Page 30

The first firework explodes above me as I race across the bridge, ducking around clusters of people who line the railings to watch the vibrant display of sound and color. I jolt at the sudden boom but do not slow, do not stop. The crowd is dense but distracted—necks craned back to the sky, mouths agape in awe, eyes wide in wonder. No one pays me much attention as I race through their midst.

Flashes of color chase me all the way to the end of the bridge, then along the lakeshore. The water’s surface reflects every detonation, a fluid rainbow in the night. Even more Caelderans are gathered at the banks, a thick throng of drunken revelers that spilled out from the main square of the marketplace at the stroke of midnight.

The marketplace seems to be the epicenter of the evening’s festivities, packed with spectators and entertainers alike. I do not pause longer than a heartbeat to watch the fire-eaters breathing mouthfuls of flame on the makeshift stage, do not hesitate more than a second to gawp at the painted contortionists writhing in suspended hoops above the crowd, pouring sparkling liquor from crystalline bottles between the parted lips of those passing below.

There is no time to linger. All too soon, Cadogan and Jac will realize I’ve slipped away from the dance floor, using the commotion around the fireworks display to camouflage my escape. They will pursue me, I have little doubt. But I do not think of that as I run, a streak of gold, through the firelit city streets, my flimsy satin slippers clapping against the cobblestones hard enough to bruise my soles. Nor do I consider that it is perhaps not the wisest course to abandon my net of protection as I round corners and dart past illuminated stoops, where couples sway in each other’s arms and families of all sizes gather—especially in light of what I’ve learned from Yale.

We cannot keep track of the threats. Some of them may be here tonight. Some of them may be on this very dance floor.

I turn down a narrow street as a series of earsplitting booms sound. Red, violet, blue, orange, a kaleidoscope of fiery powder flaring across the sky. I plow straight into a group of gawky youngsters with their wide eyes fixed upward, too transfixed to take notice of me. Their innocent enjoyment is a sharp contrast to the brimming conflict inside.

I cannot go back to the party. My thoughts are as jumbled as the feelings in my chest, where my heart races at twice its normal speed. My emotions are a gathering storm, mirroring the maegical one that rages deep beneath my skin.

Yale’s words haunt my every step.

It is only a matter of time before one of Efnysien’s lackeys succeeds where Lieutenant Gower failed.

I run on, faster, harder, trying to outrun his voice in my head. Even as I do, I know it is useless. I cannot outrun the truth. Not for much longer.

He is in love with you. I have seen it.

I am spinning out of control. Losing my grip on my emotions—and, with them, the gate within. My power rattles at it, desperate for release. Normally, I would go to the cavern behind the falls to recalibrate. Not tonight. There are too many people near the palace, too many watchful eyes tracking my every movement.

You may well doom us all.

I do not even consciously realize where I’m headed until I am there, standing at the base of the cliff side, staring at the shadowy mouth of the old mine shaft. Hauling a shaky breath into my lungs, I brace myself against the unpleasant sensation of confinement and enter the passage. Darkness engulfs me. Darkness and absolute quiet—such a glaring difference from the rest of the city. Even the booms of the fireworks show are muted by the heavy earth.

By the time I reach the lift, claustrophobia grips my lungs like a vise. My hand trembles as I raise it to the wall, fingertips guiding me where my eyes cannot, moving over the rough surface until I feel a series of gouges in the stone.

A glyph.

I have never activated one before—not intentionally, anyway—but I do not second-guess my own abilities as I pull a diaphanous tendril of maegic from the swirling storm clouds within me. It comes all too easily; my maegic brims very close to the surface tonight. On a sharp exhale, I send it pulsing out through my palm. Satisfaction fills me when I am instantly rewarded with a red glow.

The floor lurches as the lift activates, rising steadily through the shaft. I do not draw breath for the entirety of the journey. If there is any relief when I finally jolt to a stop at the top, it is quickly overridden by stronger emotions—the same ones that led me here in the first place. I make my way out of the tunnel, fighting my own feet to keep from running through the final stretch of darkness.

