Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
ELARIYA
My heart stopped.
Arielle.
No.
The word echoed through me as I stared at the knife Zyrra had pressed against her throat.
Arielle wasn't struggling, but the terror in her eyes told me everything.
She knew one wrong move would kill her, and Zyrra wouldn’t hesitate.
The battlefield had fallen eerily silent, watching the new disaster unfold.
The white-haired brother stepped forward, a slow, mocking smile spreading across his face.
"You fought exactly as we hoped you would," he said to Wolfe, then his gaze drifted lazily across to me. "So much courage. So much effort." Then he looked directly at Wolfe and spread his hands. "And yet... here we are. You still believe this battle was yours to win."
Asshole.
He was wrong.
Things changed the moment Viktor came with his army.
The demons and those monstrous beasts were falling.
We had finally begun turning the tide.
Which meant...
The Deathless hadn't appeared because they were winning.
They'd appeared because they couldn't afford to lose.
That was what was happening here. If not, they wouldn’t have taken Arielle.
I spared a glance at Garrick below. He was still on the ground and he looked…
He wasn’t moving.
I was too far away to see more. But amongst the dead that lay next to him, he looked like one of them.
I pushed the thought from my mind. I had to stay positive. I had to focus.
“Release her!” Wolfe growled, shifting back into Fae form.
The silver-haired Deathless laughed. The sound didn’t suit him. “You think that’s how this works? You just demand and we obey? Clearly, you truly don’t know who we are.”
“Oh he knows, brother,” Zyrra intoned. “He just thinks he’s still calling the shots.”
Wolfe looked enraged. And terrified. I didn’t need the bond to know how worried he was that something could happen to Arielle. I didn’t even dare look at Bastian.
“This is what we want,” the silver-haired Deathless crooned. “You and your dearly beloved wife will come into the fortress and we’ll talk. Maybe we’ll even discuss handing your friend back.”
“They don’t want to talk,” my thoughts came hurried through the bond.
“I know Ziyka. I know.” Wolfe’s thoughts sounded just as troubled as mine.
“Go with them.” That was another voice inside my head. A familiar one. Viktor’s. He was speaking to both of us. “This was the purpose of the mission. To go inside. Go and whatever happens focus.”
I looked to my left. Viktor was there, astride his horse, still in the air.
“What say ye, Wolfe Nightblade?” Zyrra chanted.
Wolfe gritted his teeth and balled a hand into a fist. “We will meet with you.”
They all smiled. Then they faded from the air.
Through the carnage below us the demons parted, creating a path for us to go through.
Wolfe looked across at me and nodded, a signal to descend.
I eased Laureth down, landing near too many dead bodies. Wolfe joined me, landing with Pyrion who was bleeding.
Wolfe closed the distance between us and took my hand. Then we pressed forward, all eyes on us.
Wolfe didn’t speak to me through the bond. In silence we walked toward the fortress, unbothered by the hoards of demons on either side of us. It was most unnerving.
The fortress was still quite far away. I’d just started to worry that something more could happen to us on the way there when we were both sucked into the air.
Behind us the battle resumed. We couldn’t even go back if we wanted to. We were being portaled away, or whatever this was.
Seconds later, the air spat us out and we stumbled into a large room with a polished floor and a wrought iron chandelier hanging above us. We were inside.
Inside the fortress. Outside, I could hear the sounds of terror in the distance.
Gods.
What were we going to do?
No good could come of this. How could it?
We were in here, while the battle was still being fought. How many more would we lose?
And…
The Deathless had the people and the thing they’d wanted most right in their grasp.
All they needed to do was take the ring—which we just made easier for them to get—then use either of us to wield its power during the eclipse, and that would be it.
Wolfe gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Try not to worry.”
It was the worst thing to say to me, but I gave him credit for trying.
“If anything happens to me, you need to get the hells out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.” I looked at him but just as our eyes met, he disappeared.
Wolfe disappeared before my eyes and the room we were in shifted around me, becoming a living room.
Sitting in the armchair by the window was Thayden.
He grinned wide. “Hello, my love.”
Rage exploded through me. I thrust out my hand, ready to blast him into the next realm.
But nothing happened.
My breath caught. I reached for my magic again.
Gods. Still nothing.
Thayden laughed.
Slowly, almost teasingly, he drew a strange amulet from beneath his tunic and held it up between two fingers.
"Remarkable little thing, this is." He turned it between his fingers. "The Deathless prepared well for you, time mage. Can’t use your magic. It’s just you and me.”
He smiled.
Merciless gods.