Page 34

Chapter 33

T he tomb far exceeded Azriel’s imagination. Behind the rock, the narrow opening didn’t allow for the horses or wagon to be led in like the last cave. Supplies and horses alike were therefore trekked back over the ridge to be hidden from the highway nearby and forced to remain out in the elements. When Pol offered to widen the opening, Zeke and Madan insisted the sacred ground remain unaltered to avoid drawing Keon’s displeasure. They made their way below ground one at a time to where the inside opened up to a dome-like cave dotted with deep red garnets that glittered when they walked by with torches.

“This is where I slept,” Emillie explained, then pointed to an opening at the back. “I did not search farther in, but there is another passage just there.”

Dropping the pack from his shoulders, Azriel pulled Kall’s ax from it and turned to the narrow arch tucked behind a rocky outcropping. He motioned for Ariadne to stay behind, and for once, she grabbed her sister’s hand and did as he bid. If anyone in the world could keep his wife from running headlong into a potential conflict, it was Emillie. Thankful for his sister-in-law’s presence, he accepted a torch from Madan with his free hand. If he was to lead them into the dark, he would need to see what lay ahead.

Between steps, Azriel released his hold on the monster inside. His vision darkened at the edges, and he grit his teeth as the bones snapped and his skull pounded. The sharp inhale from the onlookers told him enough about how often they saw something of the sort. Compared to lycan transformations, his likely seemed far more subtle and, therefore, alarming when it happened so smoothly.

Azriel adjusted his grip on the ax, doing his best to channel Kall’s steadfast calm, and edged down the long steep tunnel into the next room. Here the garnets spread across the walls, almost replacing the rocky surface entirely. He paused to take it in. The room itself, though empty aside from the massive slabs of garnet, was warmer than the last—a comfortable temperature.

With naught but a sword, Madan made his way into the room behind him with Whelan on his heels. The former paused to take it in while the latter’s eyes glowed as he searched for the source of the heat.

“This reminds me of…” Madan’s voice trailed away.

Grunting in agreement, Azriel looked to Whelan. “What is it?”

“Like Madan said.” Whelan shrugged. “It’s coming from the floor like the Irem Tundra.”

“You don’t think there’s a clutch here, do you?” Azriel glanced back toward the passage, but no one else was following. “They don’t know yet.”

Madan raised his brows. “It’s not like we’ll be able to hide them for much longer. All of Valenul will know by the end of the week.”

As though summoned by their conversation, all three dragon consciousnesses slammed into them at once. The voices collided, mixing in a frantic combination of speech and visuals that overlapped from each of their perspectives. Night sky. Stars blotted out. Shouts in the dhemon language. Panicked rush of wings spreading to take flight.

“ They found us .”

The three words were echoed between each bondheart, their voices combining to create one eerie, gut-wrenching truth: Ehrun hunted them.

Before anyone could talk him out of it, Azriel dropped the torch as he whirled around to duck back through the narrow tunnel. On the far side, the vampires and fae spoke in quiet voices about things inconsequential to the dhemons reemerging from the inner cave.

“ How many ?” Azriel asked of Razer, his heart thundering in his chest as he crossed the room to Ariadne. Wide eyes tracked his approach, making it evident she knew full well what his expression meant.

“Azriel,” she whispered and shook her head, grabbing his hand as though her hold on him could ease the inferno building within him. “We are so close— no .”

“They’ll kill us if we don’t stop them first.” He took in every horrified facet of her beautiful face—ocean eyes, rosy lips, and wisps of curls springing free from her braid—and kissed her fingers, relishing the warmth in them. “Stay inside.”

But Ariadne held fast when he loosened his grip. “Take me with you.”

“ Four .” Razer’s voice delivered the number with certainty. “ Sehrox leads , of course .”

The eyes of the fae landed on him, ignoring Madan and Whelan as they rushed from the cave to meet up with Brutis and Oria. Four against three, with Sehrox making up for at least two more. But four. Four . Because of course Ehrun had known they should have had Bindhe…

“You haven’t trained for airborne battles.” He swallowed hard, remembering her screams as she fell from Razer again and again. With a grunt, he shoved the memory from his mind and refocused on his wife in the present. “Please listen to me. They need you here. I don’t know how many are on foot.”

Luce scoffed but stood with her figurative hackles raising. “Airborne? What’s happening?”

