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I’m already gathering the scraps of my magic, readying them in my hand.

“Annihilate.”

Her form disappears a moment before my spell does, though the ley line absorbs it as well.

My breathing is ragged.

Eislyn is gone. For now.

I stare down at the ruin of my abdomen, and I bite back a sob. If there was a baby, the odds of it surviving such a wound…

I have to dig my teeth into my lower lip to keep from screaming. Tears slip down my cheeks.Don’t think about that.

Then there’s Ferox…

I reach out a hand and pet my panther. Beneath my touch, he stirs, then turns his head to weakly lick my hand. I strain for enough magic to heal him. It leaves my palm sluggishly, but I sense the spell take root, and it slowly mends Ferox’s injuries. Once I’m sure he’ll be okay, I let my hand slide from him.

Memnon. Need Memnon.

I force myself to stand, and the world goes dark for a moment. Blood loss—this must be blood loss. It physically hurts to draw on more power and funnel it toward the last of my wounds. My magic is tired, reluctant.

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 hostage for whatever larger 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. As I step past the wards and spells guarding it, the river palace gleams among the trees; it’s so painfully, unnaturally beautiful that it sets my teeth on edge.

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

Warded as the palace is, it would be the perfect place to hide Memnon undisturbed for a hundred years.

But where would she place him?

I close my eyes and focus on my connection to Memnon. Eislyn mocked our ability to find each other through it, but itishow we located each other time and time again. I can find him through it now as well. I just need to focus.

I breathe in deeply, trying to ignore the screaming pains of my body and the cold chill that has set in my bones. A tendril of orange magic slithers from me, disappearing into the distance. I let my mind take a back seat to my power, and then I follow the trail.

I pass through halls and rooms, then exit the rear of the palace, wandering near the outdoor bathhouse. I’m so dazed, I nearly fall into the hole in the ground my magic dips into. 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 rigorously planned this entire situation, but she was careful not to tell me where Memnon is. I don’t think she was finished with whatever she was doing.

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 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 the only one who knows these events and how to read and write Sarmatian with the Latin lexicon. In addition, I’m one of a precious few who could even travel here…Memnon would have to assume I secretly commissioned a vault like this and oversaw its creation.

A shiver wracks 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.