Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
LYRA
Fury swirled in my gut as I flew with Kaden toward Dorthus, mixing with a blinding sense of awe at the prince’s diabolical strategy.
Soldiers in black fighting leathers soared around us, their iridescent wings gleaming in the slivers of sunlight that cut through the thick clouds. Every so often, a glimmer of blue would glint at the head of the formation as the princess led her troops across the Drathen Sea.
The wind howled in my ears, and Kaden’s grip on me tightened, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. As the leagues flew by beneath us, my mind churned with questions.
How long had Kaden known that the sire bond linked his life to his father’s?
He couldn’t have been aware when we’d first met. His anger at my acceptance of Caladwyn’s bargain had been genuine, which meant he must have thought he could still be king.
Unless he hadn’t believed that I would agree to kill his father.
Had the sire bond factored into Gninou’s declaration that Kaden couldn’t have his throne and have me? The deity wasn’t omniscient. If he were, he would have known about the bargain I’d struck with Kaden the night before he was captured.
If I had no choice but to kill Semphrys and Kaden died too, then he would never be king of Anvalyn, regardless of our relationship.
Then I thought back to something Kaden had said to Sorsha the first time we’d visited the Great Oak.
If something should happen to me, you are Anvalyn’s only hope.
My stomach twisted. Had he said that knowing that the sire bond would lead to his death?
My head hurt.
There was only one thing of which I was absolutely certain: Kaden hadn’t planned on winning over the soldiers when he’d made that rousing speech. He’d wanted them to unite behind his sister all along.
Wretched, noble male.
Sorsha had even tried to warn me the first day that we’d met.
Kaden always has his reasons.
A sick feeling twisted my insides, and I felt a soft tug on the mating bond. I ignored it, glancing everywhere but at my mate.
If Kaden didn’t see fit to tell me his plans, then I sure as fuck wasn’t going to include him in mine.
“You’re not so good at blocking your emotions when so many are aimed at me,” he rumbled, a silken lock of midnight hair brushing my temple as he brought his lips to my ear. “Would you like to share?”
“No,” I growled, still avoiding his gaze.
Perhaps it was childish, but I knew that if I looked into those fathomless gray eyes, I’d see the male I loved beyond all reason staring back at me, and my resolve would crumble.
I couldn’t risk Kaden interfering when I told him what I’d done — what I still planned to do. Not when so much was at stake.
As messed up as it was, his stupid plan to sacrifice himself to save Anvalyn and put his sister on the throne only made me love him more. But that didn’t mean I trusted him not to screw everything up to protect me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Kaden murmured.
Tell me about what? I wanted to snap. About your plan to die with your father, or your plan to crown Sorsha queen?
But instead, I held my tongue and kept my mental shields firmly in place.
“My sister is more fit to be queen than I ever was to be king,” he confessed. “It just took me two hundred years to see it.”
Something in me softened at his words, and I remembered that the fae couldn’t lie. Kaden hadn’t been planning for Sorsha to take the throne for long. I wanted to ask when he’d decided, but the princess had begun her descent.
The horde of Drathen soldiers followed — hundreds of males dipping beneath the clouds like a flock of deadly birds, armed to the teeth with Drathen steel and rowan-wood arrows to shred demon wings.
My stomach clenched as Mount Dorthus came into view — a single point looming over the endless stretch of Barrens cloaked in ash and mist.
Tiny pinpricks of black appeared through the gloom, winging their way toward us.
Demons.
A few had peeled off from their patrols and were headed straight for us.
Somewhere up ahead, one of the lieutenants barked a command, and rowan arrows sliced through the sky.
The demons’ shrieks of pain rang in my ears, stirring my hunter blood. Despite my terror, my whole body hummed at the prospect of cutting down every monster that stood between me and Semphrys.
This was what I’d been born to do.
My stomach pitched as Kaden canted his wings, soaring over the rim of the volcano toward the gleaming obsidian palace.
The polished black surface reflected the orangish glow of the lava below, giving the impression that the entire fortress was on fire.
A wing still lay in ruins, and demons circled like birds of prey as they waited for us to attack.
To my amazement, the fae split off into half a dozen formations, moving with precision as they loosed more arrows. Demons fell from the sky like rocks — their shrieks of pain and rage the only indication that they were still alive as they plummeted toward the gurgling pool of lava below.
A swarm of Drathen soldiers covered me and Kaden as we landed on the battlements. A second later, Adriel and Sorsha appeared as more fae touched down on the gleaming obsidian walkway below.
According to Kaden, his father now resided in the north wing of the palace since the south had been destroyed. The soldiers were to divert the attention of Semphrys’s army while we made our way to the king’s private quarters.
But the moment Kaden set me on my feet, demons swarmed the tower. Some had horns and fangs and multiple heads, while others looked almost human. Nearly all of them had huge, batlike wings and those eerie black eyes.
Kaden didn’t hesitate. He threw himself toward the nearest one, his sword cutting through the air with lethal precision. My stomach lurched as the demon’s head thudded onto the polished obsidian, rolling into my foot.
Semphrys’s soldiers quickly engulfed us, blocking Sorsha and Adriel from view.
With a mundane dagger in one hand and my witchwood blade in the other, I turned on the nearest demon, driving my enchanted weapon toward its chest.