I pass through the portal chamber, its glyphs dark and dormant against the far wall. Taking a ragged breath, I step out onto the precipice. The breath catches in my throat when my eyes land on the silhouetted figure by the edge.

He is here.

Of course he is here. That is, after all, why I have come—following the faint thread of our bond through the night without thought, without question, as soon as I was close enough to sense it.

He stands with his back to me, his forearms resting on the stone parapet as he watches the fireworks explode over his city. The view from this height is indescribable, its beauty almost impossible to behold, but I spare it no more than a passing glance. My eyes are stuck on Penn.

He is still shirtless, clad only in the loose black breeches he wore during the warding ceremony. He must’ve come straight here afterward. I watch his spine stiffen, his shoulders tense, and know he’s heard my uneven gulp of air. Still, he does not turn to face me. He does not acknowledge my presence at all.

I had been sure—so sure, I did not pause to question it—that I would know what to say to him when at last I reached his side. Now that I have, my throat convulses around a lump of useless sentences that seem permanently lodged in my airway. I cannot force them out, no matter how I try.

In the end, it is Penn who speaks.

“You should not be here.”

The utter weariness in his voice catches me off guard. I take a cautious step closer and whisper, “Neither should you.”

His only response is silence.

“Are you all right?”

Again, silence. But the muscles in his shoulders ripple as tension courses through him.

“I was worried,” I admit softly, taking another few steps. My slippers are soundless on the stone. “When you didn’t come to the festival…I reached out, but I could barely feel your presence through the bond.”

“Recharging the wards drains my maegic nearly to depletion. I’m surprised you can feel me at all.”

“I couldn’t. Not at first. Not until I got closer.”

There is a terse pause. “I assume your highly adept guard detail has no idea where you are at the moment?”

My cheeks flush. “Don’t blame Cadogan or Jac—”

“I shall blame whoever I bloody please,” he snaps. Inhaling slowly, he takes great pains to steady his tone. “You should go back to the party. I’m not fit company for anyone tonight.”

“I’m not anyone . I’m Rhya.”

“All the more reason for you to go.”

“Are you so determined to spend this night in solitude?” I close the rest of the distance between us, coming to stand alongside him at the parapet. In profile, his jaw is set like stone. There are deep shadows of exhaustion beneath his eyes. “I thought Fyremas was a night of unity and togetherness.”

He scoffs. “Unity? This, coming from the girl who, at our last exchange, bolted from my presence like it was poison?”

I have no rebuttal. Pressing my lips together, I turn to look out over the city. I’d thought the fireworks were impressive from below, but at this vantage they are incomparable. Breathtaking. They swarm like distant fyrewisps, yellow then blue then red then violet, some giant and lingering, others flaring only for an instant.

Spread out below us, the entire crater is dotted with illumination. Torches and firepits burn from the bustling shores of the lake to the most precipitously perched homes halfway up the cliffs—a galaxy of earthbound stars.

“What upset you?”

Penn’s sudden question makes my head whip his way. “Who says I’m upset?”

“Rhya, your emotions are damn near boiling over. Even with my maegic muted, I can feel you’re close to losing control.” He finally meets my eyes. “So just tell me. What— who —upset you?”

I want to look away, but I am trapped in the dark fire of his stare, trembling beneath the force of it no matter how I lock my knees.

“Yale.”

“I should’ve known.” Penn runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “What did he say?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.”

Now I do look away. “He doesn’t like me, let’s put it that way.”

“Rhya.”

“All right,” I grumble, knowing he is not about to let the topic drop. “He said there are threats against me. So many of them, you redirected some of his troops to the city as extra protection.”

“And?”

“ And ”—I force out the word—“he may have implied he won’t be too shaken up when, eventually, one of Efnysien’s flunkies manages to bypass all that extra protection and removes me from your life. Permanently.”

“Fucking bastard!”

“Penn—”

“He’s furious because I went over his head with the army. He’s taking it out on you. That’s all this is. Don’t pay him any mind.”

