Chapter 16
His presence swallowed the room like a gathering storm. Power rolled off him, vast and dangerous, pressing against the air like a thundercloud.
He stepped just inside the door, and without so much as a gesture, it slammed shut behind him, cutting off the wind. He didn’t move after that, only stood there—face lost to shadow, hands in his pockets—watching.
“You’re looking good, Rìan,” Aedric barked a laugh, though it sounded forced to me. Fear clawed its way up my throat. “How was your little holiday in the Veil? Restful, I hope?”
Rìan said nothing. But his eyes began to glow in the darkness, silver bleeding through, brightening by the second.
I couldn’t breathe. The bond wrenched tight, pulling hard enough to make me lurch forward. I fought it, tried to tug back, but it held fast.
“Do you know how impressed we all are that you managed to escape?” Aedric went on. “Who knew you could worm your way into minds even stuck between worlds? Truly admirable. You should be prou—”
He never finished.
Rìan’s eyes blazed and Aedric’s body seized mid-word, his breath tearing from him in a scream. I cried out, straining against Veylan’s shadows as Aedric convulsed helplessly.
As quickly as it started, it stopped.
Aedric sagged, gasping, thin streams of blood slipping from his ears, tracing down his neck. With a shudder, he dragged his head back up and glared at Rìan, his face drawn tight with a hatred so savage it made him look animal.
Those silver eyes burned now, bright as stars, cutting through the dim. Inhuman. Ancient. A god of death.
“Where is Dannis?” His voice was smooth, controlled—velvet wrapped around a blade.
Aedric spat at his feet and laughed, the sound rough from screaming.
Rìan’s gaze moved calmly down to the glistening spit, then back up again. “Shall I break the Eidra’s mind slowly,” he said softly, “and let you watch?”
Aedric’s laughter died. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’ll make it simple,” Rìan said, clasping his hands before him. “Tell me where Dannis is, and I won’t hurt her.”
Aedric’s face twisted, but he said nothing.
Rìan tilted his head. “How interesting.”
“You’d never risk it,” Aedric bit out. “If you break her, you’ll end yourself.”
“I never said I’d kill her.” Rìan answered smoothly. “I have no intention of dying, Aedric—not yet. But you… I’ve waited three hundred years for this moment.”
He stepped in front of me, his towering frame swallowing the space between us. It took everything in me not to shrink away from him.
Up close, he was immense. He loomed over me, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, forcing me to tip my chin back just to meet his gaze. Every line of him radiated effortless, lethal strength.
I couldn't look away from that brilliant, dangerous stare. Rìan wasn't in my mind—but I could feel him, his power pressing against me, against the thin barrier of flesh and bone. My magic stirred in response, hungry, reaching, even as I struggled to force it down.
He tilted his head. “Can you feel me, Eidra?”
Aedric stood rigid in his restraints, every muscle trembling with barely contained fury. A pulse of rage crashed through our bond. Then, as abruptly as it had come, it cut off.
Rìan tipped his head, studying me for a long, unreadable moment before pivoting sharply toward the dais. He climbed the steps to the throne and stopped before it, his back to us.
"Believe it or not, Aedric... we want the same thing."
Aedric scoffed. “Oh?”
“I want this bond broken as much as you do.” His hand lifted, fingers hovering just short of the throne, before falling again.
He turned his back on it and faced us once more.
“A simple bond is one thing. My life tied to hers is not.” He clasped his hands in front of him.
“It interferes with my plans. And I did not spend three centuries in darkness preparing the downfall of the Fae to be undone by such… inconvenience. Rest assured, Aedric—the bond will be broken.” A cold glint touched Rìan's eyes. “You just won’t live to see it.”
Aedric bared his teeth in a defiant grin. “And I thought I had a flair for the dramatic. I—”
Veylan’s shadows lashed around his mouth again, gagging him mid-sentence. He jerked against them.
“Levinica.”
She hovered beside the throne, staring through the open doors as though she hadn't heard him. Rìan came to her side and laid a hand against her elbow, turning her gently to face him. Her eyes lifted sluggishly to his, struggling to focus.
“Are you certain you can do this?” he asked quietly. “Now?”
She blinked hard. It was as though the sound of his voice had reached some buried part of her, drawing her back to the surface.
“Yes,” she croaked.
He studied her for a long moment before giving a single nod. He reached for her arm and guided her down the steps of the dais.
She stopped before me, Rìan beside her. Without hurry, Levinica lifted trembling hands and began peeling away the black silk gloves shielding her skin.
