Page 28

Charles’s ice didn’t wound; it stripped. I’d seen it once before during a closed-door demonstration at the Academy. They called it threading. It wasn’t meant to kill, but to erase, to unspool a quell from the inside out until nothing remained.

Klaus’s breath hitched. “...wouldn’t hurt me,” he whispered, but the words were breaking.

My shadows surged to life. Rage howled through me, darkness coiling at my fists. “Strike him again,” I growled, voice shredding through my throat, “and I swear I’ll kill you. ”

Charles raised his snowflake relic. For a moment, something flickered behind his golden eyes, like he was weighing whether to thread me next. “I don’t have a choice,” he said softly.

Then, to my shock, he pivoted and drove a spike of ice straight through the cloaked woman’s chest. I didn’t have time to process it.

Before her body even hit the ground, Charles turned and struck Klaus again.

This blow landed like a death sentence. It tore Klaus from Naraic’s back and hurled him through the air.

Their bond flickered like a dying star. I felt the snap in my own chest, the hollow silence that followed.

He was falling, and I couldn’t reach him fast enough.

Naraic shrieked, wings folding as he plunged after him. “No—Klaus!” I roared, diving hard.

Ciaran tucked her wings, slicing through the wind. Air tore at my clothes, at my skin, at everything I couldn’t hold onto.

Through the bond, Klaus’s voice cracked in. “ I need you to promise me something…”

“Ciaran—faster!” I shouted.

Then I watched as his body fell into the lake. I couldn’t make it fast enough to the ground.

“He’s dying,” she said, voice breaking. “I can feel their hearts slowing.”

“Find Severyn,” Klaus whispered. “Protect her. And tell her… tell her I forgive you—for loving her. And she’ll forgive you… for hurting her.”

Severyn.

His sister?

My chest buckled. Then a rush of water filled my lungs, even as I kept tearing through the air. “I’m drowning,” I gasped. “I can’t—”

“No!” Ciaran cried. “Naraic—bond with her. Now. Force it! ”

Naraic dove, twisting midair, but frost overtook him. Ice clamped around his wings, a spiderweb of frost racing across his scales. He dropped, plunging into the lake, sinking fast through the dark, murky depths.

“It’s done,” he whispered. “I bonded with her. As long as she lives… Archer, you’ll survive.”

“What the hell—who are you talking about?!” I shouted, chest heaving.

Ciaran slammed into the earth beside the lake, dirt and sand exploding beneath her talons. I tumbled from her back, hitting the ground hard. My knees buckled.

“Klaus—” My voice cracked as I crawled forward. “Say something. Gods, say anything.”

Silence. No voice in my mind. No flicker down the bond. Just the lapping of water.

I lunged toward the lake, half-mad, ready to dive in and tear through it with my bare hands.

But Ciaran clamped her jaw around my arm and yanked me back, hard enough to nearly wrench my shoulder from its socket. “Let me go!” I screamed, thrashing. “Let me go—”

“No.” Her voice was low and final. “That is his resting place. Only his family may bury him.”

Above us, Charles hovered on his griffin. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said flatly. “Klaus was loved. But if he’d survived, the guards would’ve dragged him to the prisons and torn him apart.”

The scream that ripped out of me didn’t sound human. Like something feral and raw, all the way down to the bone.

My shadows exploded. They swallowed the light whole—every ember, every flicker of sunlight. The Summer trails dimmed into nothing.

“You didn’t love him,” I whispered, my voice growing louder. “You killed him. You are a murderer!”

“He died with honor,” Charles said .

Then he lifted his relic, and the temperature plummeted. I’d drawn all the light, but somehow, Charles turned that darkness into power. And he used it to flee through a portal.

Snow began to fall, and soon enough the Summer trials were dusted in ice.

Klaus was gone.

And so was I.

“I will kill you!” I screamed, my voice cracking in the night. “I will fucking kill you, Charles!”

But he was long gone through his ice portal like the coward he was. I turned to Ciaran. “ Who did Naraic bond with? ”

She didn’t answer right away. Her wings unfolded slowly. “Her name,” she said softly, “is Severyn. His sister.”

The name landed in my ribs like a blade.

“What does that mean , Ciaran?” My voice shook with rage. “She’s supposed to marry my brother. She was supposed to be his . Maybe even...” I broke off.

She was supposed to be mine. If things had been different. If fate had chosen better. But I was born of Night. I could never become my father’s heir.

Ciaran lowered her head. “Naraic bonded with her before his death. Twin dragons cannot survive without balance. And now, with two riders… we must.”

I turned, each step heavier than the last. The world tilted sideways, snow blurring into shadows.

I staggered out into the cold and screamed.

Darkness tore the sky open. Shadows bled upward, swallowing the stars.

Grief poured out of me like molten iron, searing through hope, through fury, through the last traces of everything left.

I had nothing left.

“What did you do?” I rasped.

“Naraic broke his bond,” Ciaran whispered.

“No,” I growled. “The girl. ”

“She will never know.”

“She’ll know,” I snapped. “She’ll know when no creature ever bonds with her, because Naraic is fucking dead.”

“That is not on you,” she said softly. “The bond is weak, but it will keep you alive. It was the only thing Klaus could do. He planned it.”

But it was on me. All of it.

“She was supposed to marry my father’s heir,” I murmured. “She was supposed to be part of this family. And now... how the hell am I supposed to carry this?”

“Then protect her.”

My fingers curled into sand. “I’m not that kind of man,” I muttered. “I fuck what I want. I ruin what I want. Everything good turns to ash in my hands.”

And now? My last sliver of humanity was gone.

“Archer Lynch,” Ciaran said sharply, “you are better than this. Don’t destroy yourself.”

“No.” My voice cut low. “She’s not my responsibility.”

Ciaran smacked me across the nose with her wing. “You’re grieving,” she hissed. “If you don’t protect her, she’ll be expelled. She won’t bond with another creature when she’s summoned to claim her title.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame for her.”

Ciaran said nothing.

I turned away from that lake and never looked back.