“Then I’m not in danger?”

His hesitation is telling. “Rhya—”

“I am!” I shake my head in disbelief. “Gods, Penn, were you going to tell me?”

“No.”

“ No? ” I explode. “After Gower, I knew there were threats, I knew there was danger—more, even, than you wanted to admit. But this…How could you keep something like this from me?”

“Because I have it under control. We’ve doubled the perimeter guards at the towers around the capital—all across the plateau, in fact. The trade roads have checkpoints. Everyone who’s come in or out of the city in the past week has been stopped for questioning and searched for weapons. The main tunnel into Caeldera is sealed shut with stone doors so thick, it would take a troll to breach them. Not to mention, I’ve just topped off the wards with so much power, I’m surprised I’m still conscious.” The words come out in a harsh clip. “You are safe. I made certain of it.”

“You still should have told me—”

“I wanted you to enjoy your first Fyremas!” he barks, stopping my protests. His voice softens a shade as he stares at me. “I wanted you to have one night—just one godsdamned night—where you could enjoy yourself. If I’d told you about the threats, it would’ve sucked all the light right out of your eyes. I’ve seen enough of that. I…You…You deserved more. I wanted to give you more. Is that so difficult for you to comprehend?”

“I…I don’t…” I swallow hard, trying to find the right words as our gazes hold for a prolonged moment. My hand flutters uselessly up to my chest, pressing not against my Remnant but against my heart. It seems to be skipping beats. “Thank you,” I finish lamely.

“You’re welcome,” he mutters.

We both tear our eyes away from each other at the same moment, looking back out over the city. The fireworks are exploding in rapid succession now, arcing like colorful ribbons across the atmosphere in a grand finale designed to stun the senses. I fix my sights on them, struggling to steady my breathing. I do not even bother trying to calm my racing pulse.

“Was that all?”

My brows shoot up my forehead, brushing the heavy diadem. “What?”

“Yale. Was that all he said?”

Heat flushes into my cheeks as Yale’s voice echoes inside my head.

He is in love with you.

I am a bad liar.

I know this.

I lie anyway.

“Yes, that’s all he said.”

The air goes static. The longer the falsehood floats there between us unaddressed, the more the tension mounts. I feel I might combust out of my skin. Eventually, I can no longer stand it. Pushing away from the parapet, I turn to leave. “I’m sorry I interrupted your solitude. I’ll go now—”

His hand on my arm is a vise, stopping me in my tracks. I do not dare draw breath as he tugs me around to face him. His gaze is the molten shade of fossilized amber—and I the helpless creature trapped within, impossibly frozen in place.

“Tell me what else Yale said.”

“I told you—”

“You lied.”

“I did not!”

“You can try to deceive me with words, Rhya,” Penn growls, leaning in. His eyes flicker down to the low-cut bodice of my dress, where my Remnant is on full display between my breasts. My chest is heaving with each breath, a rapid rise and fall I cannot control. “But the bond between us does not lie.”

“For the last time,” I grit out. “ Stop. Reading. My. Emotions. ”

“I will, when you learn to shut me out.”

“You are the most arrogant, hateful, obstinate— Gods! Sometimes I cannot stand you!” I jolt against his hold, but he does not yield so much as a finger. “Let me go!”

“Do you think I don’t know how you feel about me? Bond or no, I am fully aware you despise me. How could I not be? You have told me time and again.” His eyes narrow to slits. “I know you wish our paths had never crossed, that I had never found you, that I had never brought you here.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?”

“No!”

“Then what is the truth?” He shakes me lightly when I give no reply. “Honestly, do you think I want to read your emotions, Rhya? Do you think it is pleasant for me, day after day, to remain near you, mere paces away, and not be affected by all you feel? Do you think I enjoy trying to hold myself in check when your emotions blast at me in a constant torrent?” He yanks me closer—so close, our noses bump. “Everything you feel pours straight into me, from your heart to mine, no matter how I try to keep you out. No matter how I try to hold you at arm’s length. Trust me, I wish more than anything that you would learn to shut me out. Fucking hell! Do you think I am made of stone?”