Ariadne ignored her. “Please don’t leave—”

“Protect Emillie.” The only words he could think of to keep her safe—to keep her there in that cave where they were less likely to be found. “She needs you.”

Chin trembling, Ariadne searched his face for a long moment as though committing his features to memory, just as he’d done. Once satisfied, she mustered a small nod, edging closer. “Come back to me.”

“Always, Yvhaltrinja .” Kissing her hard, he brushed his thumb across her cheek. When he pulled back to look around the cave, he added, “Stay hidden.”

Then he, too, ran from the cave. Hidden . As if the horses and wagon over the ridge didn’t give their location away. Even if they moved the rock to hide their position, dhemons weren’t the mindless monsters that vampires believed them to be. They were skilled hunters and could find them without much effort.

Azriel turned to the steep hill and started scrambling up it. Loose rocks tumbled from each step, careening down to the dark forest far below him and the cave alike. Using the brush to pull himself up the fastest route to where Razer flew, many of his movements were done by touch alone, thanks to the moon’s low light. The dragon’s constant presence grew stronger the closer the bondheart approached.

By the time he made it to the top of the hill, Azriel found Razer banking hard along the crest, nearly upside down and wing tip grazing the top of the ridge. Pivoting, Azriel sprinted in the same direction that the dragon flew over the narrow rocky ledge and held out his free hand. The black spike hit his palm, and he gripped tight, leaping into the air. Razer twisted upright, and Azriel hauled himself up through the air.

After a thunderous heartbeat of weightlessness, Azriel landed on Razer’s back with a grunt. The dragon twisted, pointed his nose into the sky, and shot toward the sea of inky black above them. It’d been so long since they’d dueled mid-flight that the mechanics of it weren’t as sharp as they once were. The only thing that he could remember was the number one rule of riding a dragon: don’t fall for there was no guarantee the bondheart could reach you in time.

“ Madan and Whelan ?” Azriel asked, scanning the starscape for the silhouettes of either of their bondhearts.

Razer pushed hard through the air, his great body flexing beneath Azriel with each beat of his wings. “ Ahead of us .”

Naturally.

“ Promise me something ,” Azriel said as they careened through wisps of clouds. A singular thought itched at the back of his mind after convincing Ariadne to stay behind in that cave, waiting for him to hopefully return.

His bondheart grunted, focused almost solely on tracking his friends into battle.

“ If I fall to them ,” he continued, “ you must break the vinculum .”

Nothing but silence reverberated back. Not even an emotion. His heart twisted at the very thought of never stepping back into that cave where Ariadne waited for him. The idea that he would break his last promise to her—to come back —had his bond writhing in his chest. Simultaneously, it gnashed at him to remove all threats from her life…and that included Ehrun.

“ You truly understand now ,” Razer said, breaking the long pause with quiet determination.

Azriel frowned and let his confusion radiate through the vinculum. The response had nothing to do with his request. No confirmation or denial.

Then, the memory of his father’s death flickered back into his mind. Ehrun’s sword came down, cleaving him nearly in two. Pain lanced through Azriel as the memory played out once more, then the Crowe’s final command, “ Protect him .”

As fast as it came, the memory vanished, leaving Azriel rocked by the agony his father endured at being cut in half. Stunned by the desperation the Crowe had felt at keeping the last pieces of Mariana alive at any cost.

Even if that cost was crossing to the Underworld alone.

Azriel cursed under his breath. “ Yes .”

“ Then you’ll be sure to apologize to Mhorn next time we see him ,” Razer said with pompous pride that his ploy had worked.

“ This is hardly the time to think about such things .”

With an audible rumble, Razer’s amusement rained through their connection. “ No better time than just before battle to realize how much of a prick you’ve been .”

If Azriel could sprout his own wings and dive off the massive, annoying beast, he would. As it were, Razer would likely let him freefall until the last moment just to watch him squirm. So he stayed put, one hand on the spike and the other still gripping Kall’s ax.

“ Get us through this ,” Azriel said, “ and I’ll apologize to Mhorn . But first … promise me .”

Razer let loose a burst of flame as an orange dragon swept into view—the first of Ehrun’s cronies. “ I promise . I’ll keep her safe , vhaltrinin. But only if you do the same for me . I won’t be the one to take you from her .”

