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“And how do you propose I do that when you’ve bound my arms?”

He pointed to the floor. “Project there.”

Daeanna grumbled under her breath, slowly releasing her balled fingers. She moved carefully, her gaze never breaking from his. Never faltering.

Not until he felt the icy sensation of magic constricting around his ankle.

Moira began to scream from behind him, telling him to move.

But his foot had stuck to the marble, his ankle frozen in ice, ice that crept up his leg.

Daeanna chuckled. “Goddess-blessed magic or not, you will never escape here alive.”

Her magic sank deep into his skin, into his blood, his marrow. It snuffed the magic flowing through his veins, extinguished the force and energy that fed his fingers.

When he tried to break the ice that grew by the second, he found himself abandoned.

Moira’s screams stopped suddenly.

Everything became ominous, silent, except for the crackling of the ice as it climbed higher and higher up his leg.

He threw a sharp glance over his shoulder.

The room had been cleaved, separating the dais from the remaining hall.

By a wall of ice.

Daeanna tilted her head one way, then the other when he scowled at her. The magical bindings around her wrists faded, and she rolled out her shoulders. As the ice reached his thigh, the magic tethering her to the floor failed.

“Take another look, Shaye. Tell me my guards are naught more than a handful.”

His heart faltered when he dared to steal one more glance behind him.

A line of gold-armored guards approached his family andfriends, magic and weapons drawn as they closed in on their targets. Four of those dozen or so guards held four children, bound by blue magic and mouths sealed shut with spells.

No one realized the danger mere feet behind them.

Catching Liam’s gaze, he lifted his arm—

Only it didn’t move from his side.

His head snapped back to Daeanna.

She smiled, tsking. “The problem with the magic you had is that once too far from the source, it can be manipulated and conquered. ’Twas temporary. A flawed design, if I may say. So, it seems the Goddess intends for me to mutilate your family, your friends, and all of the Talaenian people, just as I suspected. Because”—she twirled her finger, spinning Shaye’s otherwise immobile body around to face the nightmare stalking closer and closer to reality—“this wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”

Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, her breath cascading over his ear. He tried to shake her off, but couldn’t. He was helpless.

Bloody hell, helpless.

Again.

“I love watching blood spill, my darling.” She bit his earlobe as Moira watched in horror. “Love when my plan progresses.”

One of her hands curled over his shoulder and splayed against his pec. He tried desperately to send a warning to Moira through their bond. Warn her that danger approached.

Goddess, help him!

The ice reached his waist. The wall of ice separating him from his family blurred everyone who stood beyond his reach.