I reel back, as though he’s struck me a physical blow. I do not get far with him still gripping my arm in a granite hold.

“I’m sorry it’s so unpleasant to be around me!” I seethe at him, seeing red. “I suggest we return to your plan of mutual avoidance in the future. I promise not to seek you out again, since being near me is such an intolerable burden for you!”

With that, I manage to wrench my arm out of his grip and whirl around. I am suddenly desperate for distance. I am very close to tears; the last thing I want is for him to witness them. But I only make it a handful of steps before two hands close around my biceps from behind, halting me in my tracks yet again.

I let out an angry half scream. But the sound evaporates in my throat as the warm plane of Penn’s chest presses against my back. His head lowers to the crook of my neck, his lips brushing the sensitive lobe of my ear, and I go still.

Still down to my soul.

“Rhya,” Penn whispers, his voice cracking. “Don’t you understand? You…you have undone me completely. I look at you, I touch you, I sense you near me, and I…” His voice pitches lower, barely audible. “I pride myself on staying in control of all things. I am a master at it. But these days, I hardly recognize myself. I am a raw nerve, run ragged from trying to keep myself in check each time I’m near you.”

“And how do you think I feel?”

His whole frame tightens.

“ I was not the one who created distance. I was not the one who put up this new wall,” I remind him, voice thick. “You are the one who wanted to forget what happened between us.”

“Rhya—”

“You made me feel like you regretted it,” I cut him off. “Regretted me .”

His forehead presses against my nape. “I know. I know, and I’m sorry. Gods, I know this isn’t fair to you. I know that I’ve hurt you, pushed you away. But I do not know how else to be around you without…without…”

“Without what, Penn?” I ask the shadows, wishing I could see his face. “Without admitting you cannot contain every emotion every minute of every day? That you are just as fallible as the rest of us—and just as capable of feelings, even if you see them as a liability?”

“They are a liability.”

“Perhaps to you, but not to me!” My anger lashes out like a whip. “You see us as a risk not worth taking, but I never saw us that way! At least, not until you started holding me at arm’s length. Not until you started acting as though we mean nothing to each other.”

“I have responsibilities. I have a kingdom I am accountable to. I do not have the luxury of chasing after the things I want without a thought to the consequences.” He pauses, voice dropping to an almost inaudible volume. “I would rather you hate me and be safe than put you at risk by…”

“By what?” Tears gloss my eyes. “By letting me love you?”

He presses closer, his body straining to erase our distance even as his dark words push me away. “It would be better if you hated me.”

“For who? Certainly not for me.” I shake my head slowly back and forth, devastation ripping through me. I know he can feel every excruciating pulse of it in the bond. And in this moment, I don’t care.

I want him to feel it.

I want him to know.

He makes a pained sound, sharing my anguish.

“Do you want to know the saddest truth?” I ask, voice breaking. “I never hated you. Not even at the very start. Not even when we were enemies. Not even when I thought you wanted to kill me . Because even then, there was still a part of me that was drawn to you. Air to open flame.”

His entire frame shudders. His emotions have never been so raw, so accessible to me. Tonight, he does not have the strength to hide them away.

“How can you possibly think, after all we have been through together”—I am crying freely now—“that I would ever be able to hate you?”

“ Stop. ” A shattered plea. “Don’t say any more, Rhya. Don’t say things you can’t take back.”

“I don’t want to take them back!” I thunder, determined. “You may want to live a lie, Pendefyre, but I don’t. Not anymore. If you don’t want me, tell me. I’m tired of trying to sort out the truth from the pretending.”

There is an endless pause. I think he’s going to let me go, let me walk away. But instead, he groans low in his throat.

