We helped each other,” Catrin said.

“Yes, I suppose we did.” Yena paused for a long moment, her young face tense with thought. Then, she reached into a pouch at her hip and pulled out a small piece of paper which she pressed to Catrin’s fingers. A fine, inlaid script flashed red in the light—a name and address. “This is my calling card. Please copy this for the others. If you find yourself in Mel’th, you can find me at the Temple of Ekinye. Ask for me.”

Nales stepped up. “Likewise, I can be reached in Pristav Castle in Lorka.”

Caracel strode forward. He clasped Doneil’s forearms in farewell, then Matteo’s. He hesitated when he came to her.

Her gaze flicked up and down, and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “What? Does all this blood put you off?”

Suns, he looked good. Somehow, he’d only managed to get a few touches of blood on him, and all the wounds he had were healing. The rest of it, seeped into his clothes like a large splash of red dye—from taking Franas’ head, most likely—just accentuated his form of godly, wiry-muscled perfection, clothed in the mercari of myths.

Then again, so was she. The mercari on her armor may have done very little against the magic she’d faced, but it did make her look the spitting image of one of the rnari’s founding members—beaten, bathed in the blood of her enemies, her fingers curled into claws and stiff from blade killing.

He eyed her a moment. Then, at long last, he made a move.

Strong arms clasped over her bracers.

“You fight well, rnari.”

The name slipped off his tongue with a lilt. She met his eyes. Liquid obsidian stared back at her. Something in her stirred. The strength of his fingers pressed on the inside of her forearms, the prick of his claws careful against her skin.

“I know,” she said.

He chuckled. His grip tightened once, then let go. “Bright morrow and good hunting, blade.”

“Bright morrow,” she replied.

Beside them, Yena slipped up to Matteo’s front. She leaned in and whispered something, a trace of magic touching the air.

He stiffened, held still.

“A blessing,” Caracel explained to her in a murmur.

Then, they turned and walked into the other world. The gate surface rippled as they passed through.

On the other side, they turned. Yena lifted her hand. Made a gesture.

The surface of the gate melted from existence, the liquid vanishing before it hit the floor.

The rumble of power stopped, and all potential connection in her runes ceased. The light in the room faded. Soon, they were left standing in an empty cavern, lit only by the eerie glow of the crystals.

She took a step back and let it out, closing her eyes.

It was over.

“So, all of the undead are dead, right?” Doneil glanced around. “I heard that correctly?”

She rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath. “That’s what she said, yes. I think the living ones are still around. I didn’t hear them hitting the wall so hard, though.”

“Maybe they took a good look at it and decided to call it a day.”

A faint smile traced her lips. “Hey, if you don’t like my wall of death, feel free to make one yourself.”

“No, thanks. I think I’ll keep my blood away from ancient summoning spells.” His expression softened, growing serious. “How much did he take? Let me see.”

She shrugged him off. “I can still walk. But I won’t be doing that again for a while. Or any magic, for that matter.”

She felt beaten and bruised. When they got back, she’d see about finding a hot spring in the forest behind Pemberlin. There had to be something.

“Yes. Just stick to knives for now.” Doneil patted her shoulder, then paused. “Where is your other knife, anyway?”

“Somewhere by the wall outside. Probably next to where I left some of my blood.” She knew precisely where it was. Had known it like an itch since it had left her side. She felt naked without it. She took another breath, and fixed Nales with a steady, sarcastic look. “So, can we go now, or would you like to pick up more books from the library?”

Gods, he looked tired. Tired and beaten up. She had to remember that she wasn’t the only one the demon had tossed around. Though Doneil had obviously healed cuts and bruises and broken bones, Nales looked beat. More dirt and blood covered him, some from an obvious split lip. She wondered who had gotten close enough to do that to him. Grobitzsnak, probably.

Gods, she sucked as a bodyguard.

But then, he hadn’t wanted her as one. She’d done the job, and had done it well.

He met her eyes, then slid his gaze away. He rolled his shoulders and let a tired breath go through him.

“No,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 30

“‘I could probably line this hall with an unhealthy growth of dogwoods,’” Doneil quoted. “Seriously—what the fuck, Catrin?”

She grimaced. Not this again. “Look, I was a little busy trying not to die. Say what you like.”

