Chapter 17 #2
“Amara!” he roars, and for the first time, his voice breaks with an unfamiliar rage. “Enough!”
He flings his hands forward, and the air erupts with force. A violent gust slams into me, throwing me against the side of the cage, the bars biting into my spine. My flames gutter, but they do not die.
I snarl, pushing against the wind, muscles trembling with effort as I stalk forward. The flames rise with me, green and black twisting in frenzied spirals around my arms, devouring the air between us.
Panic sparks in Anethesis’s eyes. He grits his teeth and thrusts both hands out, wind lashing harder, his body trembling from the exertion.
“Princess!” he cries. “Please! Don’t do this! I don’t want to hurt you!”
“Lies!” I scream, voice booming like thunder. “That’s all you Fae ever do. All you know how to do!”
Step by step, I force myself closer. The gusts howl, ripping at my hair, my clothes, but I don’t stop. I won’t stop. My hand rises, wrapped in fire and smoke, the red ribbon at my wrist snapping in the wind like a battle flag.
My open palm nears his face.
Anethesis flinches, turning his head with a cry as the flames lick across his cheek.
“Stop!” he bellows. “I beg of you!”
I smile, slow and merciless, and lower my hand.
“Good,” I murmur, voice cold as ice, hard as stone. “That’s a start. Now, release Ashen.”
He shudders, backing away, his breath coming shallow.
“But... how do I know you won’t kill me?”
“You don’t,” I snap. “Now. Do it.”
He skirts around me, keeping to the edges. His back scrapes the bars as he nears Ashen, still no larger than a hunting cat, crouched low, his ivory eyes ever watchful.
Anethesis’s hands shake as he reaches for the collar. I can smell his fear now, thick and metallic on his skin, and it stirs something within me I’m not ready to embrace.
The clasp clicks and the collar falls.
Ashen unleashes a roar that shakes the cavern to its bones. The stone groans. The cage sways. Far below, the lake ripples.
Smoke pours from Ashen’s body, swallowing him whole. Tentacles explode from his back with a wet, snarling sound, thrashing like serpents. His limbs stretch, his torso bulging with muscle and mist, until he towers, massive and monstrous, his true form no longer constrained.
The cage groans under his bulk, metal creaking in protest.
Anethesis presses himself against the bars, clutching them like a lifeline, his eyes screwed shut, desperate, praying. Pretending this is a dream.
But it isn’t.
This is real.
This is the nightmare he made with his own hands.
I step forward and place my hands on Ashen’s neck, burying my face against the thick, solid heat of him as he growls low in his throat
“Welcome back,” I murmur.
“Now is a time for calm, Princess,” Anethesis says, only turning half his face toward me, his hands still clinging to the bars. “I was promised mercy!”
“You were promised nothing and took everything!” The words tear from me, raw with everything he’s done, every agony I’ve endured at his hands.
“You stole me from my love. Threatened the safety of my child. Forced me to endure your trials. But you never intended for me to survive, did you, Lord of Ithranor?”
Ashen snarls, his lips peeling back, canines glinting.
Anethesis swallows.
“This world has given us nothing but pain,” he says hoarsely. “We just wanted to go home, Amara.”
I stare at him, at the broken man before me.
“That’s all I wanted, too. But we cannot both get what we want and live.”
Anethesis’s lip twitches, his expression curdling with fury. “Awakened whore!” he spits, voice cracking like a whip. He whirls from the bars, thrusting his hands forward as violent gusts tear through the air, wind shrieking at his command. But it’s no use.
Ashen lunges.
A single snap of teeth, swift, brutal, and Anethesis’ hands are gone. Blood spatters across the cage, deep crimson dripping between the grates. He stares at the severed stumps in mute horror before realization slams into him.
Then he screams.
Ashen doesn’t stop.
He lunges again, massive jaws clamping down around Anethesis’s leg before hurling him across the cage like a ragdoll. His body slams into the bars with a sickening crack before crumpling to the floor, motionless but groaning.
Ashen lowers himself, and I climb onto his back, fingers sinking into the thick smoke of his mane. His paws pad toward the door, each step thunderous in the silence, but I glance back one last time.
Anethesis lies curled on his side, sobbing, blood pouring from him in heavy sheets, a waterfall of crimson spilling into the black water below, swirling like ink.
“You will never truly escape,” he rasps, voice warped by pain. “You are Awakened. Death will find you. One way or another.”
I meet his gaze without flinching. “Then let it try.”
Wings of smoke burst from Ashen’s shoulders. He rears back, then leaps into the open air. Wind surges beneath us. The cage door swings shut behind with a final, echoing clang.
He flies us from the cage, from the cavern, from the doom that awaited us and, as the sunlight spills through the mouth of the cave, I lift my face to it, my smile stretching wide.
