She gazed around warily. Why had those fire demons targeted one Vrekener? Yes, Thronos was a Pravus enemy, but fire demons often acted as lackeys, hired guns.
They’d be coming for him, and she needed to be gone when they did. She spied a natural path through the field of boulders, had just taken her first step when she heard another groan.
In a pained rasp, Thronos called her name.
Don’t look back at him, don’t look back. The last time she had, she’d been tormented by what she’d seen for all her days.
Against her will, she found herself turning.
His matte gray eyes were awash in misery as he grated, “Do not run . . . from me.”
The world seemed to shrink down, morning turning to midnight in her head. All at once she was back in the mountainside abbey, on the night her parents had been slain, the night Lanthe had first used her powers to save Sabine’s life. . . .
“Wake, Lanthe.” Sabine clutched her hand, wresting her from her bed. “Don’t make a sound.”
“What is it, Ai-bee?” Lanthe whispered sleepily.
“Just hurry.” As if to herself, she said, “I warned Mother and Father to move us from here, but they refused to listen.”
Sabine hated their troubled mother and distant father. She blamed the pair for everything: not providing food or shoes or new dresses. She railed against them for their constant sorcery outlays that put the entire family at risk: If even Lanthe insists that you’re using too much . . .
Lanthe knew the two weren’t as good as other parents seemed to be, but her heart was filled with love—why not give it to them?
“And now Vrekeners are in the abbey,” Sabine murmured.
Here? “Mayhap they aren’t here to fight.” Thronos was her secret best friend; he would never let his kind attack her family!
“They’re here to kill our parents and abduct us. As they always do with Sorceri.” They’d heard the tales. Sorceri who broke the laws of the Lore were executed, while their children were fostered in stern Vrekener families.
Even with Sabine by her side, Lanthe was terrified as they stole through the abbey, lightning striking all around the mountain.
They stumbled into their parents’ room. Mother and Father were curled together in sleep. Towering stained-glass windows allowed in the glow of lightning, distorting it. She blinked. For a second, she’d thought her parents appeared . . . headless.
When the scent of blood hit Lanthe, her legs buckled.
Their bodies were decapitated; the heads lay at unnatural angles, inches from their necks.
Sabine threw up; Lanthe collapsed with a scream, her vision going dark as she hovered on the verge of unconsciousness.
Mother and Father were dead. Never to return.
Mother with her gaze frenzied as she beheld her precious gold. Father with his lost look whenever he beheld his crazed wife. Both dead . . .
Lanthe dimly comprehended that the room had filled with Vrekeners, their wings flickering in the lightning-filled night. The leader held a fire scythe with a blade of black flames.
Then she saw Thronos. His eyes were wide, and he was trying to reach her, but one of the men held him back.
How could Thronos have led these killers here? After all the time they’d shared?
After my confession just this morning . . . ?
To Sabine, the leader intoned, “Come peaceably, young sorceress. We do not wish to hurt you. We wish to put you on the path of goodness.”
Sabine, the Queen of Illusions, gave a chilling laugh as she called up her power. Her amber eyes started to glimmer like shining metal, stark against her fire-red hair. “We know what you do to Sorceri girls. You plan to turn us into biddable, grave crones like your sour-faced women. We’d rather fight to the death!” She began creating her illusions; at once, the soldiers hunched down, as if they believed the ceiling was pressing down on them.
Even betrayed like this, Lanthe wanted to ask Sabine to spare Thronos, but her lips moved soundlessly. Mother and Father are dead.
Had her parents ever even awakened tonight?
Sabine raised her palms toward the leader, using her sorcery to make him see his worst nightmares. He fell to his knees, dropping his scythe to claw at his eyes.
With a smile, Sabine snatched up his weapon. She swung for his neck, was still smiling when blood spurted across her beautiful, ruthless face.
Thronos gave a grief-stricken yell as the Vrekener’s head rolled to Sabine’s feet.
