Page 10

CHAPTER TEN

T he black mists were so thick Cassandra could barely see a foot in front of her face. She’d lost all trace of the other prisoners besides Reena and Ronin.

She didn’t know how long they’d been walking.

She didn’t even know if they were walking in the right direction, though the ground beneath their feet sloped gently downward. As if it were funneling them somewhere.

Reena’s muffled voice cut through the darkness, mirroring Cassandra’s thoughts. “Where, exactly, are we going?”

Ronin grunted, rubbing at the brand beneath his prison shirt. “Don’t know, but my…” He twisted his head to the side, cracking his neck and clenching his teeth. “But my wolf keeps harassing me to go this way. I think he senses something.”

“Something?” Reena asked. “Or some one ?”

From the tension in Ronin’s shoulders, Cassandra guessed it was his former lover and not his sister.

“Stay close,” was all he grumbled.

Cassandra plodded forward, dragging her wings across the dusty ground. High Gods it felt good to give her back muscles a break. Thankfully, Ronin hadn’t seen fit to scold her about it when the veiling potion had worn off…minutes ago? Hours ago? Days ago?

It was difficult to assess the passage of time in this place. With no sun nor moon above and nothing but packed dirt beneath their feet, only endless black spread out in every direction.

Occasionally, Cassandra caught a looming silhouette far ahead. But no matter how many steps they took toward it, it never shifted position nor came any closer. Remained a hint of palatial shadow on the fuzzy horizon.

She rubbed at her stomach, wondering why she wasn’t hungry or thirsty or tired. And why her other emotions weren’t on overdrive.

She should be terrified of whatever lay beyond these mists. Hopeful that Tristan had escaped his brother’s clutches. Anxious about her death sentence.

But the enveloping darkness dampened everything .

Were Ronin and Reena feeling as numb?

She couldn’t even muster the will to ask.

So she just kept plodding forward through the void.

Minutes, hours, days later…

A scream tore through the mists, and the trio halted.

“What was that?” Reena asked, tone flat.

Ronin cocked his head, but only dreadful silence shouted back. He shrugged and the group continued forward.

No one said a thing when they came upon the body sprawled face-down in the dirt.

Ronin bent down to flip it over.

A Beastrunner male—the shaggy-haired prisoner who’d asked the Vicereine why Eamon hadn’t attended sentencing.

His skin bore no marks, and his gray prison uniform, though streaked with black dust, was intact. The unnatural stillness of his chest was the only sign he wasn’t merely sleeping. Well, that and his body was completely devoid of color, like a black-and-white photograph.

Cassandra couldn’t tell if it was real or if the mists were affecting her vision.

Reena leaned down to touch the male’s head and chest, murmuring a prayer. “What do we do?” Her voice sounded hollow. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“We can,” Ronin said, and Reena frowned, rising to her feet. “And we will.

“Keep walking.”

They kept walking and walking and walking.

And walking.

Nothing shone through the mists. No light. No sounds. No hint of a break in the darkness.

Cassandra wondered if this was what it felt like to go mad. Perhaps she’d died in the intake yard. Perhaps her body was still out there. Perhaps she was nothing more than a soul wandering through an eternal night.

A low hum bloomed to life between her ears.

At first, she thought it was the sound of her blood rushing through her veins.

But then it began to rise, both in pitch and frequency, before breaking apart into murmuring whispers. A susurration of voices.

Thousands.

Millions.

Billions .

She glanced sidelong toward Reena, whose eyes were closed and whose lips were moving unnaturally fast.

Cassandra grabbed Reena’s arm, then snatched her hand back, hissing. Reena’s skin was so cold it burned Cassandra’s fingertips.

“Ronin,” she croaked out. “What’s wrong with her?”

The voices in Cassandra’s mind grew louder and louder. So loud they rattled her brain against her skull. Ronin clutched at his shaved temples, squeezing his eyes shut, as if he heard them, too.

She was about to release a scream as agonized as the one they’d heard earlier—yesterday? A week ago? Ten years ago?—when the voices stopped, and the mists pulsed. Prisms shimmered in her peripheral vision, but disappeared as soon as she turned to catch sight of them.

Reena’s lids popped open, revealing milky white in place of her familiar golden eyes.

Ronin shoved Cassandra behind him, muttering, “The chronomancer in…”

He trailed off and before Cassandra could ask what he meant, Reena’s lips spread into a chilling, rictus grin, wrinkling her cheeks. When she spoke, her voice rang out in a monstrous echo.

“Her eyes have been called. The paths converge. He is searching for a way in.”

“Reena,” Ronin growled, “what the fuck are you?—”

In a flash of orange and black fur, Reena shifted into her tiger, then dove into the mists, an iridescent shimmer trailing behind her.

Cassandra twisted out of Ronin’s grip, then gave chase, shouting Reena’s name into the shadows. Her feet pounded the dirt and her wings bounced against her back. The rainbow glow of Reena’s trail faded the farther she ran.

A strong arm curled around Cassandra’s waist and Ronin hauled her back against his chest, his fingers tangling in her feathers. “Let her go, Cass. Let her go . We need to get out of these mists or we’re not going to survive. And we can’t help her if we’re dead.”

Cassandra collapsed in Ronin’s arms, too dazed to move. She raised a hand to her cheek, surprised to find wetness.

As soon as she recognized her tears, her suppressed emotions crashed upon her in a disorienting wave. Terror, anxiety, exhaustion, grief, agony, panic. So many, she could barely identify them all.

Those voices overtook her mind, morphing into screams so loud she clapped her hands over her ears.

Before she realized she was the one screaming.