In lieu of a reply, Azriel let his gratitude and agreement sweep between them. He silently fumbled for the vinculum in the back of his mind, same as Razer, poised to cut the thread if needed. If it were even possible. But they needed to focus on the battle, not talk. Particularly with the enemy so close, ready to remove them from play.

Turning to the orange dragon, a wiry beast named Bhan, Azriel readied to leap from Razer to engage the dhemon riding on the dragon’s back. Yet before he could even stand, Brutis shot between them. The much larger, gray dragon twisted through the air to rake his claws along Bhan’s softer underbelly, his sharp teeth crunching down on the dragon’s tail and yanking him backward. On his back, the dhemon called Jemii leaped from his bondheart’s shoulder to land on Razer’s flank. Standing, Azriel readjusted his footing at the same moment the dhemon angled his sword between the hard blue scales and shoved hard.

Blocking his mind from Razer’s pain, Azriel picked his way down the dragon’s spine. A warning leaked through a crack in the vinculum, and he braced himself just in time for Razer to tuck his wings and roll.

Open air stretched out beneath Azriel, and he careened downward with as much control as he could through the buffeting winds. Not far from him, Jemii tumbled as well. Without knowing quite how far they had to drop before coming to a sudden and violent stop, Azriel angled himself toward the dhemon.

Having used his sword to injure Razer, Jemii appeared weaponless. Azriel grabbed one of the dhemon’s pinwheeling arms and yanked him closer while telling Razer with as much calm as he could muster, “ I’m still falling , you know …”

Jemii jerked a dagger from a holster on his leg and slashed at Azriel. The tip of the blade raked down his arm, scoring through fabric and flesh alike. Hot, familiar pain radiated from the wound enough to make Azriel release him.

And not a moment too soon. Razer appeared beneath him, halting his crash-course as he landed chest first behind his bondheart’s shoulders where he would normally sit. He grappled one-handed for the nearest spike before the wind could shove him back off and cringed at the smack of Jemii hitting the rocks mere seconds later.

“ A bit of a close call .” Azriel righted himself on the dragon’s back and slid into his seat to get his bearings.

Razer beat his wings, gaining altitude again. “ Get that fucking sword out of me .”

Shaking his head to clear it, Azriel pushed back to his feet and balanced his way back to the sword. It was long enough to get between the scales yet short enough to be manageable by someone as thin as Jemii. Possibly the perfect sword to give to Ariadne after losing hers back in the forest outside that damn keep.

But he didn’t have the time to take it back with him, and with no place to secure it on himself, Azriel did the only thing to ensure the blade wouldn’t come back to haunt him—he shared the plan with Razer and whipped the sword through the air. On cue, Razer shot a mouthful of fire at it, melting the blade before it could reach the ground.

In a flash of orange, Bhan crashed into Razer. That the dragon remained cognizant and fighting meant that despite Jemii’s fall, the dhemon most likely hadn’t died. His tail was half-missing, thanks to Brutis, but his huge claws remained unaffected and dug into Razer at the same moment he snapped his jaws at Azriel.

After dodging teeth almost as long as his arm, Azriel swung the ax down on the soft nostril nearest him. A shriek of pain from Bhan, then the beast sucked in a deep breath. Sulfur emitted from his throat, burning Azriel’s nose in warning of what was to come.

Fuck.

Azriel buried the ax into the dragon’s face again and used it to haul himself onto Bhan’s head—the one place he could avoid dragonfire. Fierce eyes tracked him as he yanked the ax free and ran up the center of his face. Like a horse irritated with a fly, Bhan whipped his head back with a tongue of flames lighting the air as Azriel flew skyward.

Tucking his chin, he angled himself into a dive and wrapped his fingers around the orange dragon’s black spiraling horn. He gripped hard and brought the great ax down again, channeling Kall’s strength through the blade as it connected with Bhan’s unprotected eye.

Another roar and blood sprayed into Azriel’s face. Another shake of Bhan’s head, but with the ax buried in the dragon’s eye, Azriel didn’t budge.

“ Razer , now!”

Azriel barely got the thought out before his bondheart slammed into Bhan, his massive jaws closing around the orange dragon’s neck. Dislodging the blade from the eye, Azriel used the momentum of the impact to launch himself from Bhan’s head to Razer’s neck. He held tight to the spikes there and adjusted his legs to squeeze his bondheart with all he had.