Was the leader Thronos’s father?
Lanthe’s sight was dim, but she thought Sabine’s illusions were . . . fading? Her sister would be facing these foes alone, all bent on avenging their leader.
Lanthe found her voice just as a Vrekener sidled up behind Sabine.
“Ai-bee, behind you!”
Too late. The male had already struck. He slit Sabine’s throat, blood painting the walls as her small body fell.
Lanthe’s daze burned away. She scrambled to her feet, shrieking, “Ai-bee?” She ran for her sister, kneeling beside her. “No, no, no, Ai-bee, don’t die, don’t die, don’t die!” Lanthe’s own sorcery was manifesting itself. The air grew warm, as electric as the lightning surrounding them.
Sabine is leaving me. Because of Thronos and these men. My entire family taken from me in one night. A clarity such as she’d never known swept over her.
My family dies; the Vrekeners pay.
No longer would she hesitate to use her power. No mercy—for any of them.
She commanded the soldiers, “Do not move! You stab yourself! Fight each other—to the death!”
The room was thick with whorls of sorcery, and the abbey quaked all around them, the ancient rock walls groaning. A fracture forked along one of the stained-glass windows. In an earsplitting rush, it shattered.
She turned to her betrayer, the boy she’d thought she loved. The boy who’d led these fiends straight to her home.
He was wending his way around bodies to reach her, now that the adult who’d guarded him was dead.
Voice breaking, she sobbed, “I trusted you. Sabine was everything to me.” Then, louder, she commanded him: “Jump through the window”—the one hundreds of feet above the valley floor—“and do not use your wings on the way down!”
His silver eyes pleaded for her not to do this thing, so she turned back to her sister’s body, refusing to watch.
He never made a sound all the way down.
“Live, Ai-bee!” Lanthe screamed, but Sabine’s glassy gaze was sightless, her chest still of breath. “HEAL!” she commanded, using all the power she possessed. The room quaked harder, jostling furniture. Mother’s head hit the floor and rolled, Father’s right behind hers. “Don’t leave me! LIVE!”
More sorcery, more, more, MORE . . .
Sabine’s eyes fluttered open—they were bright, lucid. “Wh-what happened?”
While Lanthe was utterly emptied of sorcery, Sabine bounded to her feet, appearing rested.
I brought her back. She’s all I have now.
They fled from the abbey into the night. Yet in the valley, Lanthe trailed behind Sabine. She looked back over her shoulder, saw Thronos on the ground, clinging to life.
His body lay broken, limbs and wings twisted, skin flayed.
Somehow he raised his hand off the ground to reach for her with yearning in his eyes. . . .
Now, hundreds of years later, Thronos raised his hand off the ground to reach for her once more.
Just as she’d done that night, Lanthe turned from him and ran.
EIGHT
Hoping to find Carrow and her crew, Lanthe headed for low ground. In the steady rain, she sprinted over uneven terrain. Though her lungs began to burn, she kept up a punishing pace, slowing only to hide when she sensed other immortals.
All the while, she tried not to think about Thronos. So why did she keep seeing his scars, his misery?
She refused to feel guilt about leaving him behind earlier, much less for making him jump as a boy.
If Thronos hadn’t betrayed her, then that Vrekener leader—who was his father, the king—wouldn’t have murdered her parents. Over the years, Sabine wouldn’t have needed so much of Lanthe’s sorcery to repeatedly cheat death.
Lanthe could be one of the most feared Sorceri alive—instead of a power-on-the-fritz punch line. Hell, even Thronos had ridiculed her!
To be the Queen of Persuasion was to be the queen of nothing.
And in the Lore, perceived weakness was considered an invitation for enemy species to attack.
Sabine had recently voiced a new theory about Lanthe’s persuasion: since Vrekeners tracked Sorceri by their power outlays, perhaps she feared drawing them down on her, and her fear was causing performance issues. Maybe her ability was intact, but her anxiety over the winged menace undermined it—even in Rothkalina, where they were sure no Vrekeners would ever come.
