Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
LYRA
Ilanded painfully on my side, my shoulder screaming as it slammed into the ground. The scratches along my face prickled in the howling wind, and dust coated my airways.
Planting a hand in the sloshy layer of rock, I pushed myself up and opened my eyes. The portal had dropped me on a desolate spit of land covered in coarse black pebbles.
No, not pebbles. Cinders. The air was choked with ash and dust, blotting out the sun.
A sudden gale swept across the landscape, and I held up a hand to shield my eyes. Squinting through the cloud of debris, I scoured the area for any sort of landmark, but the blackened, cinder-covered earth stretched as far as I could see.
Then it hit me.
Cinders.
A volcano.
The portal had dumped us in the Barrens of Dorthus.
Adriel was already on his feet, donning the tattered linen shirt that he’d shed to swim beneath the Tower of Souls.
He stared at the garment in distaste before his wings ripped through the back of the shirt, unfurling behind him.
Like Kaden’s, Adriel’s wings were black and membranous, each tipped with a sharp talon.
My stomach clenched with unease at the sight of them. Adriel summoning his wings meant that he thought we might have to make a quick getaway.
I turned to Sorsha, who lay sprawled on the ground, her hand clamped over her neck. Blood dribbled down her shoulder, and her skin was unnaturally pale.
“Are you all right?” I asked, kneeling beside her to get a better look at the wound. A series of gashes marred her smooth skin, and I realized the violence of the fangs’ removal had made the wounds much worse than a typical vampire bite.
The princess gave a quick nod and got to her feet, though she looked more shaken than I’d ever seen her.
I thought about offering to draw a rune to heal her, but so far I only seemed to be able to wield my magic successfully in the face of imminent peril.
Even with her own power depleted from centuries spent on the Isle of Cragsmuir, I suspected the princess would have a better chance of healing herself.
“We should get moving,” Adriel rumbled, casting his gaze skyward. “We’re too exposed.”
Exposed because we were on demon lands in plain view of any who might be patrolling the skies. A chill shivered down my spine at the thought, and I drew my witchwood dagger.
Adriel started walking, shoulders tense, though I had no idea how he knew the way. The sun shone weakly behind the thick blanket of clouds and dust, though in Dorthus, it never rose completely.
We walked for hours with only the crunch of our boots and the steady huff of our breath to break the silence. All of us were still soaked from our dive beneath the Tower of Souls, and I shivered as the wind howled across the planes.
My throat itched.
I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d had a drink of water, and after battling vampires, vikkarni, and the in-between, I was thoroughly parched.
To distract myself, I tried to picture the emaciated vampire who had ripped off his own foot to save my life.
Though I had no idea who he was, he seemed to know me. Or maybe he’d simply gone mad from being confined in the Tower of Souls with no mortals to feed on, drowning beneath those icy waves time and time again.
He’d said I was the only one who could kill Semphrys. But how could he possibly have known that?
Eventually, a few sparse trees appeared through the gloom, and my heart sank. We’d reached the edge of the Demon Woods — a forest inhabited by creatures so foul not even the demon court would have them.
Though I’d known of Adriel’s plan to seek out the Scolendra in the hope of procuring their blood, it felt wrong to be traveling away from the Dark Palace. Away from Kaden.
The back of my neck prickled as we entered the forest. Here the trees were old and gnarled, their roots unfurling from the earth like serpents as their branches intertwined to form impenetrable thickets that seemed to herd us along the path.
The canopy thickened the farther we walked, darkness closing in as the trees above us snuffed out the muted sunshine. Sorsha summoned her ball of faelight again, though it did little to chase away the gloom.
Every so often, a shriek would echo from the branches above, sending a jolt of panic through me. A series of high-pitched cries would follow — the keening voices of monsters I couldn’t begin to imagine — which halted abruptly when those beasts became prey for something worse.
As we walked, soft, malicious whispers began to brush the edges of my awareness, but I hastily fortified the wall of thorns that formed my mental shields.
I knew all too well what could happen if I allowed those voices to burrow into my mind.
