Page 30

Chapter 29

T he second set of caves beneath the crumbling dhemon keep proved as fruitless as the first. Azriel held Ariadne’s hand as they exited the front doors to find night had fallen and the rain had finally settled into a light mist. With the forest overhead, so little of the precipitation found them that they decided to double back towards the ridge to rendezvous with the dragons.

Mountain forests at night were just as active as those in the Keonis Valley. With the slow patter of water dripping from the canopy above them, the steady rhythm was punctuated by rustling bushes and the occasional call of an owl. The last of the summer crickets played their songs as they walked by, startled by the sudden approach of figures much larger than themselves.

It was when the forest rapidly descended into silence that Azriel’s senses went on high alert. He shifted around Ariadne, placing her between him and Kall as they proceeded. His friends’ red eyes glowed in the darkness as they studied their surroundings for unusual heat signatures.

“ Razer ,” Azriel called to his bondheart. “ How far out are you ?”

His question was met with an image of flying through the clouds, then the low rumble from the dragon, “ Not far . What’s going on ?”

Azriel replied by opening himself up through the vinculum, sending waves of trepidation to his friend. Something was wrong. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

But that only made it worse. His mind raced with the possibilities—Loren. Ehrun. Enemy dhemon clans. Mercenaries hunting for Ariadne. An endless list of potential foes who could have made the forest so quiet and eerie.

“ We’ll be there soon .” Bindhe’s sweet voice flowed through the open vinculum.

On the far side of Ariadne, Kall’s shoulders eased. He did not, however, take his working eye off the path ahead of them. Weaving between the trees back the way they’d come, they were far less confident than when they entered the keep. So much for all the teasing from his friends when he and Ariadne had finally caught back up after their tryst out in the open.

“ Someone’s up ahead .” Whelan’s voice came through Azriel’s mind at the same moment the dhemon pulled his sword free.

But Madan glanced back behind them. “ We’re surrounded .”

Releasing Ariadne’s hand, Azriel drew the sword from his back in unison with Kall. Before she could speak, he grit his teeth and let the fire spread through his bones. They cracked and grew, the pain ricocheting through him as he returned to his larger, more powerful form. It was like his skull split into pieces as the horns reemerged and twisted around his face.

“Azriel,” Ariadne whispered and steadied him as he swayed. “What is happening?”

“Stay close.” It was all he could think to say. Stay close. Stay safe. She was as much a target to whoever surrounded them, if not more so.

Without another word, she unsheathed her sword and unclipped the dagger at her thigh. Good. So long as she was ready to fight, he could see them through this.

Who stepped from the darkness, however, made Azriel falter.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Ehrun said, his vicious red eyes trained on Ariadne. He held a hand out to her. “Sasja told me you’d be here. Now…be a good girl and come with me.”

The last time they encountered him, there had been a very good chance that she would’ve listened. He’d tortured her so thoroughly that she bent to his demands despite her fear of him. When he told her to stop fighting back, she did just that. Only Azriel begging her to run had pulled her from the trance he had her under.

Now, however, Ariadne didn’t move. She released a shaking breath, and the sword in her hand lowered toward the ground, but she didn’t drop it.

“She doesn’t answer to you,” Kall snapped in the dhemon tongue.

Ehrun cocked his head with a grin. “The scars on her back say otherwise.”

Before Azriel could answer, Kall stepped closer to his brother, ax held at the ready. “What scars?”

The smirk faded, and the bastard’s red eyes snapped back to Ariadne. For a moment, his brows lowered in confusion as though searching his own shoddy memory to ensure he hadn’t said something wrong. A line formed between his brows as he considered the possibility but sneered nonetheless. “No worries. I’ll just have to impart my lessons again.”

A small, strangled sound left Ariadne. By the way it cut off so abruptly, Azriel knew she hadn’t meant to make it. She stepped back, though, drawing his attention to her long enough to see the fear there.

This had been what she trained for—and it had been the one thing that kept her from training to her full potential. Her fear of dhemons, despite her love for him and their friends, ran deeper than any of them could reach.

Azriel refocused on Ehrun and raised his sword, placing himself between the wicked false king and his wife. “You won’t touch her again.”

Silence stretched between them, during which Azriel grew more and more disconcerted. Ehrun didn’t move. Didn’t take out his massive sword. Didn’t do anything but stare right past Azriel to where Ariadne stood.

It was her scream, though, that broke the silence and sent everyone into action.

Azriel turned to find his wife lifted into the arms of a dhemon he didn’t know. She writhed against the hold, her arms pinned to her side. Her sword fell almost silently to the forest floor as her feet kicked, and she twisted, forgetting everything she’d been taught in a single, panicked instant. Though he lifted his sword, her incessant movement provided no opening for him to strike.

