Chapter 3
KORYN
I was in Balar Shan. There was nowhere else in all of Velora that boasted such extravagance.
The bathhouse where I was imprisoned had more than a dozen pools so deep that when I peered over the edge, my head spun with vertigo.
Each was edged with gold-inlaid tile in intricate decorative patterns, each unique, representing hours of effort to render.
But for all that beauty, it was empty—and not because of me.
The windows high overhead were in various states of disrepair: some cracked, others shattered, none boarded up against the seeping cold.
There were puddles of water—a leaking roof—but the baths themselves were empty, debris strewn across their tiled bottoms.
This place of opulent beauty had been abandoned. Maybe the fae had suffered from the curse more than I realized. Or maybe they were as flippant and self-serving as I’d always imagined, and they’d abandoned the bathhouse when it no longer appeased their whims.
The Lifebind glared at me from the inside of my wrist, the dark blue ink solid even as the world around me wobbled.
Whatever they’d given me, spell or herb, the effects were wearing off enough for me to think lucidly, but my movements were still jerky, and my perception of the physical space wavered.
The blood-laced ring of salt was surely not helping.
My eyes lingered on the symbols of my tattoo, even as my throat closed around a flood of unwelcome emotion. A long line that branched out into three at the end, the symbol appeared twice, inverted and mirrored. Straight and true. The irony clogged my throat. I gasped for my next breath.
The force of Garrick’s betrayal hit harder now than it had in the foggy gorge in the minutes after the Memory Gate.
I grabbed for my throat, as if I could claw away the feelings that made it impossible to breathe. The water on the ground rippled around me, stirred by spells or toxins or my own frantic movements.
The drip from earlier had faded into the distance, but in that moment it intensified, my accentuated senses amplifying the sound until each droplet was as loud as a symphony. Or a scream.
Breathe, I begged my lungs. The techniques that Tomin had taught me for wrangling my overwrought senses deserted me.
I closed my eyes again, desperate to block out anything I could.
I curled my legs against my chest, wrapping my arms around my shins, rocking back and forth.
I had to control it. I had to control the input, or it would drive me mad.
My hands found one another, one gripping the other tight. Memory flashed through me, kindled by the sensation—Garrick’s strong fingers closing around mine at the Sacrifice Gate. I squeezed harder.
Slowly, so slowly, the flood of sensations receded as I anchored myself in the sensation of one hand grasping the other.
I focused on my breathing, on forcing the air in and out of my lungs, and not on the fact that the thing that calmed me was a memory of Garrick.
That it was the warmth and comfort and lo—
Love.
What use was there in lying to myself any longer? What else did I have to lose?
The word had been on the tip of my tongue, living in my veins, seeping into the world with my every exhale. I’d fallen in love with Garrick the Red, notorious bounty hunter, secret half-fae, my bonded. A man who was kind and strong at the same time. I’d fallen in love with a lie.
That love is as dead as I am. And Garrick was the one who’d murdered it.
I could not dwell on that. I had to get out of this damned bathhouse, rescue Isanara, escape Balar Shan, and get back to the gates. If I was away too long, the gods would seek their vengeance, and whatever Isanara suffered now would be multiplied tenfold.
The best I could tell, there was only one entrance to the bathhouse, through an ornately patterned archway decorated with orange and turquoise triangular tiles. No matter where I positioned myself within my salt rectangle, I kept my eyes fixed on that archway.
She appeared as I rearranged my legs on the cold tile beneath me for the hundredth time, a snaking breeze announcing her arrival while simultaneously carrying away the sound of her footsteps.
Her wind-gifts had moved her feet with unnatural swiftness as we attempted the Seven Gates. But here in Balar Shan, Alize’s movements were slower, as if she did not want to showcase the strength of her magic.
I made no attempt to hide my glare as she walked closer, stopping just short of the ring of salt. I did not miss the sparkle of satisfaction in her eyes as they traced the perimeter of my makeshift cell.
I should have kept my mouth shut. But control had never been a particular strength of mine. “Enjoying my torment?” I spat.
“A little,” Alize admitted. The corner of her lips twitched upward in a familiar smirk.
Garrick. How had I not realized they were related?
