Page 49

brACE YOURSELF

GAVREL

B y sundown, we’d reached the flower meadow. A crisp breeze shuddered through the flowers, making them twitch and creak. The field spanned at least twice the length of the training field outside Morpheus’ palace.

“Stay together and step lightly,” I instructed, pulling my sword from its scabbard.

The others nodded, moving along the edge with their weapons in hand, gently navigating the stiff blooms and scanning the surrounding area. We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but hopefully it wasn’t an immediate death by wyvern.

Seryn put her hand on my wrist, her face lost in thought until a flame of curiosity flashed over her eyes.

“Yesterday, you said something. Something about your talisman. You said, ‘they wouldn’t know.’” I gulped, tension rolling over my back.

“Who wouldn’t know? Why would it matter if someone knew we were fated? ”

I wanted to tell her everything, but the words lodged in my chest like a blade. With every effort to release them, they sliced deeper into my bones, and the rune stone boiled my blood. It wouldn’t let me release the words I so desperately wanted to free.

I grit my teeth, doubling forward. “I … You’re—you are more,” I ground out, pushing my palm hard into my chest and gasping.

She brushed her hand over my back, her plait falling over her shoulder as she soothed me. “All right. Stop. For Surrelia’s sake, Gav. We need to get that thing out of you.”

“Fine by me,” I panted, grimacing. “The day we figure out how to do that will be a good one indeed.”

Her mouth curved. “We can’t just get Breena to stab it out?”

“As much as I’d like to see her attempt it,” I muttered, tucking my mouth between my lips.

“It won’t allow it. I’ve bloody well tried.

” My nostrils flared as I breathed in the crisp air, letting it swirl inside me to ease the pain.

I glanced at the others as they continued through the flowers prudently.

I straightened my spine and exhaled. “My mother—you know she dreamed—used to get messages from the Fates. When I turned eighteen, she came to me saying she’d been sent a warning.” I grimaced as my talisman burned again. Seryn rubbed my biceps.

Tentatively, I continued, my words tumbling over the next, “Yes, we argued. Not because I didn’t want you as my—” Heat sliced into my marrow, stealing my breath before I continued.

“But because I was young and foolish. I didn’t have faith in her auguries then.

She said that we were—that you were—more.

” The sweltering behind my ribs spiked, and I wheezed.

“If exposed, you’d be endangered. From the Elders. From the Ancients. I know not.”

For a moment, I cupped Seryn’s cheek, ignoring the simmering beneath my scar, and she leaned into my touch.

Then my hand found hers, and I placed it over my heart, the contact easing the rune’s attack ever so slightly.

“It was enough for me. I agreed to be silenced in exchange for your safety, and to give you the choice of whom to … whom to love. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. ”

Heart thundering, my tattoo lit, the glow reflecting in her eyes as tears pooled in them.

Her hand left mine and slid up my chest, her fingers resting under my ear.

“You’ve sacrificed enough. All these turns.

All the memories and secrets you’ve carried alone.

” Regret and disgust lined her clipped words.

Like some sort of celestial being, her aura shimmered around her in a halo, and a look of determination settled along her features.

She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

“You watched from the shadows, giving me the choice to live how I wanted. My mother. Hestia. You. You all paid the price for my safety. But I won’t have it, Gavrel.

Won’t have those I love sacrificing themselves for me any longer.

I can protect myself. I’m strong enough, and I’ll be damned if I allow you to stay in the darkness a moment longer. ”

She stretched onto her tiptoes, clutching my tunic. Her face neared mine as I bent, her words brushing against my lips. “I’d choose you again and again. No one else. I’ll be by your side, with or without the bond, until my dying breath. And I’d like to see you or anyone else try to stop me.”

My fingers clutched at her lower back, pressing into the soft flesh.

Pride swelled within me. She’d found herself.

She’d found the strength she’d always feared.

My mouth was a breath away from hers, drawn to her as if I were the aether being pulled into a supernova.

Like we couldn’t draw air unless it were from one another.

She was my everything.

The sole reason for my existence.