By the time Razer released Bhan, the dragon didn’t so much as twitch. The lithe orange body tumbled through the open air and landed with a thunderous crash, his body crumpling in on itself.

“ Madan — Whelan — Kall —” Azriel stopped himself and grimaced, still clutching his late friend’s ax. The grief cut through his adrenaline before he finished the thought with which he’d reach out. “ Bhan’s down .”

Ariadne stared at the entrance to the cave as though she could will her husband to turn around and come back. Seconds slipped by. Heartbeats separated them. Still, he did not return. Still, she did not run after him.

Could not run after him.

There was nothing she could say that would convince him to return to her at that moment. After all Ehrun had done to them over the last couple days, she did not blame him for wanting to act now. They were trapped between two war fronts, Ehrun and Loren, and the opportunity to remove one from the equation could not be passed up.

She could only hope that Azriel did as she had asked and would not kill Ehrun outright if he could help it. Not when she had so many plans for the usurping bastard once he regained his memories. Not when she wanted him to live the rest of his miserable days under her thumb.

“I do not believe they found anything alarming down there. At least nothing they would have left us to handle alone.” Emillie watched her with uncertainty, then asked, “Shall we investigate further?”

It took a moment for the question to sink in. Then Ariadne nodded numbly and turned to the passage. Emillie was correct, of course: Azriel, Madan, and Whelan had not warned them to avoid going farther, so the caverns beyond the passage had not held anything that worried them. As such, she took a step closer to the tunnel before a firm hand grabbed her arm.

“What is going on?” The lycan woman, Luce, glared at her with golden eyes as sharp and discerning as Markus Harlow’s. The similarity was almost alarming.

Right. After so long at Auhla , Ariadne assumed everyone knew the secrets kept by the dhemons. No one she had been left with had any idea why she needed to be here or why the three dhemons had all but abandoned them inside a cave filled with garnets. Only their affection for Emillie, a strong bond not unlike that the dhemons had for her, pushed the small company to follow them into this nonsense.

“We are trying to reconnect the dhemons with Keon,” Ariadne said, her voice almost monotonous. “Apparently, we need the springwater from the tomb—which we are hoping is down there”—she gestured to the passage before her—“to do so.”

“No.” Luce’s grip tightened, sending a wave of hot anger through Ariadne. How dare this woman treat her as though she were to be restrained as such? She was a Queen . But the lycan continued, “He said airborne . What does that mean?”

It was Edira who responded from behind them both. “I believe it means just that: there is to be a battle in the air.”

Zeke’s brows raised. “I’d be quite interested in knowing the answer, myself. I pride myself on harvesting knowledge from across Myridia, but this isn’t something I’ve heard of from dhemons before. Avians, yes. But never the horned fae.”

Hesitating, Ariadne looked between them. Her gaze landed on Emillie, who frowned in a way that said her sister was disappointed in her keeping secrets. Again.

“Because you plan to fight alongside us,” Ariadne said slowly, “I will tell you. It is quite possible Loren already knows after everything in Armington, after all. But I need to know that you trust us nonetheless.”

Emillie’s brows furrowed more. “Why would we not?”

When Luce still did not release her, Ariadne twisted her arm out of the lycan’s grip and shot her a look that Kall had given those who tried to bar his way. It worked well enough to make the fae step back next to Emillie. Whether she recognized the movement or not, Luce’s shoulder bumped into her sister without any flicker of surprise.

“The tactical advantages are…” Ariadne’s words trailed away as she gathered her thoughts. This was not her strong suit. Actions had always trumped words for her, whether she was good at them or not. “Enormous. Everyone will be searching for their own if we do not keep it a secret. If the wrong person gets their hands on this, they could conquer all of Myridia.”

“That seems unlikely,” Pol said with a chuckle.

Ariadne’s fingers twisted into the hem of her shirt. “I thought dragons outside of legends were unlikely as well. But there are more than three of them out there fighting right now.”

The silence that followed her statement made her heart race. Emillie gaped. The lycans shifted uncomfortably—likely due to the realization that their teeth would not be, in fact, the largest in the coming battles. The high fae siblings looked at each other, not unlike how Azriel looked at Madan and Whelan when conducting a silent, mental conversation.

“And if none of them come back,” she continued, her voice cracking at the mere thought of it, “that means the dragons they went to fight won, and we are in huge trouble.”