“You think I don’t want you? Gods. ” His lips skim my neck, a trail of flame. “All I can think about is your mouth on mine, your hair in my hands, your fingers on my skin. I lie in my bed at night, listening to you toss and turn, and it takes everything in me to keep from ascending that ladder. To keep from carrying you straight back down it, putting you in my bed, and letting the fire we sparked in that forest finally burn itself out.”

Heat furls through me at his words, coiling in my very core. Skies. If I’d known, all those sleepless nights, he was lying just below me, sharing my torturous thoughts…sharing my secret desires…

“Why didn’t you?” I whisper.

“Because I know better!” His grip becomes bruising, his fingertips biting into my upper arms. “I know these things I feel for you are dangerous—for you, for me, for both of us. For bloody everyone.”

Yale had said much the same back on the dance floor. Hearing it confirmed by Penn himself is like a sword through the heart.

“Then why are you still holding me?”

“Because, gods help me, I don’t care anymore! ” His voice breaks. “I don’t care about the risks. I don’t care about the repercussions. I have tried. Tried not to feel this way, tried to lock in my feelings. It’s no use. I’m not strong enough. Not when it comes to you.”

He pulls in a ragged breath, his bare chest pressing more firmly to my exposed spine. Skin to skin. The evidence of his desire is hard against my backside. Undeniable. Feeling it there only intensifies the hollow ache building at the very core of me.

“Wanting you is all I do, Rhya. Waking or dreaming, avoiding you completely or seeking out your presence. I want and I want and I want…and… It. Fucking. Terrifies. Me. ”

“You think I’m not just as terrified? You think the things I feel for you don’t scare the breath out of me?” I pause, heart pounding. And then, unable to stop myself, I turn in his embrace. He sucks in a breath as I reach up to take his face into my hands. Beneath my fingertips, his skin is like a furnace. My eyes drift to his lips. “Please, Pendefyre…don’t let me walk away again.”

“I could hurt you.” His admission is agonized. “The way the fire rages in me, the way my emotions fuel it…If I lose control, if I slip—”

“You won’t slip. You won’t hurt me.”

“You cannot know that.”

I meet his eyes. They burn into mine, volcanic with so much yearning, I can’t see anything else. Can’t feel anything else. “I’m not afraid of you, Penn. I’m not afraid of your fire. I’m far more afraid of what we will forfeit if we never try. If we let fear win.”

The words have barely left my lips when his mouth comes down on mine, a crushing impact. His kiss is a firestorm—unpredictable heat, uncontrollable desire. It blazes through my body, an inferno that singes me from the inside out, frying my nerve endings.

This— this —is what I came here for. Not to tell him about Yale, not to see if he was all right, not to bicker with him. This, right here, his lips on mine, his heated body flush, so close I think we might slip inside each other’s skin and never come out. He invades my senses, floods every part of my mind. The bond between us catches fire, a channel of invisible flame, burning hot enough to scorch my soul as emotions spark back and forth from his mark to mine.

Penn deepens the kiss. It turns raw. Relentless. Wild. My head falls back on instinct as his lips lay siege. My body arches like a bowstring as his hands slide up my bare spine to find my neck. He presses his thumbs into the hollow of my throat, where my pulse races at double time, and I moan into his mouth, an unstoppable sound of pure want.

The noise unlocks something in him. Shatters the last bit of his self-control. One minute I am standing in his arms and the next I am lifted clear off my feet, carried three steps, and set on the edge of the parapet. He barely lets me settle before his hands reach for the slit of my skirts. With a rough jerk, he parts my legs and moves between them. Any hesitation is a distant memory now, any repercussions a far-off consequence. We think of neither past nor future, consumed in the immediacy of our hunger for each other.

When Penn spots the dagger strapped in the leather sheath around my thigh, he grins, a flash of white in the dimness. His lips are still curved when they reclaim mine. But all amusement ignites like paper as I wrap my legs around his waist, locking in his tall frame as my arms twine up around his neck. His passion is a throbbing press between my legs, matching the need that pulses through my veins. I suck his lip into my mouth at the same moment I delve my fingers into his hair, as I have wanted to for so long, reveling in the feel of its thickness.