A delicate sheen coated the deep well of her eyes. I felt her pulse within me. I swore the edges of her thoughts were scratching at the dark corners of my sentience, thrashing against the stone barrier blocking them.

A ragged whisper dragged from me and over her lips. “Asteria, I lo?—”

A frenzy of shouts and snarls ripped through the air. Seryn jerked from my embrace, her gaze snapping toward the commotion in the middle of the field.

“No!” she screamed, her body imploding in a flash of warped light and reappearing several lengths in front of her cousin and our friends in my next blink.

“Seryn!” I bellowed, charging in the direction of her and the others, my sword illuminating.

My pulse thundered, pumping in time with my arms. Seryn’s braid whipped behind her as she faced the massive beast.

The wyvern had found us.

Its bulbous nostrils flared, and its broad, gilded chest heaved. As it puffed, the glittering air swirled in eddies around Seryn’s rigid frame. Wings covered in olive-green feathers, tipped in cerulean, spread wide as gleaming indigo plumage trembled in a ripple down its massive, serpentine body.

Slowly, she sheathed her dagger and held her palms up to the creature. Shelf-like brows narrowed over its fiery glare as it considered her.

“Fecking shite, woman,” Breena hissed as Marek bit out, “Cousin!”

I reached the others, slowing my pace and lowering my blade. “Let her do what she must,” I snapped. From what they told me, the wyvern didn’t attack her last time. We would put her in more danger by causing a scene. I sheathed my sword, holding my breath as I observed Seryn’s every movement.

“Unbelievable,” Rhaegar muttered, replacing his axe. He cuffed Breena and Marek’s biceps. Warily, the others lowered their weapons.

A gnarl vibrated in the beast’s chest, its spade-shaped tail flicking in the air as it lowered onto its stocky forelegs and brought its gilt snout closer to Seryn’s face. Against my better judgment, I stepped nearer, hands fisting at my sides.

“Don’t,” Seryn ordered, not breaking eye contact with the beast. She stretched out her fingers. “Do you remember me? I saved your hatchling. I … We don’t mean you any harm. We’re here to ask a favor.”

The dragon grunted, its lips shivering over jagged teeth as if it understood.

Seryn continued. “We need to find a way into the dungeon below Morpheus’ palace. To … to fulfill the next phase of a prophecy. The Hollowed Stars prophecy. Do you know it?”

Irritated, the wyvern huffed, blowing stray curls around her face and leaning even closer, its diamond-shaped pupils dilating. So close, I saw the gold flecks swimming in the orange of its eyes. My heartbeat thrashed behind its confines as my khorda tenderly touched its lowered snout.

A ripple shivered over its roughened muzzle, and it pushed into her touch, brow bones prudently lifting.

Its gaze snapped to the side, a sonorous grumble vibrating in its gullet.

“Seryn!” Her name thundered over the meadow as my brother hurtled toward us from our left. All at once, my hand shot out, willing him to yield, but the words choked me as a second wyvern dove toward Seryn on our right.

The bigger creature reared its head, and Seryn stumbled backward.

I wouldn’t reach her in time.

Pure terror exploded through me.

It was smaller, but still monstrous, with scarlet feathers streaking over its head and body. Its golden underbelly glinted in the sun as it stretched its dark claws and snatched Seryn from the earth, teal-colored wings flapping powerfully into the sky.

A resounding series of barks shot from the bigger wyvern, and the smaller one’s piercing shriek rent the air in reply, drowning out Seryn’s garbled scream.

Kaden zoomed past me, and I cursed, following him as we chased them.

“Damn it, I can’t lose you, too. Why the bloody void are you here?” I barked, my words clipped and choppy.

Arms pumping, his brows furrowed, and his mouth twisted. “Because I made a fucking mistake!” he yelled breathlessly.

The sound of wings rhythmically beating against the wind stalked us. I clamped my molars in trepidation as shadow blotted out the sun’s rays .

“Brace yourself, brother!” I bellowed as the first wyvern’s enormous talons wrapped around us, our legs and arms dangling from each of the beast’s paws.

My jaw set, hands gripping the curved talons that caged me. If this was how we met our end, it mattered not where the monsters took us as long as I was by Seryn’s side.

Always.