She stifled a yawn. Above her, a soft breeze rustled the leaves of the tree canopy, making the dappled sunlight sway and dance. Hard to believe that, just two days ago, they had been at the edge of their lives, fighting against a demon intent on corrupting the forests’ very existence—that, even now, his fortress still stood, the corruption a sick and strange juxtaposition to this wood, the river flooding around it.

There, her woodcraft had jangled with every odd, acrid moment of it. Here, the forest seemed unchanged. Peaceful, but restless with the growth of spring.

She could see Pemberlin through the trees now, less than a mile away, white and clean against its forest backdrop, smoke from the kitchen lifting into the air in a calm trail.

It had taken longer to get out of the demon fortress than it had to get in. After the battle that had left Grobitzsnak dead and the rest of his undead legion with him, the few live demons remaining in the castle had largely avoided them. Despite her dig, they had not passed the library again, and instead had wandered the halls until they’d chased down and threatened a demon for directions. The horses had wandered from where they’d left them, but she’d expected that. Her woodcraft had started working the moment she set foot back on Gaian soil, so it had taken little time to find them. Every so often, she traded off her mare to Matteo, who had proven a capable rider, albeit trained in a different style.

On the way back, they’d spent the night at Sannya’s farmhouse. The women had been delighted to see Matteo again. Together, she and Sannya’s two daughters had gotten most of the blood and gore out of her armor and fighting wraps. She’d spent nearly an hour at the side of the washbasin with a leather strap, trying to get the grime out of her dirty sheaths.

It wasn’t perfect, but she felt better. Fresher. Clean.

And now, they were almost at Pemberlin. It was almost over.

She let out a breath and relaxed into the movement of her horse. The castle’s walls and fields flickered in and out of view behind a dense thicket of bush, bramble, and trees that lined the trail. Birds sang and rustled within it, and a small stream whispered from down the slope.

Ahead, Prince Nales glanced back. Then, he reined his horse back and circled to move at pace with her.

Her mare swished her tail.

“You plan to go back to the Raidt after this?”

Her jaw muscles clenched, already sensing where this was going.

This was not a topic she wanted to talk about.

“I’m Twelfth Circle,” she bit out. “There will be a messenger waiting for me with an order of recall when we arrive.”

Nales looked over at her, his eyebrows arching. “A messenger? Not a bird?”

If they’d sent a bird or wire, it would have arrived by the end of the vigil.

“No. My rank warrants a more official touch.”

He looked her over. She could feel his examination, shrewd, calculating, weighing the meaning behind what she’d said.

“They want to make sure you come back,” he concluded.

“No. It’s an honor.” Her face twisted. She bared her teeth. “I don’t expect a Cizek like you to understand.”

“Oh, believe me—of all people, I understand.” The fervor of his tone shocked her into looking at him. A hard, angry expression twisted his face. His hands gripped hard on the reins. “They threw you away, Catrin. It’s that simple, and that complicated.”

She stiffened up again, staring straight ahead. A hot bubble of anger fluttered in her gut.

“I have a duty, Prince.”

“Right now, that duty is to me.”

“Yes. Enjoy it while it lasts.” She nodded up the trail, to where Pemberlin’s not-so-distant white walls were visible through the foliage. “You have another ten minutes, at most.”

His gaze slid away. In her peripheral vision, he straightened, keeping his focus ahead. He said nothing for a long minute, but he kept his horse apace with hers, stewing in the silence. Behind them, Doneil and Matteo had fallen into silence, Doneil no doubt listening keenly to all of this.

Then, finally, Nales spoke.

“I know how these things work—I’ve seen it done. You’ll be recalled because they can’t afford to lose your skills, but you are still an embarrassment to the crown. Likely, they’ll shunt you into some menial, embarrassing task. More likely, they’ll pretend nothing is wrong. You’ll go back to your duty as Prince Tarris’ guard, and he’ll order you as he sees fit. I know his type. If he’s like my brother, it won’t be pleasant, nor honorable.” His gaze turned to her. “I also have a duty, and I could use a good fighter.”

“Ah, yes,” Sarcasm dripped from her tongue. “I would be an excellent tool to further your family’s exploits.”

“My family already owns you,” he reminded her. “If they wanted, they could pluck you right out of the Raidt and put you to task guarding our walls.” He let out a breath. “I don’t intend to rejoin my family.”

