Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Sy
Barbie hadn’t gone to the forge.
I knew it the moment I stepped inside. Bea bent over her workbench, a team of assistants hammering relentlessly at half-done blood blades.
The air was thick with the acrid sting of molten metal and ozone but utterly devoid of Barbie’s distinctive scent of honeysuckle and chaos. My stomach instantly dropped.
I’d felt this wrongness since she’d left the penthouse, a gnawing unease in my chest where our connection used to live. I’d dismissed it as paranoia, let Rowan’s kisses distract me from the growing hollowness. But now it screamed the truth with deafening clarity.
Barbie was gone.
“Barbie never came here today, did she?” My voice came out anguished enough to make Bea drop the blade she was holding. It clattered against the stone floor.
“No,” Bea said, her face paling beneath the soot and metal dust. “I haven’t seen her since…” She paused, her eyes widening in dawning horror. “Killian was just here. He took one look around, and then he…he just ran.”
I spun on my heel and sprinted. Bea’s voice called after me, but it was a distant echo. My feet barely touched the ground as I flew through the academy corridors, my panic igniting creation magic that sparked and fizzed at my fingertips.
I burst into the war room. The heirs were scattered across the sofas like battle-weary soldiers. They hadn’t slept since the battle, and someone—probably Silas—was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
“Barbie is gone! My sister’s gone!” The scream ripped from my throat, raw and terrified.
The heirs jolted awake as one, exhaustion vaporized by pure instinct. Louis was the first on his feet, his pale blue eyes sharpening with alarm. “What? Gone where?”
“Little monster.” Rowan shot up so fast his chair cracked against the wall. He was at my side in two strides, his hands firm on my shoulders, trying to anchor me. “Breathe. You were just here. I thought you’d gone to the bathroom.”
“I went to find Barbie,” I gasped, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush. “She never went to the forge. She lied to us.”
Bea appeared in the doorway behind me, panting from the run. “I haven’t seen her since the battle ended.”
“Maybe she’s with Killian?” Cade offered, sitting up slowly as he clung to logic. “He’s missing, too. Perhaps they’re in that private realm of his, the one where they never invite us.”
“Selfish assholes,” Silas muttered, shaking his head in disgust.
As if summoned by his name, Killian stepped through the space, his storm-blue eyes wild with a panic he wasn’t even trying to contain.
“Where is Barbie? Has anyone seen my mate?” The question was a desperate demand.
“Barbie tricked all of us,” I said, my voice breaking on her name. “I’ve been feeling this horrible wrongness since she walked out of your penthouse. I think she left the realm. I believe she…”
The words stuck in my throat. Saying them would make them real, but they were already real. She’d gone to Ruin. To face him alone, or worse, to offer herself as payment for our survival.
The realization struck me like a truck running me over. Was that why Ruin had retreated so suddenly? Had my sister made a deal with that evil monster?
The same horrific understanding shattered across Killian’s face. He staggered back as if stabbed in the heart, all color draining from his features until he was as pale as a ghost. His hand flew to his chest, clawing at the place where the mate bond was woven into his very soul.
“I can’t feel her.” The words were a strangled gasp. “The bond…it’s gone quiet. Muted. It’s like she’s—”
He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t give voice to the unthinkable.
“My sister is alive!” I snarled, my magic erupting around me in a blinding, defensive flash of white light.
“Search the grounds!” Rowan roared, turning to the stunned generals and aides. “Turn over every stone—”
“She isn’t here.” Killian’s voice had gone hollow.
He stared through the walls. His face might have been carved from ice, but I could see the cracks spreading.
“My mate is far beyond this realm, but I can’t pinpoint her whereabouts.
Distance alone can’t muffle our bond like this.
Something has been done to her. It blocked me from her. I have to find her!”
He turned toward the door, body coiled to spring, just as a panicked shout erupted from the far wall.
“Your Majesties! Highnesses! Everyone!” Pucker phased through the solid stone wall, his form flickering erratically with distress. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she made me vow. You know how she gets when her mind is set—”
Killian moved in a blur of lethal intent. His hands shot through the ghost’s throat, fingers clenching on empty air where a mortal’s windpipe would be. Physics was meaningless against his rage, yet Pucker still recoiled, cowering from the chaos king’s violent intent.
“Where. Is. She?” Killian’s voice was deathly cold.
“She’s gone to meet Ruin!” Pucker wailed.