“Gods, Rhya.” He gasps into my mouth as his hips grind against mine, a delicious move that dizzies all my senses. “If you keep touching me like that, I’m not going to be able to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

With another rumbling groan, he kisses me again. His hands imprison my hips, holding me firmly, creating delicious friction that makes me gasp. Taking advantage of my parted lips, his tongue slides between them. My desire spikes higher as our mouths move together, a ravenous dance it is hard to breathe around.

But who needs to breathe?

Pendefyre is finally kissing me.

Breathing can wait.

My pulse is a drumbeat, the tempo accelerating faster and faster as we let the flames consume us. Air and fire, an inextinguishable passion. Igniting together into pure, unadulterated…

Combustion.

One of his hands traces up the sensitive skin of my thigh, lingering briefly at the dagger sheath. He toys with the leather strap for a torturous second before his hand moves even higher—this time not stopping until he’s found the heat burning at my core. A heat that magnifies a hundredfold as he palms the most intimate part of me.

Gods.

Yes.

Clinging to his shoulders, I rock my body against his hold, feeling my mind start to fray into delirium. Feeling like this passion we have unleashed will never burn itself out, no matter how long we touch, no matter how far we let ourselves go tonight.

As his fingers move, working my passion to new heights in slow, rhythmic circles, my own hand slides down his bare chest—hesitating only for a moment at the raised skin of his Remnant— to find his length. I stroke him through the fabric of his breeches, satisfaction furling through me as he looses a low growl into my mouth. The sound makes my thighs clench arounds his fingers.

“Rhya,” he says warningly. His hand stills between my legs. “Maybe we should—”

“No more maybes,” I cut him off, voice breathy. “And no more excuses. We’ve done enough talking, Pendefyre. Just… Touch me. Please.”

His hesitation goes up in smoke. His mouth slams back down on mine, kissing me harder, wetter, deeper. It is a clash of tongues and teeth, a heated battle—one where both of us walk away winners. Our lips never part, even as our desperate hands move over hidden places. Places we have scarcely allowed ourselves to dream of touching, until this moment.

Buttons slip, hems shift. Penn hisses out a sharp breath when I take him into my grip. I love the feel of him, naked in my hands. Strong and sleek as every other part of his body. And he does not hide his own gratification when his fingers find their way beneath my undergarments. A rumble moves deep in his chest at the silken confirmation of my desire for him.

Our kisses ravage as we find new rhythms, carve out a new tempo that crescendoes until I think I will not be able to stand it without shattering to pieces. I shift in his arms—restless, needy. Aching for something I cannot articulate. Not with words, in any case.

The throbbing pulse inside me spikes to a fever pitch.

I can barely keep my thoughts from fraying, lost in the all-consuming nature of Penn’s touch. Even with his maegic muted, the bond heightens our connection—feeding it, fanning the flames to something more than purely physical. Something more than I ever felt with Tomas, something more than I knew was possible.

This is a spiritual, soul-deep connection. One that only makes the urgent dance of our hands and mouths all the more intense. The bond tightens around us, an invisible tether, urging us closer, closer, closer .

When my breaths have been reduced to choppy pants, I can no longer kiss him properly. I pull back only enough to draw air into my lungs and stare into his eyes. Penn’s gaze is locked on mine, a fiery hold I cannot escape. One I do not want to escape. The fire I see in him is a match for my own. I want it to consume me, spark by spark. I want it to catch into an unstoppable inferno. I want—

Him.

I want him.

He is as close as he’s ever been, and it’s still not close enough.

“Penn,” I whisper, the word cracking in my throat. “Please, I—I need you.”

His eyes flare, molten with lust. His hands slide up to my thighs so he can shift closer, trailing heat across my skin in their wake. My breath catches, anticipation spiraling through me in a vortex, as I feel how close he is—how close we are. His lips hit my ear.

“I need you, too,” he admits in a rough rasp.

Thank the skies.