“Why is there so much fighting between the dhemons at all?” Emillie asked. A reasonable question given she had no insight into any of the events leading to this night.

“Ehrun.” Ariadne ground her teeth a moment, chewing on the name as though her own vitriol could seep through the ether to where he flew and poison him. “He falsely claims the title of King—it is not a title one is born into amongst dhemons. It is given to those most worthy. Azriel was chosen.”

Luce tilted her head with a furrow of her brow. “The Crowe?”

A warm glow took up its place in her chest at the thought of her husband on his throne, and Ariadne nodded. “Yes. The Crowe. His father was the last Dhemon King and was murdered by Ehrun. We need the ritual to connect them to Keon so they can all…stabilize.”

Zeke perked up at that. “We were just discussing this phenomenon not that long ago. About the dhemons losing all sense of themselves when separated from their mates.”

“Yes.” Ariadne looked back to the passage that led into the belly of the mountain. “Now I need to find that spring so we can fix this problem.”

Before anyone else could ask her more questions, she followed the low flickering light of an abandoned torch down the passage into a cavern made almost completely of garnet. Heat radiated up from the floor, an intense shift from the cool autumn of the first cavern. She stooped and picked up the torch at the same time Emillie appeared beside her.

“This is incredible,” she whispered, taking Ariadne’s hand. With a squeeze, she added, “I think I know how to help you with the ritual.”

Hope flared in Ariadne’s chest. She turned wide eyes to Emillie. “How?”

Emillie nodded toward another tunnel at the far end of the empty garnet room. They moved forward in unison, the sound of her friends following behind them echoing off the rocky surfaces, and Emillie said, “I found a book back home.”

Home . Home was such a strange word now. For so long, Ariadne called the Harlow Estate home . She refused to think of any other manor owned by her family as such, for none felt as inviting as the one in Laeton did. They were but houses they lived in during travel to other provinces.

As they walked down the long, dark passage in silence so as to focus on the rocky obstacles, she built an image in her mind’s eye of what she imagined her next home would look like. First, with Darien Gard at his manors across Central and Notten Province as he followed his father’s footsteps into the High Council. But that had been violently ripped away and replaced with Loren by her side within those same magnificent halls. Those imaginings, however, quickly changed after the duel all those weeks ago to that which she would share with Azriel in the Caldwell Estate.

Most recently, however, home had become a place she never in her wildest dreams pictured she would end up. Home now lay in the Keonis Mountains, surrounded by dhemons, at Auhla .

“Are you certain this is the direction we should be going?” Pol’s voice echoed through the tunnel, followed by a snort of laughter.

“I see no reason it couldn’t be,” Zeke said, his words verging on childish eagerness.

“Careful, there’s a—”

A whack, a hiss of pain, then a growl of frustration preceded Luce’s sharp tone as Pol laughed, “Will you shut up?”

It took considerably longer than Ariadne anticipated to reach the cavern at the bottom of a final long, sloping passage. Heat slapped Ariadne, and unlike the one from which they had just come, it seemed to be emitting from everywhere—above and below. The only other time she had felt such suffocating temperatures in a cave had been when she accompanied Azriel to visit Mhorn with the hope of gaining a dragon bondheart.

Sure enough, when she lifted the torch, the light reflected off the shattered remains of what she could only guess were massive eggshells. Thick slabs of what would have appeared to be multi-colored stones to the unknowing eye littered the garnet floor. Though Ariadne had never seen the aftermath of a hatchling emerging, she knew in her gut what they were. Amidst the carnage of dragons long since hatched stood a single pale monolith.

“What is this?” Luce asked as she came to a halt beside Emillie before squatting down to pick up a large chunk of a shell.

Ariadne turned wide eyes to her, the exhaustion of the night finally catching up to her in a low, throbbing headache. “Dragon eggs. Or…they were.”

The fae spoke low in their native tongue, likely saying some sort of prayer to Silve to protect them. But Ariadne stooped down beside Luce to examine the shells. Like the lycan, she picked one up and turned it over in her hand.

“If I were to wager,” Zeke said to his comrades, doing the same with excited curiosity alight in his eyes, “these are quite old and hold no immediate danger to us.”

“I hope you’re right!” the lycan named Riu said, pushing his pink hair back from his face.

With a shake to clear her head, Ariadne turned back to Emillie and reignited their previous conversation now they were safe within the next cavern. “What is this book you found?”