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “Then what do you intend to do?”

“Fix the gates. Seal the demons away.” His mouth twitched. A grim determination filled his expression. “My ancestor did it once. There must be a way to do it again.”

“You’re not a great and powerful demon,” she said.

“No, but there are other ways to use magic.”

She chewed the side of her tongue, thinking. “The light elves are your best bet. They have the best command of magic, and likely a good idea of what happened to the gates.” She frowned. “But they’re cloistered. They protect their cities. They won’t let you in…”

Her mouth halted the second her mind clicked into where he was going.

They wouldn’t let him in without an elf. Without her.

She closed up and shut her face down. “No. I have a duty.”

In her peripheral vision, he straightened and rolled his shoulders. For a long moment, he said nothing.

In the near distance, Pemberlin’s walls drew closer.

“I have to find out what happened to the gates,” Nales said. “I could use you—not just because you are an elf, but because the world is dangerous, and I don’t doubt that someone will be after my life before this is over, and there are precious few I trust not to double-cross me. But I won’t call you into service against your will. Please, do me the favor and at least consider it.”

He nudged his horse forward, picking up an easy canter. Her horse tried to follow, but she reined her back and let him go. They were a half mile from the castle. He wouldn’t get into trouble.

The group fell into silence. For several long minutes, only the sound of the birds, the clomp of hoofbeats, and the stamp of Matteo’s steady stride filled the air.

After a few minutes, the hoofbeats from Doneil’s horse picked up their pace. He slid into the place Nales had vacated. They rode in silence for a minute.

“Catrin,” he began.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fine, but at least consider it. You’ve spent the last month starving yourself, punishing your body for something that is not your fault. If you go back, you’ll be right back to square one. Tarris violated your bloodline contract the moment he forced you to defend yourself. Rnari are not slaves for the royal court. Go with him. Don’t be blind over some bullshit blood oath. Take the out. I think Nales will do something much more worthwhile for your skills. You’re not bladesworn. Not yet.”

With that, he, too, urged his horse into a trot.

She watched him disappear around the bend.

It took a minute for the birdsong to return. She sat back in the saddle, trying to relax to her mare’s movements, but it was like a spring had coiled up inside of her. She gritted her teeth, her hands tightening on the reins.

A shadow appeared by her side. Matteo, his steps smooth as water. He looked up at her. In the dappled light, his eyes didn’t flash—she suspected that was only something they did during battle or at night—but there was no mistaking him for anything other than a soldier. He made eye contact and held a hand up, waving it like a boat on the water, asking if she was okay.

She chuckled and slumped back in the saddle, tilting her head back until she was staring at the canopy slowly going by.

No, she wasn’t okay. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

They arrived at Pemberlin ten minutes later, and Matteo’s face changed from one of relaxation to one of serious and minor concern. Her gaze flicked through the courtyard, spotting Treng by the palace steps, speaking with one of the inner house managers. She directed her mare toward the tie rings by the stables, where the other two were already untacking, and slid into the spot next to Nales.

“Hey,” she said to him. “You think you can do it? Figure out the gates?”

“No, but I would like to try.” His eyes flicked over her, wary, examining her. “Are you considering it?”

At the tie behind him, Doneil went still.

Suns.

Her body stiffened. She shook her head.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t abandon my people.”

“We’re not abandoning them. We’re trying to save them.”

“Yes, it sure feels that way,” she said, her tone dry. She used the dismount to turn her back to him and let out a deep breath, sagging until her forehead rested on the saddle. “I already have a strike against me. This could ruin my career.”

“I doubt that. Most likely, they’ll want you for intel on the Cizeks. Rnari have done missions for us before.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that—paid missions, and not with the Raidt on war footing.” She turned around. “It would be easier for you to get into the Light Elves if I’m with you.”

“Yes. It would. I also receive the occasional assassination attempt. You would be beneficial in negating that.”

Her head snapped up. “Assassination attempt?”

He gave her a grim smile. “There’s a reason I had Bellfort with me.”

A coldness sucked at her chest.

Bellfort.

Across the courtyard, Treng finished his conversation with the inner house manager and strode over. She watched him come.

“You don’t have to tell the Raidt, Catrin,” Doneil muttered from behind his horse’s head loud enough for her to hear. “We can just pretend he forced you into it. He is a Cizek prince.”

