Page 31

I made it all of twenty feet before Eris winnowed in front of me and struck.
A backhanded blow to the face, so hard my teeth went through my lip.
He struck again before I could even fall, a punch to my gut that ripped the air from my lungs. Beyond me, Lucien had unleashed himself upon his two brothers. Metal and fire blasted and collided, ice spraying.
I’d no sooner hit the ice than Eris grabbed me by the hair, right at the roots, the grip so brutal tears stung my eyes. But he dragged me back toward that shore, back across the ice—
I fought against the blow to my gut, fought to get a wisp of air down my throat, into my lungs. My boots scraped against the ice as I feebly kicked, yet Eris held firm—
I think Lucien shouted my name.
I opened my mouth, but a gag of fire shoved its way between my lips. It didn’t burn, but was hot enough to tell me it would if Eris willed it. Equal bands of flame wrapped around my wrists, my ankles. My throat.
I couldn’t remember—couldn’t remember what to do, how to move, how to stop this—
Closer and closer to the shore, to the awaiting party of sentries that winnowed in out of nowhere. No, no, no—
A shadow slammed into the earth before us, cracking the ice toward every horizon.
Not a shadow.
An Illyrian warrior.
Seven red Siphons glinted over his scaled black armor as Cassian tucked in his wings and snarled at Eris with five centuries’ worth of rage.
Not dead. Not hurt. Whole.
His wings repaired and strong.
I loosed a shuddering sob over the burning gag. Cassian’s Siphons flickered in response, as if the sight of me, at Eris’s hand—
Another impact struck the ice behind us. Shadows skittered in its wake.
Azriel.
I began crying in earnest, some leash I’d kept on myself snapping free as my friends landed. As I saw that Azriel, too, was alive, was healed. As Cassian drew twin Illyrian blades, the sight of them like home, and said to Eris with lethal calm, “I suggest you drop my lady.”
Eris’s grip on my hair only tightened, wringing a whimper from me.
The wrath that twisted Cassian’s face was world-ending.
But his hazel eyes slid to mine. A silent command.
He had spent months training me. Not just to attack, but to defend. Had taught me, over and over, how to get free of a captor’s grasp. How to manage not only my body, but my mind.
As if he’d known that it was a very real possibility that this scenario would one day happen.
Eris had bound my limbs, but—I could still move them. Still use parts of my magic.
And getting him off balance long enough to let go, to let Cassian jump between us and take on the High Lord’s son …
Towering over me, Eris didn’t so much as glance down as I twisted, spinning on the ice, and slammed my bound legs up between his.
He lurched, bending over with a grunt.
Right into the fisted, bound hands I drove into his nose. Bone crunched, and his hand sprang free of my hair.
I rolled, scrambling away. Cassian was already there.
Eris hardly had time to draw his sword as Cassian brought his own down upon him.
Steel against steel rang out across the ice. Sentries on the shore unleashed arrows of wood and magic—only to bounce against a shield of blue.
Azriel. Across the ice, he and Lucien were engaging the other two brothers. That any of Lucien’s siblings held out against the Illyrians was a testament to their own training, but—
I focused the ice in my veins on the gag in my mouth, the binds around my wrists and ankles. Ice to smother fire, to sing it to sleep …
Cassian and Eris clashed, danced back, clashed again.
Ropes of fire snapped free, dissolving with a hiss of steam.
I was on my feet again, reaching for a weapon I did not have. My daggers had been lost forty feet away.
Cassian got past Eris’s guard with brutal efficiency. And Eris screamed as the Illyrian blade punched through his gut.
Blood, red as rubies, stained the ice and snow.
For a heartbeat, I saw how it would play out: three of Beron’s sons dead at our hands. A temporary satisfaction for me, five centuries of satisfaction for Cassian, Azriel, and Mor, but if Beron still debated what side to support in this war …
I had other weapons to use.
“Stop,” I said.
The word was a soft, cold command.
And Azriel and Cassian obeyed.
Lucien’s other two brothers were back-to-back, bloody and gaping. Lucien himself was panting, sword still raised, as Azriel flicked the blood off his own blade and stalked toward me.
I met the hazel eyes of the shadowsinger. The cool face that hid such pain—and kindness. He had come. Cassian had come.
The Illyrians fell into place beside me. Eris, a hand pressed to his gut, was breathing wetly, glaring at us.
Glaring—then considering. Watching the three of us as I said to Eris, to his other two brothers, to the sentries on the shore, “You all deserve to die for this. And for much, much more. But I am going to spare your miserable lives.”
Even with a wound through his gut, Eris’s lip curled.
Cassian snarled his warning.
I only removed the glamour I’d kept on myself these weeks. With the sleeve of my jacket and shirt gone, there was nothing but smooth skin where that wound had been. Smooth skin that now became adorned with swirls and whorls of ink. The markings of my new title—and my mating bond.
Lucien’s face drained of color as he strode for us, stopping a healthy distance from Azriel’s side.
“I am High Lady of the Night Court,” I said quietly to them all.
Even Eris stopped sneering. His amber eyes widened, something like fear now creeping into them.
“There’s no such thing as a High Lady,” one of Lucien’s brothers spat.
A faint smile played on my mouth. “There is now.”
And it was time for the world to know it.
I caught Cassian’s gaze, finding pride glimmering there—and relief.
“Take me home,” I ordered him, my chin high and unwavering. Then to Azriel, “Take us both home.” I said to the Autumn Court’s scions, “We’ll see you on the battlefield.”
Let them decide whether it was better to be fighting beside us or against us.
I turned to Cassian, who opened his arms and tucked me in tight before launching us skyward in a blast of wings and power. Beside us, Azriel and Lucien did the same.
When Eris and the others were nothing but specks of black on white below, when we were sailing high and fast, Cassian observed, “I don’t know who looks more uncomfortable: Az or Lucien Vanserra.”