My hands lock on his shoulders as my body arches eagerly against his. There is a fire inside me only he can extinguish. One that has been smoldering for months now, an exquisitely slow burn. Tonight, we will spark those embers into everlasting flame.

His grip tightens on my hips as he—

“Loath as I am to interrupt this touching display,” a familiar voice, smooth like water tumbling over a bed of river rock, says from somewhere that seems at once very near and very far. “The three of us need to talk.”

Penn and I jerk apart like a bucket of ice water has been dumped on our heads. Which, in a way, it has. For standing not five paces away is the Remnant of Water himself.

King Soren of Ll?r, in the flesh.

He towers like a daemon, a harbinger of doom in a warrior’s body. His bright blue eyes are luminous in the dark. They move back and forth between me and Penn with catlike cunning, taking stock of every infinitesimal detail. Me, rearranging my skirts as I hop down from the parapet; Penn, adjusting his trousers slightly with shaking hands. Both of us breathing unsteadily, cheeks flushed and mouths kiss swollen.

“Soren.” Penn’s tone is pure ice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Now, now.” Soren crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Is that any way to greet someone who’s just come to save your hide?”

“Send a raven next time,” Penn growls.

“This is urgent.”

“I don’t care how urgent the news. You cannot come marching through my portals whenever you please.”

“So possessive of your toys.” Soren’s eyes slide to me. His perfectly chiseled features are as difficult to read as I remember from our first meeting. “Speaking of toys, you’re looking well, little wind weaver. Quite well. I must say, I might not have been so quick to let you go had I known a few months of regular meals would turn you from the waterlogged runt I found on that mountainside into—”

“I thought you had urgent news,” I interject pointedly.

“I do.” Sobering, he glances back at Penn, who looks fit to be tied. “You need to ready your forces.”

Penn stills. “Why?”

“Not long ago, I received word from one of my generals. During a routine patrol of the range, some of her scouts went missing. She sent a unit after them to find out what happened.” Two thick black brows furrow inward. “They followed the trail all the way to your southern border. Straight into Reaver territory.”

“I’m sorry you lost your scouts,” Penn says curtly. “But given the tribes’ recent aggression toward my own people, I can’t say I’m shocked—”

“Just listen , would you?” Soren sucks in a breath, steadying himself. His tall frame is ramrod straight with tension, lacking any trace of his typical airy nonchalance. “The report I received after the recovery mission was…bizarre. The bodies weren’t mutilated or mangled, like most Reaver attacks. These were killed very precisely—arrows through eyes, throats garroted, heads bludgeoned. Very little blood, very few marks anywhere below the neckline. And they were stripped bare. Their attackers stole their uniforms after they killed them.”

Penn digests this, clearly troubled. “Usually the clans take pleasure in ripping apart all traces of us—clothes and all.”

“I thought the same. As did my generals. So we looked into it further. Sent a few additional scouts out onto the ice shelf two days ago.” Soren’s expression is intense. “They found more stripped bodies. Not Ll?rians this time. They were Dyvedi men, Pendefyre. Your men. A whole legion of them, at least.”

“I would have been informed if an entire legion went missing, Soren.”

“Not missing. Replaced. ” Soren steps closer, gaze unwavering. “Think about it. The stripped uniforms. The strange deaths. The increased organization of their attacks. This is bigger than a decades-long dispute over some borderland.”

“Let me get this straight—you think the Reavers are killing Dyvedi soldiers in secret and stealing their uniforms?”

Soren nods.

“For what possible purpose? To play dress-up as the fae they aim to eliminate?”

“To infiltrate your territory undetected,” Soren snaps, his frustration breaking loose from its fetters. “You may not want to believe it, but it is happening all the same. The Reavers are moving against you. And they do not act alone. They have found a new ally. A powerful one.”

“The clans can barely keep from slaughtering one another en masse every few years. They are not capable of conspiring with outsiders.”

“So you thought. So we all did. It seems we were wrong. Unthinkable as it may be, the Reavers have allied themselves…” Soren’s eyes glitter, dark sapphires, “with Efnysien.”