Of course her sister had found something of interest in that library. While Ariadne always chose the same tales to go back to, hiding from reality within the pages of her favorite stories, Emillie sought to fill her mind with more knowledge. She buried her nose in books of history and medicine and the hidden truths of Myridia in search of something to make reality bearable.

Emillie continued forward through the room, the edges of the shells crunching under her boots. Ariadne followed, realizing as she did so just how massive the cavern was. Where the walls appeared to come together near the far end, they merely curved and bent into another large space—certainly not like the narrow passages that led them into the underground caves.

Upon reaching the curve, however, Ariadne’s heart stuttered before taking off at a rapid pace. The next space was not merely another cavern glistening with the same embedded gems.

It was a tomb.

At the center of the solid garnet room was a wide, deep spring that nearly filled the entirety of the cavern. Water bubbled up from the depths in a constant whirl that made the otherwise glossy surface turn and writhe. Breaking through the gemstone floor of dark burgundy and encircling the spring were the six-petaled moonlight flowers—the very same flower Azriel had secretly gifted her after the Vertium ball. The very same that the Caldwells had long since claimed for their family flower. The very same that Alek had mentioned in his ramblings. Their fragrance permeated the hot air, the scent of so many in one place heavy and luxurious. Far above them, moonlight leaked through a hole in the distant ceiling half covered in vines. How they grew with so little sunlight, Ariadne could not fathom.

Despite the shock of seeing thriving florals in such a dark space, it was the coffin of pure garnet at the center of the spring that made Ariadne’s breath catch. At long last, with the help of her sister, they had discovered that which her small, makeshift family had fought and died to find.

Anwenja: the final resting place of Keon’s mortal wife, hidden from the world except for those worthy of her light. That they had been chosen to find such a blessed place almost had Ariadne on her knees. Keon had not abandoned Myridia after all.

He merely waited for someone to seek him out.

Bringing the torchlight closer, the flames illuminated that which they could not otherwise make out. The spring appeared too deep and too wide to traverse to the sarcophagus itself—a venture Ariadne did not wish to make even if she could. Something told her such a trial would not end well for her. Keon would have done anything to keep his beloved safe. On the sides of the large slabs of garnet, however, were deep engravings in a language Ariadne could not read. A language with which she had recently become quite familiar.

“Gods,” Emillie breathed, stepping in beside her. “That. That is the language I found in the book.”

Ariadne tore her eyes from the garnet sarcophagus to stare at her sister, stomach twisting at the possibilities. “Why would Father have a book in the dhemon language?”

“I do not know.” Emillie shook her head. Curiosity faded into uncertainty. “But it was filled with rituals and curses and enchantments—even the one that turned mages into vampires.”

Head spinning, Ariadne did her best to focus as she grabbed Emillie’s shoulders. “Where is this book now? Armington?”

Her sister’s face fell. “I left it behind. It is still in Laeton.”

No . No, no, no. They needed that book to bring Ehrun’s memories back before they attacked Valenul. Waiting to do the ritual until after taking down Loren would prevent them from utilizing Ehrun’s forces in the attack—and utilizing the mind of one of the Crowe’s greatest strategists.

“I need the water and flowers,” Ariadne breathed after a moment, her voice quiet as she tried to consider how best to get the book away from Loren. No matter how hard she worked, none of the possibilities lined up.

Yet she did not have to wait long before a fresh opportunity landed in her hands. Dahlia’s voice preceded her as she pushed into view, black-inked eyes wide. The lycan had stayed behind to keep watch at the cave entrance.

“Soldiers!” Dahlia called and looked at Ariadne and Emillie as though she thought they would have answers. Before she could open her mouth to inquire further, the lycan continued, “Valenul soldiers with huge artillery and pikes. They must have spotted something—the others leaving, maybe—and now they’re headed towards us through the forest. I can hear them approaching.”

Ariadne swallowed hard, then glanced at her sister. If they were still hunting for Emillie, she refused to let them take her. She would not ask her to withstand Loren’s wrath while she ran away. Not again.

Yet no matter how much Ariadne tried to keep her expression schooled, Emillie had always been good at reading her mind. Her sister’s face blanched, and she shook her head. “Ari…do not do it.”

“I have to,” Ariadne breathed, her heart cracking at what it meant for Azriel—what it would do to him when he returned to her missing. “I have to go back to Laeton.”