Page 53

The quick burst of dark heat ended within a blink. I stumbled forward, the shadows gone from my limbs. My bare feet pressed into night-chilled grass. The light had changed, from the brightness of the apartment to moonlight piercing through a forest’s thick canopy. Wind ruffled my hair, carrying the scent of damp earth and spring blossoms. In the distance, owls hooted and unseen creatures rustled through the underbrush.

The kings were no longer close. The length of a mountain now stretched between us.

We had done it. We had transported out of Dawnspear, out of Montaurère entirely.

It had cost Estrella and Tristan their lives.

I spun around, my glare aimed squarely at Morrena. “You didn’t tell me—”

The Exalted Daughter’s fingers moved fast. I barely saw the shadows in the dark before the rune flared.

Block .

A sharp pain exploded inside me. Not my illness. Not even anything physical. It was a quick tear, a cleave through something deeper, more essential—

Everything went numb. My mind. My thoughts. My limbs.

My book slipped from my grasp as I slumped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Grass tickled my legs, arms, and shoulders, but it didn’t feel right. Voices snapped above my head, but the sound was muffled. It was like a thick layer of fog had dropped over the world.

The only thing that felt real was the gaping hole inside me.

Where the fuck was it?

Where was my fucking soul ?

A piece of it remained, a sliver I clung to with everything I had. But all I had left was a third. Could a person survive with a third of a soul? Did I want to? The rest of it out there somewhere, but when I reached for it, there was nothing. There should have been something.

But there was nothing .

It was gone.

Gone .

Morrena has done it. She had severed the unseverable. Oh, godstars, I was going to die. I was going to cease existing. Ohgodsstarswhatwashappening—

Calm the fuck down. Some part of me shouted the words, distant and ragged. I barely heard them over the emptiness, the place where my soul had once lived. Not entirely in me, not anymore. It had lived in them, too, in my soulbound kings.

Now there was only silence.

Breathe, idiot. It wasn’t gone. It was blocked.

Soulbonds couldn’t be severed.

Morrena had used a blocking rune. Almost like the one that suppressed a witch’s magic. Hers was obviously cast with the intention of blocking a soulbond. I wasn’t going to die.

Not from that spell, at least.

Hands gripped my arms and pulled me up roughly. My head lolled forward. I tried to focus on my limbs. I could feel them, just there, but I let go of my soul to do it.

The emptiness turned sharp and jagged. I snatched the tattered piece of soul back, abandoning my limbs. It was my anchor in the storm, the only thread between me and the abyss. If I let it go, I’d drown in the darkness, battering me from all sides.

A hand gripped my chin and wrenched my face upward. Morrena. The witch peered into my eyes. The fucking bitch. Why had I trusted her? Was I stupid?

I might have been a witch, but I was the Conqueror and the Butcher’s soulbond first. Of course I wouldn’t find freedom with the Isaurans. I would become their prisoner. If I were lucky. If they killed me, they could kill the kings. They could shatter the power source behind every thrall runespell, every suppression collar.

Fuck, were they going to kill me?

Morrena’s lips moved, but the sounds melted before they reached my brain. I tried to focus while clinging to my soul, but I couldn’t—

Morrena slapped me.

The pain was sharp, momentary. But it worked, for just an instant.

“...aren’t going to kill you,” she said. “But we can’t have the kings tracking you through…”

Oh, thank fuck. They weren’t going to kill me. My expression must have conveyed that, because Morrena let go of my chin. I sagged back into the arms of whoever held me. My vision was nothing but grass.

A second later, the ground moved.

We moved.

Where were we going? Away from the rest of my soul, that much I knew. I couldn’t tell where the other pieces were, but they weren’t near.

Oh, stars. I had doubted we’d even make it to the starcrater, but if this was happening to me… then the kings must’ve felt it, too. They were missing a third of their soul, the part I clung to.

I couldn’t picture the Conqueror and the Butcher collapsing, limbs loose and unresponsive, but that’s what must’ve happened. Their council and remaining guard would defend them, but no one would know where to even start looking for me.

I hadn’t wanted them to find me. I didn’t want to be tortured or imprisoned or used for my blood and body.

But if this was the alternative, it was much worse a fate.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Breathe for me, Nessa . This time, the voice in my head wasn’t mine. It was theirs. A deep rumble and a dulcet purr.

I obeyed.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

The more I tried to calm my mind, the more I sank into that fragment of soul I still had. And the more the world returned.

My limp foot rammed against a rock, pain shooting through my leg. I embraced it. Let it tether me. Let myself feel it. My arms ached from where the two human thralls held me between them. Something hot burned at my wrist. A sharp stab jolted through my core, the stress and fear fuel for my illness.

I let myself feel that, too.

And I kept breathing, gentle and slow.

“We should kill her,” someone hissed in front of us, their voice echoing but audible. “I doubt your rune slowed the Azarasians down that much.”