The demon vanished in a cloud of noxious black smoke, and I wheeled to face another. It was a deadly dance I knew all too well, but I was distracted by the sound of screams.
Chancing a glance down to the battle raging below, I saw a Drathen soldier pitch off the walkway and plummet to his death. Another shrieked in agony as two demons hauled him up by his wings, shredding the beautiful iridescent membrane as if he were no more than a butterfly.
My stomach twisted.
Down on the walkway, the other fae magicked away their wings, slinging steel and fury as they fought Semphrys’s army. The aerial Drathens were shooting rowan-wood arrows into the fray, but there were simply too many demons, and Drathen-made weapons were no match for the beasts.
All around me, the demons Kaden and the others had cut down were dragging themselves across the tower, waiting for their bodies to repair themselves so they could fight again.
I was the only one who could truly slay a demon, and I wasn’t killing them fast enough.
With a roar of fury, I doubled my pace, oily black blood splattering my face as my daggers sang their vicious song of destruction. But before I could clear a path across the tower to get inside the palace, a howl of pain sounded close by.
My heart stuttered, and I turned to see Adriel clutching a hand to his abdomen, where a river of red was pouring out of him. He’d been fighting a demon with long, scythe-like claws and fearsome horns protruding from his head.
The royal guard stumbled, then fell to one knee, and time seemed to slow.
No.
Panic engulfed me, and I slashed at the nearest demon, trying to reach my wounded friend. But two more of the monsters replaced the one I’d felled, and the wretched demon who’d wounded him was advancing.
Adriel looked up, his face a mask of fury and pain.
I wasn’t going to make it.
That was the thought that rang in my head as my muscles screamed and sweat poured down my back. Every time I managed to bring down a demon, another took its place.
But then a whirl of shimmering blue caught my eye, and I turned to see Sorsha arrowing toward the royal guard, her face splattered with blood. Her boot connected with the horned demon’s head, sending him sprawling onto the polished obsidian.
She landed, blades drawn, and thrust her sword through the abdomen of one demon as she kicked a third in the chest. Her braid whipped behind her with every graceful slash of her blade as she sent blood spewing across the slick floor of the tower and demon heads rolling.
With a cry, I slammed my dagger through the sternum of a demon who’d grabbed me by the hair and watched it dissipate into a cloud of black mist. Only one of Semphrys’s foot soldiers stood between the princess and the royal guard.
I whirled to face my next opponent and looked back in time to see her pull Adriel to his feet.
Even injured and clutching his middle, he towered over the princess. His face was pale, his copper hair darkened with sweat, but when he gazed down at Sorsha, I saw none of the tension that usually crackled between them.
He looked . . . sinister.
But before I had any time to consider his expression, Sorsha pushed up onto her toes and planted a kiss on his stunned mouth.
My jaw dropped, and I was so distracted that I nearly caught a claw to the face from an encroaching demon. I threw up an arm to shield myself, and agony raked down my arm as he sliced clean through my leathers.
“Shit,” I hissed, blocking his next strike and lunging with my witchwood blade. But the demon snatched my wrist midair, holding it immobile with one of his many appendages.
My muscles quivered as I fought to break free, but the demon only sneered.
I dragged in a breath, fighting against the stitch in my side. Blood dripped down my arm, which seemed to have its own heartbeat. The demon twisted my other arm, and I cried out in pain, but then Kaden swooped in out of nowhere, decapitating my opponent in one graceful swipe.
My breath left me in a whoosh as the demon released me, and I threw my mate a grateful look before delving back into the fray.
Sorsha and Adriel had broken apart, and Sorsha was fending off two demons at once. I stabbed one of them from behind, and she sliced the second from his neck to his belt in a spray of thick black blood.
I took another step, and my foot slipped on something smooth and round that had lodged beneath my boot. Bending down, I scooped up a familiar stone about the size of my palm.
I stared. An ominous, sticky power seemed to leach from the stone, and a thick, grayish smoke swirled beneath its polished surface.
My heart punched against my ribs in a violent rhythm.
It couldn’t be.
The injured demon collapsed at my feet, a pool of blood spreading beneath my boot. Sorsha’s nostrils flared with satisfaction, and with her beautiful face speckled with blood, she looked every bit the warrior queen.
“Hey,” I huffed. “I need a favor.”
“Sure, I’m not busy,” she panted, swiping her wrist across her brow to wipe away the sweat and gore.
Another demon lunged for her, but I pulled the princess behind a wall made of gleaming obsidian.
“I need you to glamour me,” I said in a rush, tucking the stone into my pocket and hissing as it greedily sucked up my magic. “And keep Kaden from following me.”
Sorsha’s face scrunched in confusion, glancing from my face to the pocket where the stone had just vanished. “You what?”
“Just . . . trust me,” I managed between gasps. The stitch in my side was absolute murder, and I could scarcely draw a full breath. Already I could feel that my body had weakened, the stone sapping me of my hunter strength.
“I do trust you, but . . .” Sorsha paused, her brows knitting in concern. “Something is wrong.”
“Yeah. We’re losing. Badly. And Adriel’s wounded.”
But the princess gave an impatient shake of her head. “That’s not what I meant.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, and when she looked back at me, her eyes were wide with panic. “That’s not Adriel.”