My first instinct is to tuck myself against Ashen, to press low against his neck and urge him to fly, ears pinned, wings beating fast and true, as far from Driftspire as he can. Especially when his shadow cuts across the floating isles and draws the gaze of the Fae below.
We do not have the advantage here. Not in their sky. Not against creatures who command the wind, who fly just as high and just as fast as Ashen can.
We must run. Now, or not at all.
And we almost do.
Until I hear his scream.
The Golden Son.
I tell myself not to look. Not to feel.
But I do.
I always do.
I tug on Ashen’s mane, hard.
“Down there,” I whisper.
He growls beneath me, a low, warning rumble in his chest. He knows what this means. What it risks.
Still, I pull again, more forceful this time.
Ashen resists. Then snarls. Then folds his wings and drops.
He hits the stone balcony of the tower with a bone-shaking thud, his massive body slamming through the ledge. Stone splits and crumbles, dust blooming in a thick cloud around us.
I slide off his back, and when the dust clears, I see him.
The Golden Son.
Maskless.
Chained against a wall, dangling from shackles at his wrists.
I’ve never seen him so pale, his blond hair stuck to his face with sweat, his chest barely lifting with breath. But he stirs when he hears me. Eyes slitting open, dazed and unfocused.
“Amara? What are you…”
“Be quiet,” I snap. “Or I’ll change my mind.”
I lift my hands, the last of my power flickering to life, green fire curling over my skin. I grip the shackles around his wrists, feel the metal sizzle beneath my touch, until it melts and drips down the wall in black streaks.
That’s when I see it.
The raw, flayed flesh of his wrist.
The rune that once marked him carved away.
Cut straight from his skin.
He falls forward, and I catch him.
His weight knocks the breath from me. Sweat and grime coat his skin. His head drops against my shoulder, limp as a broken doll.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“Say another word,” I growl, “and I’ll leave you here, I swear.”
But there is no time to breathe.
The wind shrieks around the tower, and the raised voices of the Ithranor rise like a storm in the sky. With the Golden Son’s arm slung over my shoulder, I drag him toward Ashen, who waits on the shattered ledge, and too late, I realize he was far wiser than I.
The tower is surrounded.
The sky churns with Fae riding the currents, their eyes locked on us, their blades drawn. If they do not already know what has become of Anethesis, they soon will, and I do not expect mercy.
Suddenly, the Golden Son’s legs give out beneath him, and he crashes to one knee, dragging me with him.
“Get up!” I bark.
“Leave me,” he breathes. “I’ll slow you down. Hold you back. Save yourself, Amara.”
I roll my eyes. “Be quiet. You’re coming with me. That is not up for discussion.”
He doesn’t argue again. He can’t and even if I left him, the odds of escape would still be razor-thin. But I didn’t come this far to fail.
I’ll carve a path in green flame.
I’ll let Ashen gorge himself on as many Ithranor as he can stomach.
I will be free.
I drag the Golden Son to Ashen, shove him toward the demon’s side.
“You’re going to have to lift yourself up,” I snap. “I’m not strong enough.”
He mumbles something too soft, too slurred, and his eyes begin to fall shut.
“Ronin!” I shout.
That awakens him. His eyes snap open, vivid blue slicing into mine.
“Pull yourself up. Now.”
He nods barely, but somewhere inside that wrecked body, he finds the strength to grasp Ashen’s fur and haul himself onto his back.
I climb up after him, patting Ashen’s neck, trying to soothe the beast as he snarls at the Ithranor circling like vultures.
My power is already slipping, the pain ebbing into nothing. I can only hope there’s enough left in me to put up a fight.
My hand drifts to my belly, to the faint flutter beneath my palm. A breath, a life. Fragile and fierce. I close my eyes for the span of a heartbeat, square my shoulders, and exhale.
“Home, Ashen,” I whisper.
Ashen’s stark white eyes flare with eerie light, and I brace for the rush of wind, for the sky to tilt as he leaps from the ledge, slicing through the storm of Fae, carrying us away from Driftspire toward the distant arms of my husband.
But he does not rise.
The stone beneath us trembles as his massive paws strike the tower with purpose, a deep growl rumbling in his chest. Then the air before us bends. It flickers, warps and a sliver of darkness tears through the space ahead. A speck at first. Then a widening ripple. Something darker. Vast. Infinite.
The void.
My breath catches. I grip Ashen’s mane tighter.
The cold unfurls inside me like smoke, familiar and terrible. That emptiness. That hunger. The thing I had nearly forgotten, but which never truly leaves.
Before I can stop him, before I can speak or even think, Ashen hurls himself forward.
Into the dark.
The void swallows us whole, the world vanishing in a rush of shadow and cold. Behind us, the rift seals with a sound like cracking bone, just as the Ithranor crash upon the tower.