“We can’t, Ilenia.” Morrena’s voice came through next, heavy with exhaustion. This pace must’ve been brutal on her leg. How far had we traveled already? Were we even close to Toreth’s starcrater? The ground beneath me was still grass—no blackened stone, no twisted volcanic brush. Just the ordinary woods surrounding Montaurère.

“Sacrifices must be made if we want to overthrow an impire.”

“We can’t overthrow an impire,” Morrena snapped at her. “If the kings die, someone else will take their place. She’s more valuable alive, as a hostage.”

Ilenia scoffed. "Without the covenant runespell, the Impire won’t have the strength to keep Isaura’s witches and millions of humans under control. The new rulers won’t carry the Conqueror and the Butcher’s power to cast another."

“Perhaps they will,” Morrena murmured. “If we kill Azaras’s son, we’ll have to deal with the Beast King himself.”

A pause.

Then Ilenia’s voice, scornful. “Azaras might have given the Conqueror his throne, but Lucero Azaras isn’t Karra’s son, so he’s not Azaras’s son —”

“You know nothing, Ilenia,” Morrena said flatly. “Trust me when I say, if we kill the Imperium, it will be Azaras we answer—”

The witch cut off mid-sentence. So did everyone else. The ground beneath me stopped moving.

“Is that…?”

I heard it then—faint at first, but unmistakable. The pounding of hooves thundering through dirt and underbrush. Dread and hope flared in the same breath.

“Fuck.” A second after Morrena’s curse, we were moving again, faster now. My feet dragged harder through the grass, my whole body jolting with each jarring step. “They caught up.”

“But you put a block rune on her! The kings can’t sense her. She’s not wearing a collar—”

Someone tripped behind us. A witch cursed. Branches snapped as the pace faltered, then picked up again.

My heartbeat pounded in time with the hellsteeds. The kings were coming. Or their council and guard, if they were indisposed like me. I had never been so overjoyed and terrified at once.

I would be whole.

I would be a prisoner again.

Their prisoner again.

But I was a prisoner either way.

Morrena and her witches kept arguing, kept running, but I couldn’t hear their words anymore. My sliver of soul writhed and twisted inside me, like it could tear free and dash in the opposite direction.

We wanted to be whole. Needed to be whole.

The man on my left jerked. His hold slackened. I flopped into the other man’s side, my weight nearly dragging him down with me. My knees hit the dirt as he threw an arm around my torso to keep me up. In my periphery, the first man bled out in the grass. A gold-hilted throwing dagger jutted from the nape of his neck, driven straight through the center of his thrall runespell.

Shouts erupted around me as the pounding in my chest and the ringing in my ears changed. It came from all around now. A storm closing in. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t see.

All I noticed was the man dying in the grass.

A blade pressed to my throat, sharp and cold. A male voice barked over my head, some threat wrapped in panic, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was barely holding on, clinging to my soul—

“Release my wife,” a deep voice said. “Or I’ll ensure your death takes years.”

My head jerked up, suddenly mine again. That voice. Nothing else was clear, but it reverberated through me.

I fucking needed it.

On the backs of two towering hellsteeds, Luc and Jules glared down at the human holding a knife to my throat. Their eyes were black, their expressions merciless. Death incarnate, radiating fury and command.

Around them, more vampires circled on horseback like vultures waiting to feed. Four of them wore the insignia of the Imperial Guard, a faint rune glowing on their wrists.

The guardian runespell. Of course. The kings had tied me to their Imperial Guard. The spell was cloaked beneath a glamour, but that’s what was searing the delicate skin of my inner wrist.

“Liar,” the human holding me snarled. The dagger bit deeper into my skin as his grip tightened.

Jules growled, a guttural sound that sent a chill through me. I hadn’t known he could make that noise. He was going to rip this fucker apart, no matter what Luc said.

Half of the eyes in the moonlit clearing flickered to me.

Jules grinned. Just for a moment. Just for me. Then he turned that expression back to the humans and witches, its edges sharpening. “She’s right, my friends. No matter what my king says, I will be murdering you slowly.”

I should’ve been terrified. I should’ve feared the horrors to come, done in my name. But I didn’t care.

There was the rest of my soul .

I jerked against the arms holding me. Sensation had returned to my limbs, but they weren’t mine to control. They belonged to my soul, to the part of me that screamed for them. I needed to move. Needed to go. I didn’t even care that a blade was still pressed to my throat. It cut into my skin—

“Release her.” Luc’s voice wasn’t a bargain this time. It was a command.

And the hands on me obeyed. Instantly.

Something in me snapped. Not strength exactly. Need . The fractured soul still inside me surged toward its other pieces, and my body followed before I could think. My legs kicked into motion. My arms shoved. Hands grabbed at me, fingers tearing at fabric, but I wrenched free with a ragged gasp.

The only thing that mattered was my soul.

