Page 108 of A Fate Unwoven

Lena glared at him with all the hatred she could muster. “That depends,” she said. “Are you going to let Finæn and Brother Dunstan go?”

“Once the ritual is complete, Venysa can let them go herself. If”—Roston paused, his smile as sharp as a blade—“that is what she decides.”

In that moment, Lena forgot she was supposed to be acting. She struggled against the cultists holding her, trying with everything she had to lunge at Roston, to claw at his face and make him hurt in any way she could. “You son of a—”

Something was pressed against her mouth before she could finish speaking. There was the faint smell of something medicinal, the dizzying feeling of standing up too fast.

And then everything went dark.

FORTY-SIX

LENA

Lena was lying on something made of stone.

Even with her eyes closed, she could tell it was some sort of stone table, narrow enough that her fingers brushed against its edges. She could still taste the herbal remnants of whatever she’d been drugged with, sharp and unpleasant on her tongue.

“Ah, I see you’re finally awake.”

Slowly, Lena opened her eyes, the dim light of over a dozen torches making her wince. Roston was standing over her, crimson hood drawn up over his silver-streaked hair. The space beneath his eyes and on his forehead had been inked with symbols similar to those on the stone Lena had seen on the way into the mountain, and as he stepped closer, she felt the faintest hum of their power.

Even with her mind muddied and her power diluted, Lena could feel Venysa at the edges of her consciousness, the threads of Roston and the cultists just out of reach.

“It won’t be long now,” Roston was saying, voice echoing.

With a groan, Lena tried to look to the side. The blurred edges of the stone chamber tilted, twisting her stomach into painful knots. Roston loomed over her, and a circle of crimson-robedHæstawere gathered around the stone Lena lay upon, their mouths working in a soundless chant. The pillars in the room began to glow with their incantation, and as they did, the features of Roston’s face started to blur. Something moved out of the corner of her eye. The familiar, twisted silhouette of some kind ofkorupted.

And there, standing next to Roston, was Dimas.

When he caught her gaze, the emperor tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, the signal they’d agreed to use if their friends hadn’t arrived.

Don’t panic,she told herself,there’s still time.

But then Dimas’s gaze shifted to something to Lena’s left, and when she turned her head to follow it, when her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the two restrained figures she was looking at became clear, Lena’s blood ran cold.

Finæn. He was on his knees, his arms twisted awkwardly behind him, but it was the look of regret on his bloodied face that truly broke her.

He coughed, lips parting as if he was trying to speak, but Brother Dunstan got there first.

“The ritual will involve a battle of wills,” the High Priest said hurriedly. He was kneeling beside Finæn, his hands bound. “Lenora, Venysa will try to destroy your spirit; you must not—”

Brother Dunstan’s words abruptly stopped. He simply stared at Lena for a moment, eyes wide, before a wet, bloodied cough escaped his lips.

“No!”

Dimas’s scream echoed through the chamber at the same time the High Priest slumped forward, revealing the blade in his back. Blood roared in Lena’s ears, and the loose grip she still had on her power weakened even further as the cultists closest to Dimas restrained the young emperor.

“He doesn’t have to die!” Dimas yelled. “Uncle, please, let me—”

“Enough.” Roston lifted a hand, lip curling in disgust as he looked at Brother Dunstan’s crumpled body. “He chose his side. And unless you want me to believe you are making the same choice, I suggest you stay silent.”

Even without the bond between them, Dimas’s grief was so raw that Lena felt it in her chest. She wouldn’t have blamed him for breaking.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Dimas stopped struggling, his jaw clenching as he kept whatever he’d been going to say to himself. It was the strongest thing Lena had ever seen him do.

Lena tried to summon that same strength as Roston turned his attention back to her and said, “It’s time.”