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Where were Osheen and Lyrena?

Lyrena could barely walk. I needed to go to her.

“Veyka, no!” Arran bellowed. But I ignored him. I cut my way through the wall of nightwalkers. I trusted Arran to get the others to safety—to wherever our mysterious rescuer was taking us. But I would not leave Lyrena.

Suddenly, Osheen was there. He thundered past me. The instant his foot left the dirt, a tangle of vines and thorns sprung up from the impression left behind. Not enough to kill a nightwalker, but enough to slow them so he could retreat.

But I sprinted past him. I dodged the vicious plants. I could see the glow of Lyrena’s sword through the mass of dark human bodies writhing and lunging for me.

They couldn’t have me. They couldn’t have my friend.

I tunneled deep into reserves of energy that I hadn’t known I had—new reserves. Magical ones.

Why am I running?

I let my eyes drift closed. I summoned my ember of power. I became the void. The world spun around me.

Then I was at Lyrena’s side.

“What—”

“No time,” I said, slipping my arm around her waist. I didn’t stop to question my instinct. If I had, I’d never have been able to do it.

Lyrena leaned into me, not a hint of fear in her face. Complete trust for her queen, her friend.

I closed my eyes and commanded the void to let us pass.

Just like that, we appeared on the other side of the clearing.

Lyrena’s flaming sword had winked out, but she was close enough to me that I could see her face clearly. She looked like she was going to vomit.

There was no time for that. Arran was suddenly there, taking Lyrena’s weight.

I turned to follow him, bracing my muscles for a difficult flight through the trees.

But instead, the ground fell away below me.

60

PARYS

He trusted the female he’d assigned to tail Merlin. She was a cousin, though distant, another wind-wielder—the most useful of the elemental powers for subterfuge. But she also provided an opportunity that he couldn’t afford to squander.

She could alert him if Merlin returned while he was searching her sanctum.

The temple was open to anyone, elemental or terrestrial alike. But priestess’s sanctum was her own—private. Locked.

Parys had anticipated as much.

He closed his eyes, sending a tiny wisp of wind into the lock. Not all wind-wielders could manage this sort of delicate work. His wind moved through the mechanisms, feeling the levers and pins, the heft of the bolt. He constructed an image in his mind. He wasn’t particularly familiar with locks, but he was able to push and pull and manipulate the tiny metal mechanisms until finally the bolt slid free.

Parys paused on the threshold, waiting. A priestess wasn’t quite the same as a witch, and they’d been stripped of their spell books after the Great War. But he would not discount anything when it came to Merlin. Ambition was a powerful motivator—and she’d already shown disregard for the laws of Annwyn.

But nothing in the room seemed to change as he stepped in. More importantly, nothing abouthimchanged. No intense pain like the riddle room in the Tower of Myda. No illusions living in mirrors like Arran and Veyka had faced.

Just… a room.

A single room that served both as bedroom and living space. That made sense—the temple was in the older part of the goldstone palace, situated in the mountain itself. Tens of thousands of years ago, the priestesses had been known for the asceticism. A room like this would have housed half a dozen priestesses and acolytes.