Chapter 37
Seren
The Ruby Rose stood in one of the less savory parts of Emberstone, the west side of the city that I’d rarely stepped foot in. Somehow, the city seemed darker here, the air filled with smoke, the surface of the buildings grimier.
With Ciaran and Rykr flanking me, I didn’t fear the lewd looks cast my way as I might have if I’d just been with Tara and Amahle, who trailed us. Then again, Tara and Amahle would have been just as willing to kick the asses of anyone who dared cross us.
But we looked out of place. Here, the people didn’t bother to conceal their stares as we passed them.
My father had parted ways with us at the Bellwether to begin exploring the most promising passageways into the keep. Esme might be there; Haldron might want a close watch. But she could also be in the dungeons, which were well guarded and difficult to break into.
Thorne, in the meantime, had gone to the refugee receiving ceremony held before the Skorn trial. He planned to find my father directly afterward.
The Ruby Rose was tucked on the corner of a darkened square, the whole building leaning, as though it were trying to escape the street it had been planted on.
The sign above the door hung at an awkward angle, one chain rusted clean through.
The paint had long since peeled away, but enough of the deep red lingered to hint at what it once was—a rose, or something meant to look like one, though now it resembled more of a bloodstain dripping down splintered wood.
The windows were worse. Grimy, warped glass distorted the faint light flickering inside, casting strange, jagged shapes onto the cracked cobblestones.
Someone had boarded up one of the panes, but the boards were loose, creaking like the place breathed.
The door itself sagged on its hinges, its surface gouged with deep scratches—as if something had tried to claw its way out, not in.
As we drew nearer to the building, Rykr’s hand grazed mine.
I longed to reach out, intertwine our fingers, cling to him just a moment longer.
Even though I hadn’t expected him to pull me back into the room for one last time together, I’d realized afterward how much I’d needed it.
Not only to say all the things that we’d said.
But because I was terrified.
Surviving the Skorn had become secondary to everything else. Haldron had Esme and this had all started that night when he’d come for her.
Had he been one of the people there?
The man in the cloak, who’d taken her from my grasp … somehow, I was now certain it had been Haldron.
“I don’t like the look of this place,” Rykr gritted.
“I don’t either,” Tara agreed. “There aren’t enough exit points.”
“A place known for crime is also a good place to sneak our tribe out of the city. The sentinels at the gate are probably easier to bribe here.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt. I glanced at Ciaran and Amahle. “You’ll go with my mother for now, right? Until the start of the Skorn?”
Amahle gave me a reassuring nod. “We will. And then we’ll go to the arena.”
“Moira should be coming with the group of injured, too,” Ciaran said with a grim expression. “I want to help get her settled if I can.”
We continued past the building, then turned into the alley, as Darya had instructed. Farther ahead stood a small group of Vangar, including Seth. Their silhouettes were barely visible in the dim torchlight. I recognized my mother’s familiar light blue cloak, the hood over her head.
A footstep behind us made me stiffen.
A quick glance back revealed a group of Vangar, armed with swords, who closed off the exit from the alley.
My heart fell. “Fuck,” I breathed, locking eyes with Rykr.
He whirled around to see them, just as the woman in the blue cloak turned. Not my mother, but another Vangar warrior—this one dressed in the silver armor of Haldron’s guard.
Oh gods, no.
A sharp pain ripped through me, knocking the breath from my lungs. My head snapped up.
Seth held a crossbow in his hands.
And a bolt protruded from my chest.
I gasped, but it came out wrong—wet, strangled. Something was burning and bubbling inside me. The pain spiraling through me was icy, but the fire in my lungs screamed hotter.
“No!” Rykr’s voice split through the ringing in my ears and the sound of metal clanged as my friends drew their swords.
A strangled breath gargled in my throat, my consciousness swimming as a swirl of torches drew closer, my body convulsing as Rykr held my shoulders, keeping me upright.
“Seren!” Panic was on that handsome face. He snapped the shaft of the bolt. “Seren, look at me. Gods! Fuck. I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”
His eyes scanned mine desperately, but I blinked slowly, my brain unable to form words.
Fine. I’m fine, I wanted to tell him. But my tongue was thick, pushing against the roof of my mouth like some swollen, useless thing.
Two sets of firm hands grabbed me roughly under my arms and by my legs, wrenching me from Rykr.
A grating shriek sounded as a gate lifted at the end of the alley. What is happening? Are they fighting …
Dizziness washed over me, my eyes closing. I must be in shock.
But it didn’t explain the way my thoughts felt so sluggish.
Or the numbness traveling through my nerves.
A disconnect seared through me, one I couldn’t understand, almost as though I was drunk. Aware, but barely able to comprehend. Sounds became muted, the passage of time disturbed.
I couldn’t open my eyelids now, darkness consuming me. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, I saw myself plunging, falling deeper and deeper into a pit of darkness. Wisps of gold, whirling and twisting like lightning, reached for me.
Rykr.
Every instinct told me to hold on to him. But I kept falling, faster, and harder, out of his reach.
Darkness swallowed me whole. The cold of the alley, the sting in my chest—gone, but not gone enough.
My body rests on the cracked ground of a wooded glade of greys and black.
The scent of blood still lingers. The faintest echo of Rykr’s voice drifts on the wind. Seren—
Golden embers swirl from barren tree branches in the woods around me, dancing, drifting through the inky black.
A flash of blue tears through the darkness.
Someone shook my shoulders.
“Seren!” Rykr’s voice was in my ears. “Seren, please!”
I pushed my heavy eyelids open. My tongue drew over my lower lip, where the taste of blood seeped into my mouth.
Rykr touched my brow, his eyes searching mine. “Your skin is ice cold.”
“I can’t,” I rasped. “Pain …”
Gods, the pain was excruciating. My body felt as though it was being ripped apart from within.
Rykr’s fingertips drifted to my lips. “Don’t speak. Save your energy.” I could see nothing but his face. His lips dipped against mine. “Stay here with me, Seren. In this space we share. I don’t care about the pain. Give it all to me.”
I’m back in the glade.
The tendrils of golden magic swirl closer. Rykr’s trying to get in, to break past my thoughts. I shudder and nod, despite the excruciating pain that flares through me.
“Steady now.” His voice fills me. Shimmering transparent leaves appear on the trees. “Don’t look at anything or anyone. Just give the pain to me.”
A flash of agony radiates from me, and I see it in wisps of blue flames that curl into the golden waves pushing forward, through cracks in the earth, from the spaces behind trees. A dance of fire and ice that seems to burn us both.
“Don’t hold me back. Don’t fight me.” His voice is stronger now, a deluge of fire in my veins.
“I can’t!” I wail as fire bursts from the cracks in the earth, singeing me with its strength.
A wave of gold crests hard against the dying blue light surrounding me, extinguishing it with such force that the pain vanishes.
I see myself, dragged by my arms and legs, the shaft of a crossbow bolt sticking out of my chest, where a wound seeps crimson blood onto my vest. We’re in a stone tunnel, being dragged and prodded by silver-armored guards.
Tara, Amahle, and Ciaran are behind us, their swords … gone.
Everything through Rykr’s eyes.
From my own eyes, I see nothing. No light. No movement.
I am Rykr.
Seren is no more than a distant memory.
A name slipping through my fingers.
Her body, still bleeding, is dumped on the dusty rock as I’m dragged away from her.