For once, the kings and I were in agreement. They were off their hellsteeds in a flash of movement, moving forward as one—

I slammed into them. Arms and legs wrapped tight around them both. I pressed my face to them, my body, every part of me, clinging to the heat radiating from the soul we shared.

Yes .

This was right. This was better. But I wasn’t whole, not yet. I needed to get closer. My hands slid under a dark navy cloak, under a half-buttoned white tunic, hunting for skin. Gods, I needed to be closer. Needed it.

Tears streamed down my face. Still, it wasn’t close enough.

Luc gently pulled me from beneath his cloak, his bare hand finding mine. I sighed so hard it was nearly a moan. With one hand over Jules’s heart and the other in Luc’s grasp, I could almost feel it.

Our soul.

I brought Luc’s hand to my face and nuzzled his knuckles. Literally nuzzled him.

“Hold her,” Luc said, speaking over my head. “I’ll take care of this.”

Jules’s arms locked around my waist. In one fluid motion, he stepped behind Luc and pulled me with him, drawing me around the King of Dusk until we were back to back. Jules pressed into me, pinning me between them.

I sunk into the heat. This. This was right. This was…

Almost perfect.

But not entirely. Because even now, I could feel it. Our soul, radiating out from the kings, just beyond my reach. I clawed at Jules, whimpering. I needed to get closer. I yanked at his tunic, but the runes woven into the fabric refused to tear. Stars, why was he wearing so many clothes all of a sudden? It was never this hard to get him naked.

The King of Dawn chuckled. “Battlefields aren’t always nudity-friendly, lovely.”

I blinked at him. Wait a minute. Fuck, had I said all that aloud?

And what battlefield?

My world had narrowed to my soulbound, the rest fading away. I spun in his arms, my back still pressed to Luc’s. Around his shoulder, I met Morrena’s tight gaze as the vampires continued their slow circling.

“Step forward,” Luc commanded.

All the humans obeyed, but the witches didn’t move. I’d told the humans they were free, but the thrall runespells remained on their necks. Luc only needed to speak to reactivate them. But the witches had removed their collars. Without them, they were the only ones capable of disobeying.

Luc pointed at the older man. The one who had helped carry me, then pressed a blade to my throat. “Only you.”

The human took another step forward alone.

And again.

And again until he stood before the King of Dusk. His eyes were wide. His entire body trembled.

Luc held out a hand. “Your blade?”

The man handed it over without hesitation. Luc examined the weapon. It was partially rusted steel. Hardly fit for a king, but fitting for a runaway human thrall.

He returned it to where it belonged, pointy end first.

The blade slid straight into the man’s chest. His breath escaped in a soft whoosh, his knees starting to give—

But before he could fall, Luc’s other hand moved. Fingers twisted.

Endure. Silence.

The man slumped, but he didn’t die. He didn’t scream. A dagger pierced his heart, but he remained conscious. Aware.

And would through the massacre to come.

Morrena glared. “Fuck you—”

“Kill the humans,” Luc said, smoothly cutting her off. “You may feed from the witches, but leave them alive. In either case,”—he smirked, cold and cruel—“there’s no need to make it pleasant.”

The vampires all dismounted. Sabas. Cédric. Isabeau. Roxiana. The other Imperial Guard. A few other vampires I didn’t recognize and a few I did. They moved forward slowly.

Eral and Ilenia broke. They bolted into the trees, sprinting toward an empty patch of forest. Sabas was nearest, but he didn’t move forward. He let them pass him—

And turned slowly on his heels, following them into the brush.

They wouldn’t get away.

But predators liked the hunt.

Jules brushed my chin, drawing my attention back to him. “Let’s get this rune off you, lovely.”

Unravel. Block.

Everything flooded back. The pain in my knees, my heels, my core. Sudden nausea and the crash of exhaustion.

And rising above it all—burning red lust.

My nipples tightened. My core twisted low in my belly, a terrible yet wonderful burn. I didn’t even care that the desire made my illness worse. My soul had found its other pieces.

It rejoiced .

Their emotions slammed into me a heartbeat later. I braced for Luc’s rage. For Jules’s emptiness. But what hit me was heat. Hunger . Like even after my betrayal, they wanted me. Maybe even more because of it. It surged through Luc, through Jules, through me.

Overwhelming. All-consuming. Mine.

My hands were on Jules’s belt before I realized what I was doing, desperate for more, desperate to be closer—

This time, his hands caught mine. “Uh-uh, lovely witch.”

“Please, please, please.” The begging slipped out before I could stop it.

“Not yet.” Jules traced his finger along my hand. Soothe . The pain in me faded. Bruises, aches, the angry fire in my center. All of it dulled. “But soon.”

Jules released me at the same moment Luc stepped aside. With a gasp, I crumpled to the ground, landing beside the dying man.

Luc settled beside Jules, his blackened eyes locked on mine. “You wanted to run, little witch. So I suggest you run.”