Page 71

We’re spit out onto wet soil, mud oozing beneath my boots.

It worked. My body sags with relief. It worked.

I stand, glancing at my surroundings. The sun is setting here, and though the jungle makes many sounds, there’s a peaceful, quiet element to this place that’s jarring compared to the shrieking violence of Panticapaeum.

Ferox’s growl is all the warning I get.

I’m about to turn when a blade is shoved cleanly through my back. It happens so fast, I don’t have time to do more than choke on my own surprise as I glance down at my abdomen, where the bloody tip of a sword juts out.

Roughly, it’s withdrawn, and with its exit, I collapse to my knees, a cascade of blood pouring from the wound. It’s—it’s right where?—

“You cannot know how long I’ve wished to do that.” Eislyn’s beautiful, lilting voice is laced with malice.

With a snarl, Ferox lunges for the fairy.

But before he can make it anywhere near her neck, Eislyn brings the hilt of her weapon down on his head.

There’s a sickening crunch, and I choke out a scream as my panther collapses in a heap at my side.

The ward that had protected him only moments ago must’ve disintegrated.

The fae woman walks around to my front, tapping the bloody sword against her side as she appraises me. “I hoped you’d survive the attack long enough to come here.”

She tilts her head, and I imagine she’s debating whether to stab me again, though I’m too distracted to much notice. My mate is missing, Ferox is unconscious, and blood is pouring out of my abdomen at an alarming rate.

I can barely think over the pain in my gut, yet I have rage to spare. My body shakes with it. I gather my magic, preparing to strike.

“Ah, ah,” Eislyn says, using the bloody sword tip to tilt my chin up. “Think about harming me, and I’ll drive this sword through your throat, then that of your panther’s, and you will die never knowing what became of Memnon.”

I go still, terror replacing anger. “Where is he?”

Her eyes flick in the direction of the palace for the merest of instants before she casually says, “I thought you were his soul mate, that you could find him through your bond alone.” She frowns. “Apparently not.”

As she speaks, I focus my magic on my gut wound. It’s a lethal injury, but only if it cannot be repaired. I can repair it. I’m already clutching it, and now I slowly trickle my power into it. All I have to do is live, then I can save both Memnon and Ferox.

“What did you do to my mate?” I ask.

Eislyn stares down at me stoically. “He will sleep for a hundred years, until all he knows and loves has passed on. When he wakes, all that will be left is me.”

My brows come together, even as I feel the nauseating tug of internal injuries sealing themselves up.

She continues. “I already warned Memnon several times that you would prove treacherous. I told him that a civilized Roman girl like you would never fully accept the warring ways of Sarmatians. That his bloodthirstiness would eventually drive you to do something desperate to stop him from all the killing and conquering. He didn’t believe me then, but I’m sure when he wakes and finds you long gone, he will remember my warnings. ”

Eislyn’s words would hold weight with Memnon, who has always believed that she acts with reason and great wisdom.

“And,” she says, “I will make sure to tell him how you, his dear mate, made a deal with the Romans for peace and how you couldn’t bear to kill him, so you left him to sleep. I’ll make sure he knows that you lived a long life—that you remarried, had children, and you didn’t once try to wake him.”

I can barely breathe over my disbelief. Who is this woman?

“He’ll be heartbroken,” she continues, “but in time, he will recover.”

I search her features. “Why are you doing this?”

Her eyes glitter, and the corners of her mouth curve into a sly smile. “That’s a secret you’ll have to die without knowing.”

Instinct rather than eyesight has me noticing the infinitesimal shift of Eislyn’s weight and the adjustment of her grip on the sword.

I call on my anger and my power. “ Annihilate ,” I breathe.

The spell explodes out of me, the power blowing off her sword arm.

Eislyn screams, reaching for the gaping wound at her shoulder. Her wings unfurl, thinner than linen and far more delicate. She uses them to rush herself to the ley line portal.

I’m already gathering the scraps of my magic, readying them in my hand.

“ Annihilate .”

Her form disappears a moment before my spell does, though the ley line absorbs it as well.

My breathing is ragged.

Eislyn is gone. For now.

I stare down at the ruin of my abdomen, and I bite back a sob. If there was a baby, the odds of it surviving such a wound…

I have to dig my teeth into my lower lip to keep from screaming. Tears slip down my cheeks. Don’t think about that.