“ Sabharni , ydhom !” Kall yelled as his ax blocked another nameless dhemon’s attack. Somewhere beyond him, Ehrun faded back into the shadows between the trees.

The command was enough to make Ariadne settle, eyes wide. As Azriel blocked another dhemon’s blade, she let her feet hang towards the ground and shoved her arms up high enough for her to wriggle free. Ariadne swung in an arc, letting the pack on her shoulders fly free, aiming at the dhemon’s head. It hit home, and she launched forward, away from the man, just to be grabbed about the waist again and hauled backward.

Azriel exchanged blows with his opponent, that same panic rising in his chest as the dhemon made to lift his wife from the ground. She leaned towards her hands, jaw set in focus until the dhemon holding her put one foot forward to keep from being dragged off balance. Though she was small, her vampiric blood made her stronger than she appeared.

His opponent’s blade glanced off Azriel’s and sliced down his thigh. He hissed in pain and pushed the dhemon back, one eye still on Ariadne as she grabbed her dhemon’s foot and yanked hard, sending his back to the ground.

“ Focus, you idiot ,” Razer snapped in his mind. “ She’ll be fine . We’ll head them off if they try to take her .”

Focus. Focus.

It was the one thing with which he struggled anytime Ariadne was involved. It was the one thing with which he struggled anytime he didn’t trust his fighting partner to pull their own weight—and that had nearly killed him in the Pits when he’d been partnered with Sasja.

Sasja . Fucking bitch sold them out. She told them where they’d be and how to find them. After all that talk about fighting the oath to Ehrun, she’d used him to gain information that she could pass on at the earliest opportunity. Azriel would kill her.

The dhemon before him shifted his weight, opening up his left side, and Azriel struck. Forcing his blade through the gut of an enemy took strength, but the rage at their sudden appearance fueled him. He cut through the dhemon, taking him down in one great sweep of his sword—

And was immediately met with another opponent.

All around him, dhemons appeared from between the trees. Between his poor vampiric vision and inability to sustain long periods of heat tracking, Azriel was at the mercy of those around him. It didn’t take long for him to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of Ehrun’s cronies—so much so, he was forced to shuck the bag from his own shoulders to keep it from inhibiting his movements. He’d always made a point of planning raids on cloudless nights so the moonlight could provide some semblance of help.

With the thick storm clouds overhead, he had no chance. One by one, he met their blows, blocking what he could and dodging what he couldn’t. One by one, he watched them fall to his sword.

Not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.

Not if he was going to help her.

Azriel whipped around to where Ariadne had been fighting the dhemon on the ground. Her opponent lay motionless, eyes open and unseeing. A wave of relief crashed through him.

Someone kicked his knees out from behind, taking advantage of the distraction. He collapsed onto the damp ground and ducked his head as he pivoted towards the dhemon who’d sent him reeling. Slamming his horns into the dhemon’s gut, he staggered back to his feet in time to block the next blow from yet another advancing dhemon.

But when he turned in place again, pure panic overwhelmed him. He exchanged blows, three dhemons approaching him at once. Focus. Focus . But he couldn’t. Instead, his mind whirled.

Ariadne was nowhere to be seen.

Lungs burning, Ariadne sprinted through the forest, two dhemons hot on her heels. She ducked and wove between the trees using her vampiric agility, slowing the enemies down and putting more space between them. All she held was Ehrun’s dagger, her sword having been lost in that initial struggle that started the fight.

Why Ehrun continued to hunt her, Ariadne had no idea. He forgot things just as readily as Azriel had while locked away in Algorath. Why, then, had his mind decided to keep her very existence in the forefront?

That he did not want her dead on sight was enough to terrify her. By the way the dhemons did not utilize their weapons with her, she knew their orders: bring her to Ehrun alive.

Well, she would not be going back with him. Not ever. If she had to die to prevent ever being in his hands again, she would. She would put that very dagger that had caused her so much pain through her own heart.

Because she would not survive the next time he took her. That much, she knew. Whatever Ehrun had planned for her upon their reunion would be worse than her initial kidnapping. After she thwarted him once, he would ensure the remainder of her nights in this world would be nothing but misery.

An arm whipped out before her, sending her reeling backward as she ran full-tilt into it. Ariadne brandished the blade in her hand but froze mid-strike at the dhemon before her.

“Sasja.”

The dhemon woman’s eyes widened. “Ariadne.”

“You did this.” Gods, Ariadne had trusted her. She had argued in her favor before Azriel, insisting that she would not do precisely what had occurred: Sasja fed Ehrun their plans so he could find them..

“No,” Sasja breathed—the singular word more common tongue than Ariadne had ever heard her speak. Then the dhemon woman grabbed her by the arm and dragged her closer. “Listen—”

Ariadne slammed her fist into Sasja’s face. “Fuck you!”

Growling, Sasja clutched her bleeding nose and glared. In a muffled, strained voice, she said something in the dhemon language that she did not understand.