The confirmation was a blade to the gut. I had known, I had felt it, but hearing the words made it terrifyingly real.
“How could she?” Bea whispered, her voice trembling.
Killian dropped his futile attempt to throttle a ghost and spun toward the door. I was already moving, a step behind him. We had to get to her now, before our father broke her all over again.
“Wait! Wait!” Pucker’s voice rose to a shriek. “She left a letter!”
I skidded to a halt, darting back to snatch the envelope from Pucker’s hand. My fingers trembled as I broke the seal and pulled out a page filled with Barbie’s chaotic scrawl. Her handwriting had always been atrocious, but stress had made it worse. I had to squint to decode her chicken scratches.
“Your Majesty,” Pucker ventured nervously, “Barbie said if you tried to, ah, murder me—though no one can murder me twice anyway—I should remind you of the safe word. The one for when things get too hot and dirty.”
“We don’t have a safe word.” Killian glowered, his storm-blue eyes blazing with dragon-gold. Tyson was surging to the surface. “She is always safe with me.”
“They’re very popular among mortals for role-play!” Pucker protested weakly.
“Give me the letter, Sy!” Killian commanded, his voice layered with a dragon’s rumble.
“No, I’ve got it!” I clutched the paper to my chest, turning away from his reaching hand. “Let me read it. To all of you.”
I cleared my throat, trying to steady my shaking hands. Rowan moved behind me, his solid presence a warm anchor as I forced my eyes to focus.
“If you’re reading this, I’m already gone,” I began, my voice breaking. I had to pause, my throat closing around the words. “Killian, Tyson, I need you to have a cool head. Just listen.”
“Keep reading,” Cade urged.
The other heirs gathered around me, their faces grim with shared dread.
I forced the words out, each one tasting of burned paper.
“I made a deal with my father: he retreats, and I go with him. It was the only way. He would have breached the Veil. How long could we hold out against a fucking army that wouldn’t stay dead?
So, before you all start yelling about stupid sacrifices, just stop. ”
The heirs opened their mouths to protest, then snapped them shut. Even in her absence, Barbie knew us too well.
“Ruin believes I carry the last drop of the old magic. I let him believe that for my plan to work. Yes, I have a Plan B and a Plan C. Here is what will happen: I’ll play the dutiful daughter for three days.
Get close. Make him lower his guard. Then, I’ll use the weapons I’ve been hiding to strike him hard and true. ”
“What weapons?” Silas burst out.
The room erupted as the heirs fired off overlapping questions, their supernatural ADHD making silence impossible. Only Rowan remained a steady force behind me, though I could feel the coiled tension in every line of his body.
“Let Sy finish reading the letter!” Rowan’s voice cut through the noise.
“I expected all of you to shout, ‘what weapons?’ right about now,” I continued, almost smiling at her insight.
Trust Barbie to script our reactions from miles away.
“Remember the Seed of Heaven? It was never fully purged from my blood. And I have Heaven’s Arrow.
And I borrowed something from my beloved mate, but I won’t say what yet.
A girl needs her secrets to stay interesting, and I must keep my mate hooked. ”
I risked a glance at Killian. His face had gone terrifyingly still.
“My going with Ruin is the first move, just as the Oracle warned me five times it must be.” Killian let out a low, venomous hiss.
If Lady Moirai were present, I was certain he would have snapped her neck.
“Now you must do your part. Do not come after me. Not immediately. I know it’s killing my mates not to act—it’s in their primal wiring to protect me at all costs.
They’re too fixed that way, there’s no changing them, and I don’t want to change Killian and Tyson.
I like the way they are. So help me out, heirs and kings—don’t you let Killian out of your sight. ”
As if on cue, the heirs shifted positions, casually but effectively placing themselves between Killian and every door and window.
“If you show up too early, you’ll ruin my plans. I need my father to soak in his victory and suspect nothing. Come get me in three days. That’s when I’ll need you to carry me out of evil’s lair.”
Tears burned in Killian’s eyes. He must be picturing her suffering. And from the storm gathering behind his glacier-cold gaze, I knew he wouldn’t last a few hours, let alone three days.
“Sy: Stay in Underhill. I don’t care how much you hate it as I tell you not to come after me. You’re the real prize, not me. I’m expendable. You are not. If Ruin ever gets his hands on you, it’s over. You hear me?”
A roar thundered across the room, shaking dust from the rafters.
Everyone froze.