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I’m dying.

It comes to me with detached clarity. I’m dying faster than my power can heal. And Memnon is cursed to sleep for a hundred years, and once he wakes, he will be Eislyn’s pawn for whatever bigger scheme she’s concocting. Perhaps it’s love she wants from him. Perhaps it’s power. Whatever it is, she was willing to have his family murdered and entice his friends to betray him. She was willing to twist my motives and my love for him, all so she could see her awful plan through.

I cannot leave Memnon to whatever fate she intends.

I stagger forward, toward the palace, leaving Ferox where he is so he can sleep off his injury. Ahead of me, the river palacegleams among the trees; it’s so unnaturally beautiful it sets my teeth on edge. It always has.

I pass the marble pillars fashioned like trees and the golden vines with their sharp-edged glass flowers that decorate the walls, leaving a trail of blood in my wake.

Eislyn had looked to this place when she spoke of Memnon, and warded as the palace is, it would be the perfect place to hide someone undisturbed for a hundred years.

But where?

I close my eyes and focus on my connection to Memnon. Eislyn had mocked our ability to find each other through it, but itwashow he first found me in Rome. I can find him through it too. I just need to focus.

Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply, trying to ignore the screaming pains of my body and the cold chill that has set in my bones. I let my mind take a back seat to my magic, and then I begin to walk.

I’m so dazed, I nearly fall into the hole in the ground. I stagger back and draw in a startled breath at the sight of the square opening cut into the ground. Next to it is a massive stone slab that’s been cast aside.

I eye the torchlit walls descending from the opening. Memnon’s down there. I can feel it like the beating of my own heart, and if I focus again on our shared bond, I can sense it tugging me closer, closer…

Eislyn had rigorously planned this entire situation, but she’d been careful not to tell me where Memnon was. I don’t think she was finished.

The thought gives me a whisper of hope. That’s all I need. Just a whisper.

Carefully, I descend the stairs, bracing myself against the wall to keep my fatigued body steady.

The decorated walls around me barely register, but then my fingers cannot help but notice the divots where words have been carved. I stare at the writing.

…containing the might of the gods within him, Memnon the Indomitable drove the Dacians from their lands…

…charged into impenetrable Rome with nothing more than his blood riders and captured his queen…

The writing doesn’t sound like me, but I’m one of the few who not only know these events but also how to read and write Sarmatian with the Latin lexicon. It would be easy to assume I helped secretly commission a vault like this and oversee its creation.

A shiver racks my body that has less to do with blood loss and more to do with the disturbing lengths Eislyn went to to carry out her plot.

What does she want with my husband?

The question will plague me.

All thoughts of her motives vanish the moment I step into the burial chamber. And there’s no mistaking that’s what this is. In the center of the torchlit space lies a white marble sarcophagus, the lid of it removed. From here, I can only make out a glimpse of scale armor, but I know—it’s Memnon. Even if the bond wasn’t indicating it, the slope of that chest and the sheen of that bronze armor would.

A ragged sob rips from my throat. I hadn’t believed he was asleep, not truly, not until now.

I drag myself to the stone coffin, the blistering pain of my wounds dulled by the deeper ache in my heart. My gaze barely touches on Memnon’s arresting, sleep-softened features before my legs give out. I’m awash in pain—pain so dark and bleak I don’t know how I’ll surface from it.

He’s already out of my reach.Enchanted to a hundred years of sleep. If it were mortal magic, maybe I could break the spell, but Eislyn is a fairy, and their magic is different,incompatible.

Even if the spell could be broken, I’m dying. Beyond that, Memnon’s empire is now overrun by battle-ready Romans, his traitorous warriors, and a scheming fairy.

We have too many enemies and not enough time. A tear slips out.

I place a hand lightly on the ruined flesh of my abdomen. I want retribution, but more than anything, I want peace. For me, for my soul mate. A single lifetime where we can love each other without the fear of our enemies killing us.

I struggle to pull myself up, gnashing my teeth together against the pain. There’s darkness pulling at my vision, and at this point, my magic is likely the only thing left keeping it at bay, but I do manage to get my legs locked under me. I’ve got life left in me yet.

I glance once more into the coffin, where Memnon rests, still as death. Not even his chest moves with his breathing. I can tell through our bond that he still clings to life, but he gives few signs of it.