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PROLOGUE

ESTRELLA

The Queen of Air and Darkness believed that to love was to weaken oneself—that the adoration I felt for my mate would be my ruination. As I floated in the water, my eyes on Caldris’s as the bodies around me disappeared one by one, I couldn’t even say that she was wrong.

Only that he was worth it, anyway.

My own fear was nothing compared to the terror in those helpless blue eyes that I forced myself to hold, shutting out the others watching with disdain and undisguised curiosity from the beach, even as I felt the tentacle of shadows I’d seen moving beneath the surface of the water wrap around my ankle to pull me under. I didn’t let myself look away or lose sight of my mate’s gaze, knowing it might very well be the last time I saw it.

I moved my hands along the surface of the water, attempting to disguise the shadowy figure below so that Caldris wouldn’t see whatI saw—the jagged teeth in the open, gaping mouth waiting to swallow me whole.

I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him just one last time, but it was too little, too late. I knew it with the first feeling of that tentacle tightening around my leg, holding me firmly in a grip I had no hope of escaping.

As slowly as it had seemed to wrap around me, the tentacle jerked me beneath the surface. One moment I uttered a single word, and the next, water filled my mouth. The brine of the salt water was intense, forcing me to sputter and expend the only air in my lungs.

I stared up, watching the sun shining from above as it trickled and played with the water’s surface. If it hadn’t been for the pressure of the water filling my ears as the shadowed squid pulled me deeper and deeper into the cove, I knew I would have heard the roar of my mate.

I felt it in my soul, felt his anguish in every one of my limbs like the jagged edge of a blade peeling the skin from my flesh and leaving me raw. My heart lurched, desperate to offer him an apology I knew he’d demand if I survived. I’d put myself at risk to save him, but he never stopped to think about what would happen to me if he was gone.

There’d be nothing worth saving left and I too would soon follow him into the afterlife anyway.

I forced my gaze away from the surface when the ache in my lungs became too much. Even as a Fae, even with the immortality in my body and the knowledge that this would not kill me, my chest felt as if it had been stabbed with white-hot blades. The pressure in my head grew as I fought not to breathe, not to draw the water into my lungs for fear of what it might mean if I lost consciousness before emerging from the waters and into Tartarus.

The salt stung my eyes, but I forced them to remain open. I made myself watch as the limp bodies of the sacrifices to the Tithe were carried to the watery depths of the cove. In spite of the shadowed squid holding me in its grasp, the water surrounding us was filled with life.

Coral of all colors jutted out from the edges of the cove, surrounding me in a circle like a grotto as we dove straight down into the bottomless pit. The breath in my lungs faded, making my vision hazy as I fought to stay awake through the lack of air.

Others had been sent to Tartarus on Mab’s behalf before. I forced myself to remember they’d returned, having survived not only thedescent but the prison itself. It couldn’t be all bad, not with the vibrancy that surrounded the entrance. The sheer beauty was like nothing I’d ever seen before, schools of fish swimming through the coral and brushing against the squid as if he was no threat to them. As if the great, gnawing mouth was a falsehood rather than a murderous weapon. A large turtle darted through the reefs, twirling his body around them with an elegance that seemed impossible. The turtles I’d seen that came up onto the shores of Mistfell had been awkward and slow, nothing like the smooth glide of this one through the water.

He came closer, brushing his shell against my arm as he swam past without a care in the world. I would have laughed if it hadn’t been for the lack of air, for the way my head filled with the thick haze of terror and my consciousness began to slip.

The sun faded as we plunged ever deeper, darkness surrounding me as my eyes drifted closed slowly. The walls of the deepest parts of the cove seemed to shimmer, offering the only light as the sun faded out.

I forced my eyes open again, the pain in my head becoming too much to bear. Taking in the beauty of the tiny, glowing dots on the walls of the cove, I wondered if this was how it was all meant to end. My body forced me to draw in that last breath, the burn of water filling my lungs in a single, searing fire.

Surrounded by a thousand colorful lights, the pain faded as quickly as it had come.

Everything faded.

Until there was only black.

ONE

CALDRIS

Estrella vanished beneath the surface, leaving me staring at the water for several moments in disbelief. She was the last one taken, the last of the figures at the surface to disappear. The water rippled as she was sucked under, tiny splashes rising above the surface and crashing together in the air. The water lightened, the shadows lurking there fading as they sank into the depths.

Taking my mate with them, stripping her from my view as I knelt on the sands of the beach. I could do nothing but watch as they took her from me. Those surrounding me went quiet as they watched, as Estrella vanished so quickly there was no time to say goodbye. My heart was surrounded with darkness, the light fading out from my world in a sweep of shadows that seemed like they would never leave.

There was no sun without her—no stars to light the night sky as silence pressed in on me.

“Estrella!” I roared, the sound filling the quiet air with a shock ofrage. Pushing against the hands that touched my shoulders and held me on my knees, I fought to get to my feet. Even knowing it was futile, my body could no more bear the separation from my mate than my heart could.

The daemons pinning me were unnecessary, what with the way Mab watched me intently. After the surge of power that Estrella’s blood had given me, she’d have me watched constantly until she was certain the effects of it had faded from my body. She clutched her mangled hand to her chest, her repeated use of the hand only exacerbating the pain she had to feel. The flesh beneath had mostly regrown, but the shape of her severed hand was a mangled and twisted mess, as if someone had crushed her bones together.

My entire world narrowed down to the surface of the water as it went still, searching for my mate’s terror down the bond. A sharp, acute emotion like that should have flooded the bond, making me suffer along with her in the interest of forcing me to save her.

The bond was a tangible thing between us, oriented toward self-preservation and the salvation of that bond above all else. Without Estrella there would be no one, there would be no life within me because I too would cave to the afterlife.