Beside me, Aedric thrashed against his bindings, muffled sounds of fury swallowed by the shadows wrapped around his mouth. Rìan took no notice.
The gloves fluttered soundlessly to the floor.
“Eidra,” Levinica said softly.
I forced myself to meet her gaze. Her eyes were still glassy, distant somehow, but earnest.
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered. “On Dannis’s life… I won’t.”
I could feel Rìan's stare resting on me like a physical weight, but I couldn’t bear to look at him—to meet those silver eyes and whatever horrors waited inside them. His fingers tightened briefly against Levinica’s arm before he released her.
“Segolayne.”
The maid stepped forward at once, already reaching into the pocket of her apron for a thin notebook and pen.
“Ready,” she said, pen poised.
Levinica drew in a deep, steadying breath. Her slender white hands rose, one coming to rest against Rìan's cheek, the other against mine. Her fingers were cool, almost weightless. Immediately, her eyes filmed over, turning milky white.
And then I felt her. Inside me.
It wasn't like Rìan's dreamwalking, which forced and tore and took. Levinica's magic was different—an immense eye opening upon the deepest part of me. Its gaze swept through the darkness of my being, revealing all my deepest corners.
Then something loosened. From deep within the marrow of my bones, Levinica's magic drew three shimmering threads into the light, their prismatic colors shifting with every heartbeat.
As they rose, three threads of gleaming silver answered them, strong and unyielding.
They found one another, crossing, twisting, parting, only to entwine again, weaving an intricate tapestry that stretched beyond the limits of my understanding.
The pressure of Levinica’s hand against my cheek increased. Her fingers curled faintly against my skin, like she was bracing herself for what came next.
A wind stirred through the room despite the closed terrace doors, lifting her ebony hair on a phantom current. And when her mouth opened again, the voice that came out was not hers but something else entirely—a layered chorus, monstrous and terrible:
“Three gates sealed in ages old,
Long forgotten, power cold.
The missing bone will break the state,
Riven by Seven, carved of fate.
Open flesh, unmake the thread,
Each must yield the first blood shed.
Drink, once you have been judged thrice—
Past and longing claim their price,
Last, the truth your heart would shield.
What lies within shall be revealed.
He who holds the missing limb
Bends life and death to suit his whim.
Keep it sealed, whatever cost,
Lest all the world be lost.”
Levinica’s grip slackened.
Her fingers pulled away from my skin, the pale film receding from her eyes. She lurched suddenly, dragging in a great, shuddering breath, as though surfacing from deep water. Rìan caught her as her strength gave out, steadying her before she could fall.
My ears rang with what I'd just heard. It was as if something ancient and monstrous had spoken through her, as though she were nothing more than an open doorway.
Rìan looked over at Segolayne.
“Got it.” She flipped the book shut and tucked it back in her apron pocket.
Rìan bent and pressed a quiet kiss to the crown of Levinica’s head. “Thank you,” he murmured into her hair.
Levinica’s chin quivered. “Dannis… He wasn’t there. She… she doesn’t know.”
Rìan straightened slowly, something dark settling over him as he fixed on Aedric. "I'll find him."
The shadow binding Aedric's mouth loosened and slipped away as Rìan turned to face him, his beauty made all the more terrible by its cruelty.
"How cunning of you to keep your secrets to yourself, Aedric." His voice was almost conversational. "Tell me... did you do it for her sake, or yours?"
"May the gods drag you to hell."
Rìan clicked his tongue, unimpressed, though hatred burned openly in his stare.
“Tell them I say hello.” His eyes flared suddenly, igniting the dark.
It happened so fast.
Aedric turned his head toward me, his gaze moving over my face as though he were committing it to memory. His throat bobbed. His lips parted. And then he mouthed the words I’d never said aloud—the ones I’d held back each time I’d had the chance.
I love you.
His body seized. The movement was violent, his back arching as his breath tore from him, a strangled sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a scream. His body locked, then trembled, small, uncontrollable spasms rippling through him as Rìan’s power ripped through his mind.
“Stop it!” I cried, the words breaking out of me as I fought against the shadows holding me.
Rìan didn’t so much as look in my direction. Aedric’s breath came ragged, choked, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth, tinged faintly pink with blood as his body struggled to withstand the power forced into it.
I thrashed, straining to reach him—he was right there, beside me, close enough to touch, and I couldn’t—couldn’t—and helplessness crashed over me, panic gripping me. He was going to die. Right in front of me.
My mate was going to die.