“Yes. I’d get more points with my family for heavy-handedness,” Nales said, his voice dry.

“Shut up,” she told them.

“Merry and bright, Catrin li Ternadon. Please, bring me your tidings of blood.”

Treng’s accent curled around his words, cutting and deceptively cheerful, the mix of greetings a deliberate edge to his domesticity. Like usual, Severn Treng was a slash of violence against the scenery. It hung in his walk, the bright, strong stride that ate a deceptively large amount of the ground, and the smile that seemed to have an edge to it.

Mostly, it was his sharpness that gave him that edge. The man noticed everything.

He paused as he came to Matteo, stopping a pace away and giving him an obvious looking over. “And who is this?”

Catrin took a breath, then let it back out.

Where in the ten hells should she begin?

Might as well give it to him all at once.

“This is Matteo. We found him in a farmhouse on the way to the portal, where he had killed two demons on his own and suffered major injuries. We ran into a greater demon. He abducted Prince Nales, but we rescued him and, with the help of a royal fey hunting party, killed the demon and his undead horde and closed the gate.” She paused. “Matteo is an excellent soldier with a strange firearm and optical gear and likely comes from another world. We’ve tried six different languages with him to no avail. We think he speaks a variant of Gatali.”

Treng paused, digested this. He took a quarter turn and gave Matteo another, longer examination.

He asked a question, his words slipping into a seamless Gatali. Matteo answered, eyeing the other man. The corner of Treng’s lips twitched, one of his scars twisting, and he switched into a second language, his sentence longer this time.

A broad smile broke out over Matteo’s face. He stepped in, speaking faster, and Treng smiled.

“You were almost correct. He speaks Catalon. Not a variant, but in the same family.” Treng’s expression turned thoughtful, his eyes glimmering. “Come see me later. I will speak with him.”

She let out a sigh of relief as Treng made a gesture and the two of them walked away, the speed of their conversation increasing.

Finally, one thing that had gone right.

Movement came from the castle. The side door opened, and Geneve slipped out in a quick walk, heading straight for her. She wore the same cut of dress as she had before, simple and homely, going straight down from her hips. As usual, an elegant braid wound through her hair, deceptively simple.

“Oh, thank Abier—I’ve been so worried. I—” She stopped, frowned as her attention caught on Treng and Matteo. “Who is that?”

Catrin glanced over. “That’s Matteo. We picked him up.”

“Huh.” Geneve watched them for a minute, then turned back to her. Her gaze went up, and her mouth formed an ‘o.’ “Gods, what have you done with my hair?”

Her hair. Not Catrin’s.

“Ah.” Catrin lifted a hand, winced as it came in contact with a braid of dried blood. “Well, you see…”

“Were there a lot of demons?” she asked. “Did you kill them? Avenge Bellfort?”

Ah…

“Yes.” Catrin gave her a sharp nod. “The braids served me well.”

“Good.” Geneve beamed at her and patted her pauldron. She let out a sigh. “There’s a messenger here for you. They arrived a few days back.”

Catrin’s insides froze. “An elf?”

“Yes.”

As if on cue, the main door to the castle opened. The messenger, dressed in Raidt green and definitely an elf, came out and descended the stairs.

She tensed. A flicker went through her, an image of Prince Tarris too close to her; the bored, judging expressions of the Council. The way her father’s face had tensed up from behind the king’s throne.

Already, she felt her heart race, her jaws clench up.

But it wasn’t fear, this time. It was anger.

“Is something wrong?” Geneve’s expression faltered. “Have they come to take you away?”

Her teeth ground together, watching the messenger approach.

Fuck it. She wasn’t bladesworn yet. They’d had her service. And Nales would need her to get into the Light.

Slowly, she slid her gaze until it met his. His expression was shuttered. Waiting.

“Fine,” she said to him. “I accept your offer.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

She eyed the oncoming messenger, her heart picking up a beat. “I’m not swearing my loyalty to you,” she told him. “This isn’t a blade swearing.”

“I know,” he said.

The messenger was closing in. “You should probably do it quickly. Before he gets to us.”

Nales came around the end of his horse, and drew his sword in a whisper of metal and wood, blocking her sight of the messenger. “Kneel.”