Then there’s Ferox…

I reach out a hand and pet my panther. Beneath my touch, he stirs, then turns his head to weakly lick my hand.

I strain for enough magic to heal him. It leaves my palm sluggishly, but I sense the spell take root, and it slowly mends Ferox’s injuries.

Once I’m sure he’ll be okay, I let my hand slide from him.

Memnon. Need Memnon.

I force myself to stand, and the world goes dark for a moment. Blood loss—this must be blood loss. It physically hurts to draw on more power and funnel it toward the last of my wounds. My magic is tired, reluctant.

I’m dying .

It comes to me with detached clarity. I’m dying faster than my power can heal.

And Memnon is cursed to sleep for a hundred years, and once he wakes, he will be Eislyn’s hostage for whatever larger scheme she’s concocting.

Perhaps it’s love she wants from him. Perhaps it’s power.

Whatever it is, she was willing to have his family murdered and entice his friends to betray him.

She was willing to twist my motives and my love for him, all so she could see her awful plan through.

I cannot leave Memnon to whatever fate she intends.

I stagger forward, toward the palace, leaving Ferox where he is so he can sleep off his injury. As I step past the wards and spells guarding it, the river palace gleams among the trees; it’s so painfully, unnaturally beautiful that it sets my teeth on edge.

I pass the marble pillars fashioned like trees and the golden vines with their sharp-edged glass flowers, leaving a trail of blood in my wake.

Warded as the palace is, it would be the perfect place to hide Memnon undisturbed for a hundred years.

But where would she place him?

I close my eyes and focus on my connection to Memnon. Eislyn mocked our ability to find each other through it, but it is how we located each other time and time again. I can find him through it now as well. I just need to focus.

I breathe in deeply, trying to ignore the screaming pains of my body and the cold chill that has set in my bones. A tendril of orange magic slithers from me, disappearing into the distance. I let my mind take a back seat to my power, and then I follow the trail.

I pass through halls and rooms, then exit the rear of the palace, wandering near the outdoor bathhouse.

I’m so dazed, I nearly fall into the hole in the ground my magic dips into.

I stagger back and draw in a startled breath at the sight of the square opening cut into the ground.

Next to it is a massive stone slab that’s been cast aside.

I eye the torchlit walls descending from the opening. Memnon’s down there. I can feel it like the beating of my own heart, and if I focus again on our shared bond, I can sense it tugging me closer, closer…

Eislyn rigorously planned this entire situation, but she was careful not to tell me where Memnon is. I don’t think she was finished with whatever she was doing.

The thought gives me a whisper of hope. That’s all I need. Just a whisper.

Carefully, I descend the stairs, bracing myself against the wall to keep my fatigued body steady.

The decorated walls around me barely register, but my fingers cannot help but notice the divots where words have been carved. I stare at the writing.

…containing the might of the gods within him, Memnon the Indomitable drove the Dacians from their lands…

…charged into impenetrable Rome with nothing more than his blood riders and captured his queen…

The writing doesn’t sound like me, but I’m the only one who knows these events and how to read and write Sarmatian with the Latin lexicon.

In addition, I’m one of a precious few who could even travel here…

Memnon would have to assume I secretly commissioned a vault like this and oversaw its creation.

A shiver wracks my body that has less to do with blood loss and more to do with the disturbing lengths Eislyn went to, to carry out her plot.

What does she want with my husband?

The question will plague me.

All thoughts of her motives vanish the moment I step into the burial chamber.

And there’s no mistaking that’s what this is.

In the center of the torchlit space lies a white marble sarcophagus, the lid removed.

From here, I can only make out a glimpse of scale armor, but I know—it’s Memnon.

Even if the bond wasn’t indicating it, the slope of that chest and the sheen of that bronze armor would.

A ragged sob rips from my throat. I didn’t believe he was asleep, not truly, not until now.

I drag myself to the stone coffin, the blistering pain of my wounds dulled by the deeper ache in my heart. My gaze barely touches on Memnon’s arresting, sleep-softened features before my legs give out. I’m awash in pain—pain so dark and bleak, I don’t know how I’ll surface from it.

He’s already out of my reach. Enchanted to a hundred years of sleep. If it were mortal magic, maybe I could break the spell, but Eislyn is a fairy, and their magic is different, incompatible .