Kaden had told me once that the creatures who inhabited these woods were made of the same stuff as thought — that the things whispering from the shadows would reflect my darkest thoughts back to me, twisted and distorted.
At the moment, my own thoughts were twisted enough. I shuddered to think what those demonic voices would say.
The longer we walked, the more my thirst and exhaustion began to take their toll. My stomach roiled painfully, and soon that gnawing, parched feeling became all I could think about.
We had no provisions — just the swords pilfered from the ship graveyard, a few of our own daggers, and the bundle containing the Death Bringer’s hands, which I kept securely fastened to my bandolier.
As the last of the daylight faded, my mood turned bleak. Darkness pressed in along the edges of my vision, and even with my enhanced hunter sight, I couldn’t make out anything outside the glow of Sorsha’s little sphere of light.
Several times I tripped on an exposed tree root, stumbling into Adriel’s back.
“We’ll stop here and rest,” he said the fifth or sixth time this happened. “There’s a stream just through those trees. I’ll go hunt.”
Straining my ears, I could just make out the sound of running water. Relief coursed through me as I stumbled through the thicket of branches, dropping to my knees beside a narrow brook and dipping my hand into the frigid stream.
Kaden had warned me against the dangers of drinking from sources of still water in the Ravenous Woods, though he’d said that streams and rivers were usually safe. Even if my whole body recoiled at the thought of ingesting anything from the Demon Woods, I didn’t have a choice.
Bringing my cupped palm to my lips, I nearly groaned with pleasure as the cool water hit my tongue. Sorsha dropped down beside me a second later, and we both drank our fill.
Without the gnawing, brittle feeling in my throat, my mind felt sharper. My fatigue lighter. The two of us gathered as much firewood as we could carry and slowly made our way back to the clearing.
Sorsha was strangely quiet as I arranged the sticks and tucked some smaller dead branches into the center for kindling. She still looked frighteningly pale and wore a haunted expression.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, nodding at her left hand, which was pressed over the vampire bite.
With her preternatural fae healing, the wounds should have closed, but I knew from experience that the feeling of being fed on was often worse than the physical aftermath.
“No.” She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “I was just thinking . . . After everything Kaden sacrificed for me all these years, I wasn’t there to protect him when it mattered.”
My stomach clenched with sympathy. Kaden hadn’t strayed from my thoughts once since he’d been taken, but I’d never stopped to consider how Sorsha was processing it all.
It certainly wasn’t her fault that he’d been taken prisoner. She’d been on another continent.
I’d been there, and I’d failed him.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” I said quietly, hoping to ease some of her guilt even as mine redoubled.
“Right,” Sorsha scoffed. “Because I’ve allowed my magic to get so weak hiding on that godsforsaken island while my brother —”
“No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean . . .” I sighed. “I just meant that we were outnumbered. Semphrys caught Kaden off-guard, and he . . . didn’t fight it. He let himself be captured to give me the chance to escape.”
Sorsha’s brows drew together in sympathy, and she knelt beside the pyramid of sticks I’d made. As she held her hands near the base, I felt a tingle of familiar magic, and flames flickered to life.
My jaw dropped.
Having lived for so long without magic of my own, I sometimes forgot what the fae could do. Even if Sorsha’s powers were too depleted for her to summon her wings, she was still pretty incredible.
“Do you think you’ll regain your full powers?” I asked. “With time on the mainland?”
The princess swallowed and sat back on her heels, watching the flames consume the kindling and lap at the dry sticks.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “None of the Drathen soldiers have been stationed there for more than a few years at a time. I don’t know anyone else who’s become as depleted as I have.
” She gazed up at the gnarled trees, hugging her arms around herself.
“I’m not sure there’s enough magic left in these lands to replenish what I have lost.”
“It’s not your fault Alfrigg banished you,” I said. While I might have been stating the obvious, I had a feeling Sorsha needed to hear it.
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have stayed hidden away in that fortress like a good little princess. I should have fought. Should have staged an insurrection. Should have done something.”