She hesitated. Then went down. Geneve gave a startled gasp. “What in the stars—”

She stilled as he brought the blade to bear and tilted her head up, offering him her naked throat. The tip of his blade pressed against it a second later.

“Catrin li Ternadon, servant of the Raidt, Undersworn of the house Cizek. I call you into service.”

THE END

Author Notes

Thank you so much for reading First Blood! I hope you enjoyed it.

I had an absolute blast writing this book. At first, it was supposed to be a quick project between my other series, but it quickly took on much more than I’d bargained for! I’d expected some quick little quest piece with demons and a dash of portal fantasy—as you’ve read, it turned into quite a bit more, and I’m excited to continue the story.

For the next little while, my science fiction series, The Eurynome Code, and my urban fantasy series, The Elemental Wars, will be taking up my attention, but I have another two book covers ready for The Bladesworn Legacy that I hope to use, and I would love to order more should the series prove successful—there is a lot of story to tell!

Since COVID-19 kicked me off my regular job (I’m an asthmatic with out of control symptoms), I’ve gotta make this authoring gig work and I now have nothing but time to write. Although my focus for the next little bit will be on The Eurynome Code and The Elemental Wars, feel free to send me an e-mail at kelly@kgorman.ca to ask for Bladesworn updates! The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all, and I love hearing from readers! And if you enjoyed the book, it would be awesome if you could leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads so that others can get an idea of it! Us indie authors depend on word of mouth.

If you’d like to receive updates on all of my projects, you can sign up to my newsletter by visiting my website, http://kgorman.ca/ .

You can also stalk me by joining my Facebook group, K. Gorman’s Mages and Starfighters, here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/248396496320499/

Kind regards,

Kelly (K.) Gorman

About the Newton's Gate Universe

You may have noticed that “Newton’s Gate Universe” header on the cover and title page. So, what is it, exactly? And what does it have to do with First Blood?

The short answer is that, at the start of this project, I was invited by a few colleagues of mine to take part in a shared universe: Newton's Gate.

It is, at its heart, a portal fantasy—in 2050, humanity launches Newton's Gate, a gateway similar to Stargates that was meant for interstellar exploration.

But, instead of turning on and working like it is supposed to, it explodes. Portals begin to appear everywhere, some running on timed cycles of opening and closing, others opening permanently, some swallowing entire cities. They link Earth to a massive amount of different planets, dimensions, alternate timelines, galaxies, etc.

The Bladesworn Legacy is part of that. I wanted to explore what the domino effect would be in a set of worlds and dimensions that had already been linked. What kind of power shift would happen if the pre-existing gates suddenly stopped functioning? What would happen if an old, previously-sealed world came crashing back into the mix? What if the world was already a political hotbed of very ambitious kingdoms and empires, and the balance of power was suddenly available for questioning?

What if there was a chance to right a lot of evil?

That’s The Bladesworn Legacy.

The Newton’s Gate Incident occurred on Abiermar, and Matteo? Well, you’ll find out all about him in books three and four, and will likely get to explore back into his world a bit.

Need more? You can find all Newton’s Gate stories listed under the pen name C.J. Clemens, here: https://www.amazon.com/C-J-Clemens/e/B07GVPBT3R

Books by K. Gorman

The Elemental Wars

Into the Fire

Firebird

Palace of Glass

Guardian Force (coming September 2020)

Stones of Shadow (coming October 2020)

Into the Dark

Cat and Meese

Fury of the Wind

Sylphide

Tempest

Alecto (coming October 2020)

Click here for The Elemental Wars/Fury of the Wind reading order. You can also sign up for my newsletter to get Sylphide for free: http://kgorman.ca/new-home/elemental-wars/

The Eurynome Code

Black Dawn (relaunching on June 23rd, 2020 from Aethon Books in ebook, print, and audiobook)

Renegades (relaunching on June 23rd, 2020 from Aethon Books in ebook, print, and audiobook)

Blood Ties (relaunching on June 23rd, 2020 from Aethon Books in ebook, print, and audiobook)

World Shift (relaunching in 2020 from Aethon Books in ebook, print, and audiobook)

Awakening (relaunching in 2020 from Aethon Books in ebook, print, and audiobook)

Deus (Coming soon!)

Click here for more information: http://kgorman.ca/new-home/the-eurynome-code/

Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Author Notes

About the Newton's Gate Universe

Books by K. Gorman