Lanthe didn’t figure her Vrekener PTSD was helping things.
At least her portal ability still worked. If she could lose this collar, she could walk straight into Castle Tornin’s court.
The only problem? If conditions weren’t ideal—such as not having adequate time to concentrate—she had little control over where her threshold opened. And most other planes were not quite so welcoming as this one. Worse, she could only create a portal every five or six days. So if she screwed up with a destination, she couldn’t do a quick fix.
A huge risk. Yet so was staying on this island.
Damn it, what had Thronos been thinking to try to capture her? If he’d succeeded, Rydstrom would have traced an army of rage demons to the Air Territories. Well, Rydstrom would if someone could finally find that domain in the heavens, one that was mystically concealed and moved throughout the year.
The only reason the Sorceri had never struck back against Vrekener aggression was because they couldn’t find the Skye, or capture any of its inhabitants.
Maybe that was what made Thronos so daring—he knew there’d never be recourse against his kind.
Lanthe was so caught up with thoughts of him, she heard the log whooshing toward her face too late.
Her last thought before she blacked out: One more thing to blame him for. . . .
Lanthe dreamed of a voice. Only a voice. It belonged to a female, pleasantly cadenced.
“You’ll move through worlds,” the female murmured, as if imparting a secret to Lanthe. “In one realm, hurt. In one realm, leave. In one realm, cleave. In one realm, shine.”
“I don’t understand,” Lanthe said in her dream. The voice sounded familiar, but after an immortal’s lifetime of acquaintances, she couldn’t place it.
“Just think of your upcoming journey as the Four Realms of Samhain Past.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Lanthe’s frustration level was rising. “What are you talking about?”
“Whisper, whisper, whisper.”
“Oh, come on! Now you’re just whispering whisper!”
“Be my spark,” the voice said, “and send worlds aflame. Now, wake, before it’s too late. . . .”
“Ow, OWWWW.” Lanthe came to by degrees, groaning from the pain in her face. “Who the hell hit me?” she croaked, wondering how long she’d been out.
And where was the woman? Had that truly been a dream? It’d seemed so real!
As Lanthe sat up, blinking around her, she pinched her broken nose. With a wince, she tweaked it back in place. Overcast daylight crept through spindly conifer needles, disorienting her. When her vision cleared, her face fell.
Pravus. In number. Oh, shit.
There were all kinds surrounding her: vampires, centaurs, demons, Invidia—demigods of discord—and Libitinae, winged castrators. They’d gathered in a clearing in the forest, within an encampment of rock—enormous square slabs had been stacked upright like Stonehenge, part deux. Only one person could effect that.
Lanthe craned her head around. Sure enough, Portia sat upon a stone throne, gazing at Lanthe on the ground. The sorceress’s eyes were bright behind her jade-green mask, the spikes of her pale yellow hair jutting as boldly as the mountains she’d created.
Beside her, the smoldering Emberine, Queen of Flames, had draped herself over the rock throne’s armrest, as a consort would. Apparently they were presiding over their new capital of This-Is-So-Fucked Island.
Some said Portia and Ember were sisters, while others said lovers. After spending a week in the same cell with them, Lanthe was leaning toward lovers.
She’d wanted to get closer to the key, but not like this. She gazed past them toward the outer edge of the clearing. More stones formed floating cells, caging a wood nymph, a fox shifter, an animus demon.
Thronos.
His capture didn’t surprise her, considering the sheer number of the fire demons. Plus he’d been injured. She could almost pity him—a prince of Vrekeners imprisoned by Sorceri.
They would torture him to learn the location of his home. Afterward, they would . . . keep him—as a plaything, ensorcelled to do their every bidding.
She knew well the kinds of acts they’d force him to do. What they’d force him to be.