“If you’d tried to rally your people, Alfrigg would have had you killed.”
Just like their mother.
“What good is my being alive? I haven’t accomplished anything or made life better for my people. I haven’t even really lived.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, watching the flames swell as the wood caught fire. “Well, now you can. Maybe you and Kaden —”
“Do you think there’s a chance . . .” Sorsha closed her eyes, and she didn’t have to finish the sentence for me to know what she was asking.
“Semphrys has been living on stolen power for a long time,” I murmured. “If we can cut the threads of the souls he’s bound to his life, he will be vulnerable.” I swallowed. “I promised Kaden that I would put a dagger through his father’s heart, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Sorsha met my gaze over the fire, her turquoise eyes blazing with hope and something like fear. Fear for me, I realized.
Then she chuckled and took up a stick, stoking the flames. “You are too good for my brother.”
“I doubt that,” I grumbled, sitting back and peeling off my right boot with a wince. The ill-fitting shoes Adriel had outfitted me in had nearly rubbed my feet raw. Angry blisters had formed and burst, causing the worn leather interior to cling to my skin.
“That looks painful,” Sorsha said with a grimace as Adriel emerged from the trees with a silver hare dangling in his grasp.
“It’s not great,” I admitted, thinking of the creek where we’d quenched our thirst. I longed to soak my aching feet in the cold water, but the comfort of Adriel and Sorsha’s presence kept me where I was.
Wordlessly, the royal guard sank down by the fire and began skinning the hare with the blade of his dagger. I watched as he ripped the pelt off the animal, arranged the carcass on a makeshift spit, and set it over the fire to cook.
Withdrawing the small leather pouch from around his neck, he fished out one of the leaves he’d given me and handed it to Sorsha.
Her expression lightened as she took the herb, scooting closer to him as she placed it in her mouth.
Adriel stiffened at her movement, but then he seemed to relax.
For several minutes, it was silent apart from the crackle of flames and the sizzle of roasting meat.
The crisping flesh of the hare gleaming from the spit was possibly the least-appetizing thing I’d ever contemplated eating, but I was so hungry that I didn’t hesitate as Adriel tore off a haunch and handed it to me.
I ate without really tasting the meat and wandered back to the stream to quench my thirst and cleanse the open wounds along the backs of my feet.
When I returned to the clearing, Adriel and Sorsha were lying beside the fire an arm’s width apart, their heads oriented near one another as though they’d been talking in the dark.
Settling onto the cold, hard ground, I lay back and stared up at the sky. With the thick canopy of the forest, I’d scarcely been able to see the stars. But in the clearing, a few silver pinpricks winked against the velvety night sky.
Perhaps I’d been searching for some sense of comfort — of normalcy — but the sight only made my eyes sting with loneliness and regret. We were so close to the Dark Palace. Staying away when Kaden needed me had to be the cruelest form of torture.
Closing my eyes, I searched for that golden thread that signified our bond. It seemed duller than it had in the past and lighter somehow, as though Kaden’s essence no longer flowed through it.
I hadn’t dared call down the mental pathway since he’d been captured. Semphrys didn’t know about the bond, and Kaden had said that demons were sensitive to such mental connections. I was terrified the Dark King would somehow sense that I was contacting Kaden and realize that we were mates.
But my exhaustion had weakened my resolve. After seeing Kaden in the in-between, I had to know that he was all right. I wanted to hear his dark chuckle down the bond and feel the warmth of his presence.
I gave the thread an experimental tug, willing him to appear to me as he had on the beach when I’d been half-delirious from blood loss.
A foreboding silence stretched down the bond, and I released my grip. A desperate sense of loneliness swamped me, and tears trailed down my cheeks.
As I drifted off to sleep, they invaded my mind — dream feeders that gorged on fear and suffering.
The image of Kaden wavered in and out of focus, but his eyes didn’t glimmer with the promise of pleasure, and he didn’t laugh. His face was a mask of pain, twisting in agony as he screamed my name.