My stomach lurches.

Penn shakes his head. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” Soren counters, gritting his teeth. “I would not lie about something like this.”

“The Reavers hate the fae above all. They would never accept the help of someone who wields maegic—even the dark, distorted maegic Efnysien commands.”

“They would if they thought it would finally win them what they have long coveted: control of Dyved. Eradication of your people.” Soren’s stare is as hard as his words. “Efnysien’s red army has been gathering for months on the ice shelf, completely undetected. Gaining slowly in numbers. Stealing uniforms to slip into your lands unnoticed. Replacing fortified borders without raising the alarm. Biding their time for an opportunity to strike.”

“Gods above,” I whisper.

“From what my scouts witnessed, they are no longer waiting,” Soren continues. “Even now, they are marching north across the plateau with their sights fixed on Caeldera. And they are not alone. Half the Reaver clans march with them.”

I glance at Penn. His face is stark white in the starlight as his former friend’s words begin to permeate. Still, he clings to hope. “Even if what you say is true, even if they succeed in cutting a path across the plateau, they cannot enter the capital. They will never get through the wards.”

“They can.” Soren takes two steps forward, so they stand face-to-face. His voice is grave as death. “With Efnysien’s help, they can breach any maegical protections that would normally keep them out. You know I am right. His power was strong when I banished him almost a century ago; it is unparalleled now. Your wards will fall, Pendefyre. And your armies, however well trained, are both outnumbered and unprepared. They cannot win this fight.”

Sudden horror grips my heart. “We need to warn everyone. We need to evacuate! Surely, there is somewhere safe we can go…”

When neither of them responds, my eyes fly from Soren to Penn and back again. They are engaged in a grim stare-down, communicating something without speaking aloud. Realization falls like a guillotine.

Caeldera is the safe place. It is Dyved’s best stronghold. There is nowhere else to go, nowhere better to ride out an invasion on the whole plateau. If the city falls…

We will all fall along with it.

“How long do we have?” Penn asks—the only question that truly matters anymore.

“I don’t know,” Soren admits. “I didn’t wait around for another status report. I came straight here to warn you. It could be tonight; it could be tomorrow.”

He looks out over Caeldera, dazzling in its midnight beauty. Far below us, thousands of civilians still celebrate in the streets, blissfully unaware of the impending danger.

“If it were me…if you were my enemy…” Soren tears his eyes from the city below. “I would strike when you were at your most vulnerable. When your people were most exposed—gathered in the streets in great numbers, in the midst of a celebration, senses dulled by drink…”

“Efnysien will know my powers are drained tonight,” Penn says bitterly. “He will know I cannot protect my people.”

“A full battalion of Ll?rian troops will be here by daybreak.” Soren nods firmly to underscore his words. “We merely need to hold out until then.”

“If the wards fall—”

“Then we will fight,” Soren vows. His eyes flicker to me. “You are not the only one with power here, Pendefyre.”

I swallow a bleat of fear and, with a nod, echo him. “We will fight.”

“You will not,” Penn growls, turning to glower at me. His hand snatches mine in a bone-grinding grip. “Come. We need to get back to the keep, where you’ll be safe. If Soren is right, we may not have long before—”

His words are swallowed up by the sound of a massive detonation. At first, I think it is another firework—a belated explosion going off at the lakeshore. But there is no shower of sparks, no cascade of color. The sky itself shudders, as though the heavens might plummet, and I know with a surge of paralyzing certainty that this is no party trick.

The atmosphere strobes bright as a bloodred dawn. A haze shimmers in the air—the same shimmer I’d seen mere hours earlier, when Penn’s power poured into the earth back in the throne room. The wards are reacting to a great influx of power. Only this time, it is not shoring them up.

It is ripping them apart.

The rumble of the first explosion has hardly faded when a second boom blasts through the sky. As I watch the wards flare again, the red haze flashing like heat lightning…I know, without a word from Pendefyre or Soren, that whoever means to attack us is no longer on their way.

They are already here.