Page 204 of Lana Pecherczyk

This woman’s eyes remained closed, her breathing unnaturally measured. That wrongness amplified. There was still something off about her, other than the horrific melted flesh—something he couldn’t place.

“She hasn’t woken,” a sentinel healer said, following River’s gaze. “Took a direct hit, they say.”

River frowned. Direct hits from Cloud’s lightning usually meant death, not unconsciousness. It took a powerful fae like himself or the Collector to survive. He leaned closer, studying the wound through the torn fabric more closely. Something glinted beneath—something that wasn’t flesh. And that sound. He canted his head. Was that ticking? Coming from her chest?

“How many dead?” Ash’s strained voice turned River’s head.

“Eight,” another sentinel by the entrance replied. “Three vendors, four civilians, one sentinel … who tried to intervene.”

Innocents.

Ash’s face paled. His gaze cut to River. “Why?”

“Because…” The Collector’s talons flexed against the pallet, grating against wood. “He wanted … what’s mine. What he once … traded away.”

River tensed, suspicion rising as he faced Ash. “There’s something I haven’t told you. About what Blake and I found in Cloud’s trove.”

“What?”

“Not just maps and blast calculations.” Guilt squeezed River’s throat. “Research notes, diagrams. Things suggesting the cryptex was the reason Rory was … punished. It’s why Cloud went into Crystal City that day. He went in to rescue her.”

Ash’s jaw locked, vein pulsing at his temple. “So this is my fault.”

“It’s Nero’s fault for being a sick bastard?—”

“Nero…” The strange woman stirred, lips barely moving. “Needs…”

River’s head snapped toward her, instincts flaring. “Who are you?”

Her dark eyes fluttered open, but stared at nothing. Her breathing remained steady despite her wounds, skin pale without pain’s flushed heat, melted flesh a little too shiny for how River remembered his had been. The ticking intensified.

He reached forPeacemakerat his belt. “Whatare you?”

Before she answered, searing agony ripped through River’s left arm, spreading to his heart. He doubled over, clutching at the blue mating marks spiraling beneath his sleeve.

“Blake,” he gasped. That constant, comforting awareness of her sleeping presence had morphed into a sudden, visceral flash of shared terror, sharp enough to hurt him.

Then nothing.

No Blake.

An absolute, soul-crushing void.

“Fuck!” River stumbled against a pallet, knocking vials to the ground. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

Ash caught his arm, steadying him. “What is it?”

“Blake.” River tore at his collar, struggling for breath. The world narrowed to a single, horrifying point. “I can’t feel her.”

He shoved past startled sentinels, hurtled outside the triage area, andran. He burst from the market’s boundaries and launched into the night sky, wings beating hard, heedless of branches and twigs lashing his face. He sent mana throughPeacemakerto blast anything in his way until he cleared the forest, and then his wings beat furiously, muscles burning as he raced toward their roost.

I need to finish these before I forget.

The words he’d never spoken clawed at his throat.

I love you.

The Umbria roost appeared beneath him, dark and quiet. He folded his wings and dropped hard enough to dent the soft earth.