Ariadne lurched back when Sasja reached for her, slashing the dagger through the air and spilling more of the dhemon’s blood. “Crawl back to Ehrun. You are no friend of mine.”

Before Sasja could speak again, Ariadne continued on. She needed to make it back to Razer. He would get her somewhere safe—and he would ensure Azriel’s safety as well. Even if he had to burn the entire forest, the dragon would get them both out.

Ariadne broke through the treeline, hurtling towards the ridge where the dragons had left them, and pinwheeled her arms to a stop before running face-first into another dhemon on the far side of the tree boughs. She tried to dodge around the massive body, holding her dagger at the ready.

A huge hand wrapped around her wrist. “Now how’d you get my blade?”

Heart thundering to a halt, Ariadne looked up at Ehrun.

It had all been a trap. The dhemons, Sasja included, had not chased her in an attempt to drag her back to him. No. They had distracted her husband and friends, then herded her directly to the man from whom she had just sworn to keep herself.

Mouth hanging open in horror, no scream escaped. Ariadne’s eyes stung as he gripped her wrist harder, and the resulting squeal of pain only made his grin broaden. Yanking on her arm, she found herself pleading in quiet gasps.

“Speak up,” Ehrun snapped, dragging her closer. “I can’t hear you.”

“Let me go,” she breathed, mind blank as he brought his face closer to hers so they could look one another in the eyes. “Please.”

But Ehrun’s responding laugh sent daggers of ice down her spine. He twisted her arm hard, and a sharp pain careened through her, centralized at her wrist. In the next breath, a crack rang out, and her scream started long before the agony of her broken arm reached her brain. The dagger fell from her grip as her hand rotated farther than was natural, landing right in Ehrun’s open hand.

“No.” The singular word seemed to stretch eons. It collided with the memories of that cell—the groping hands and pleas for it to end. It spelled out her future hanging from chains in a perpetual state of torment. It eclipsed even the pain of the present.

Ariadne collapsed to the ground the moment Ehrun released her. Arm to her chest, she cradled the broken bones as she wept at his feet without thinking of why he let her go. Nothing mattered anymore. Not when she was bound for a dungeon from which she could never escape—it would not be like last time.

The body of an unrecognizable dhemon fell beside her, an ax buried in his back. She lurched back, yelping at how the movement sent pain radiating out from her arm.

Then Kall stepped over the fresh corpse, yanking the blade from the dead man. He raised it between himself and Ehrun, forcing the latter back a step. Another.

Kall had found her. Kall would stop Ehrun—stop his brother from doing anything more to hurt her. To hurt any of them.

Beyond them, silhouetted by the faintest streak of moonlight through the clouds, dragons swept to and fro in an airborne battle. Wings beat and angled, careening the massive bodies from side to side. It framed the pair of dhemons before her like celestial beings fighting as those bound to the soil took up arms.

Words in the dhemon language were exchanged between the brothers, but no blows. Though Ehrun held his dagger, he did not lift it to attack Kall. Likewise, Kall did not draw back his ax to swing.

Instead, they both lowered their weapons. Ariadne watched in awe as familiarity shone in Ehrun’s gaze. His cruel face softened, and when he turned his attention to her, he gaped in horror. Silver lined his red eyes—the same eyes as Kall—and when he looked back to his brother, he shook his head. Shook his head and wept.

“What have I done?” Ehrun’s voice cracked as he spoke in the common tongue. Tears streaked his face, and his chin quivered. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know…”

And in that moment, Ariadne saw the man her captor had been long before his wife’s death. She saw him grappling with the same agony that tore at Azriel—the same shame and mortification her husband felt at causing Kall pain.

“ Rholki ,” Kall said, closing the distance between them. The word was one she knew, one Azriel and Madan used often as a term of endearment for one another. One she was certain Kall had hoped to one day be able to say again. Brother .

Wrapping his arms around Ehrun, Kall whispered in the dhemon language—a promise of sorts as he held his only sibling close. Though she could not decipher the words, Ariadne knew the cadence of such a declaration. He would help Ehrun. No. They would help him. They would work together to heal the decades of misery by reconnecting him to Keon.

What Kall did not see, however, was the darkness that etched back into the lines of the elder dhemon’s face. Each heartbeat pumped shadows back into Ehrun’s eyes. From over Kall’s shoulder, his brother’s demeanor reverted to that of her nightmares, and within moments, the madness and anger and hate eclipsed all else. As quickly as it had appeared, Ehrun’s light died.

Ariadne’s heart lurched. The ripple of pain in her arm meant nothing to her as she shoved back to her feet, stumbling toward her friend, who just could not see . “Kall!”

The dagger turned in Ehrun’s grip.