Now that I knew, the resemblance was so clear.
Their skin was the same shade, though Alize’s appeared more golden because of her brown hair and bright eyes.
Even the arch of their brows and the shapes of their mouths were echoes of one another, hers more delicate and feminine, but undeniably similar.
I’d thought them lovers. The connection was much deeper than that.
Lovers came and went, but blood was forever.
I’d demonstrated that with my devotion to my sister Rylynn’s line, right down to Kyrelle.
So why did the empty cavity in the center of my chest ache?
Isanara, my mind supplied quickly. But the shape of my pain was bigger than even one insolent lavender dragon could fill.
I turned that pain outward, as I had always done. It was easier than feeling it.
“You knew all along,” I said. It wasn’t even an accusation. It was a statement of fact, bitter and harsh.
Alize stood above me. I refused to acknowledge the disparity by moving.
She pushed her lips together, mouth pursing as she considered her response. She crossed her arms over her body. “Would you believe me if I said that I did not know the extent of his dealings with the head witch?”
“No.”
Neither of us said his name. I told myself that if I did not say it, I was not thinking of him. I did not care about Alize’s reasons.
She shrugged. “Then I will not waste my breath trying to convince you.”
That grated on me even more. I wanted a fight. The pain in my chest spread to my limbs, the pounding of my unreleased power mingling with anger.
“They sent you to make sure he stayed true to his word.” This time I could not keep the emotion out of my voice.
Alize’s face transformed, the detached amusement curling into vehement rebellion. My words had struck something inside of her, but I was too deep in my own icy burn to analyze why.
“No one sent me,” she hissed through her perfect front teeth. “I am the second-born of my family. The Seven Gates are my duty and my right.”
Whatever the fuck that meant.
It was important to her, but I did not care what was important to her, nor how her brother fit into it.
My only concern was getting out of this cell, finding my familiar, and escaping Balar Shan.
Severing the Lifebind… it did not even matter.
I did not care if his life was tied to mine.
I did not care about his life at all. He deserved whatever happened to him as a result of his traitorous choices.
Alize walked the perimeter of the salt, balancing easily on the narrow strip of tile between two of its edges and the deep baths that dropped off on the other side. When she returned to her original place, her face was once again under control.
I could not say the same about myself. I was seething.
Keeping my power from exploding outward and eviscerating everything—including myself—took almost all of my energy.
My power surged with my emotions. It always had.
But with that ring of salt, I was not even sure it could explode out of me. And if it did...
“I half expected you to be gone,” Alize said.
I said nothing. She was a fae princess. Balar Shan was called the Court of Lies, and she had been raised here. Every word out of her pretty mouth was nothing more than a carefully constructed trap.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, just as Tomin had taught me. I would see my friend again, I told myself, at the Peace Gate. Friend. The word was unfamiliar, even in my mind. It was a weakness. But lying to myself about it did not make it any less so.
The rustle of silk and velvet told me that Alize had crossed her arms over her body again. It was her preferred position. “I did not expect a witch as coveted as you to be so easily contained.”
Another trap I could avoid.
“When you do break free, I hope you will consider what is at stake.”
A tether of control snapped.
“I understand perfectly well what I have to lose.” My unruly mouth had always gotten me into trouble, even before my resurrection. It gave Alize the opening she’d been seeking.
“I seriously doubt that,” she scoffed, laughing at me.
My eyes flicked open. I could not very well keep them closed while the fae bitch laughed at me.
But her expression was unconcerned, casual.
“Why go to all the trouble of sending you through the first five gates, ensuring you are protected by a Lifebind, only to capture you before you completed all seven?”
It was a stupid question. I had not thought that Alize was so na?ve.
“Power. Maura said so herself—why be a head witch when she might be a witch queen in her own right?” Her words had echoed in my mind ceaselessly since the Memory Gate.
“That is the easy answer,” Alize agreed. “But it’s not the only one.”
Not na?ve. Manipulative.
“They sent you here to deceive me once again.”
“No one sends me anywhere,” Alize said, her voice hardening. This time, she did not pace the outline of my cell to regain her facade. She let me see the earnest loathing that painted her features.