Releasing his brother, Kall turned to her, and for the first time since their meeting, she found peace on his scarred face. Euphoria at having finally regained his only family. No fear. No anger. Only pure curiosity shone back at her as she heard an echo of his voice, playful and light: sabharni, ydhom . After all…he had finally reached through the vile, wretched horror that shrouded his brother and found the golden core of Ehrun’s heart.

Then the blade sank deep into her friend’s chest.

Unfathomable despair ripped a scream from her lungs, unlike anything she had ever heard before. Throat burning, the sound split through the night like an animal’s cry. Pain cracked her wide, sinking her to a depth from which she could find no escape.

Blood sprayed from between Kall’s lips as that warm curiosity morphed into shock. One red and one foggy eye turned down to take in the dagger buried between his ribs, then lifted back to his brother at the same moment Ehrun drew his lips back in a vicious snarl.

Somewhere in the skies, a roar of agony echoed through the darkness.

Ariadne threw herself forward to close the distance between them as though her very presence would ensure Kall’s safety. He was her guardian. Her friend. Her mentor. It had been he who built her up, gave her the skills to survive, and trusted her strength before anyone else. He would not— could not —leave her now…not now after all they had gone through together.

But an arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her back, off her feet. She screamed again, scrabbling with her unbroken hand at whoever kept her from Kall.

In those heartbeats, time passed at half speed. Every aching crash against her ribs spanned centuries, drawing out the images that burned into her mind’s eye. Kall turned to look at her. That beautiful scarred face screwed up in pain as he lifted a hand as though to pull the blade free. Lips parting, he stepped towards her—

Then crumpled to the ground.

The sensation of death was not new to Madan. Friends had died before, and the pain of it remained a reminder of all he had. After centuries of raids and fighting, he knew well what his final moments would entail.

But it never got easier.

He’d heard his sister’s shriek of pain and knew without a doubt that something terrible had befallen her. The adrenaline provided by it had him breaking away from the dhemon he fought and, after throwing the only two packs of supplies within reach over his shoulders, charging through the forest in her direction without looking back.

The second scream, however, was the equivalent of having one’s own heart ripped out. Perhaps, for her, it had. Perhaps it had for all of them.

Then the vinculum cracked wide between him and Brutis, allowing that soul-deep anguish to crash through like a hurricane. When death stole someone connected to them, there was no way to keep that pain at bay. Instead, it struck everyone in the vicinity at once with as much force as lightning.

Pure, mind-stopping agony ripped through Madan’s chest. So great was it that had it not been for his ability to suck in a breath, he was certain it’d been him who was stabbed. He stumbled to a halt, clutching his chest as he choked on the pain. When nothing dripped from his mouth, and his next breath didn’t bring a flood of blood to his throat, he looked up to see who it’d been.

“ Bindhe .” Kall’s voice broke through the misery, shaking and distant. Gods, no. It couldn’t be Kall. “ Break the vinculum .”

Ariadne’s scream had Azriel crashing through the underbrush in wild desperation before the pain in his chest registered. It throbbed through him as surely as his own wound, but his feet didn’t falter. Not with his wife out there somewhere enduring the despair alone and afraid.

Bindhe’s sweet voice, sad and dripping with hauntingly calm pain, replied to Kall’s request to be let go. “ I can’t .”

He wove through the trees, gasping for breath through the growing agony. It’d only get worse for a little longer. Just a little longer before…

“Fuck!” He shouted as though it would numb the heartache that awaited him on the other side of the physical pain.

“ You have time .” Kall’s voice was smaller now. His conscience, once a strong link tied to them through the vinculum, had weakened—too tired to hold onto it.

“ I won’t leave you .” The words brushed against Azriel’s mind—all their minds—soft and tender. She curled her own consciousness around Kall, cradling his slipping thoughts with gentle claws.

“ Bindhe, please …” Kall begged, the thought barely a whisper as he clung to the dredges of life he had left in the hopes that his bondheart would break the vinculum—would live on without him. “ They need you .”

The angelic dragon didn’t reply for a long time. Azriel burst from the forest and careened towards Ariadne. She shook as she cried, lunging for Kall. Azriel wrapped his arms around her at the same moment his friend’s knees gave out. Nails digging into his forearm, her keening drove daggers into his heart as surely as the one that took down Kall.

“We have to go,” Azriel gasped, surprised by the strength she used to dive for their friend’s body.

Razer landed behind Ehrun with a deafening roar. The dragon snapped his jaws at the dhemon, but Ehrun ducked, then sprinted away, clutching his own chest—the same pain radiating from his brother through the nearby dragons. Azriel snatched up the massive ax from just beyond his friend’s outstretched hand, then lifted Ariadne from her feet as she kicked and writhed, screaming Kall’s name over and over and over.

Then Bindhe’s final words, faint and broken, swept through his mind and in it echoed Kall’s voice, “ See you in the next life .”