Chapter 29

Kit

"Are you ready for this?" Cyril asks, his blue eyes surveying every inch of me. After three days of hard flight, Nyx Cliff now looms ahead of us. The seas separating us and Nyx are violent and black in the night's darkness. Even with my enhanced dragon sight, all I see spreading before me is a vast liquid abyss. Nyx doesn't stand on a cliff—it is carved into the cliff's stone, a maze of passages and holding cells that make this above ground dungeon the impenetrable prison it is. An island surrounded by deadly sea.

There is only one way of getting into Nyx—flying to the cliff's apex, then descending down. If Cyril and I are spotted in the skies, we'll be apprehended before we make landing. Worse, our approach might make Salazar's people decide to execute the pack from an abundance of caution.

Actually, that would be the smartest move on their part. I touch the rune Autumn had tattooed onto my wrist after spending a couple of days with Emric. The mark still feels like it's sizzling my skin. In a way it is. The intricate sunstar pattern gathers my power, letting me channel it with a strength and control I never imagined possible. Cyril has a similar marking, along with several more that Autumn thought could help. Most important though, are the marks she placed over my sternum. That rune is a siphon designed to unite the power of our pack. It's something she devised based on Emric's knowledge and her own background with quint magic that warriors in Slait Court are gifted with. We couldn't test it since it requires all five of us to be physically connected, but given the success of Autumn's other runes, I'm hopeful.

"Are you certain we should not wait until the tide goes down?" I ask Cyril.

There is one loophole even to Nyx's defenses. A hidden underwater passage, magically keyed to open for the Massa'eve sovereign. It would have opened for Ettienne, had the late king been able to conquer the water. It should open for Cyril now. If we can get to it. The passage is meant to be hidden, and is only accessible in low tide. Even then, with great peril.

Cyril shakes his head. "We will lose the cover of darkness if we wait."

I tighten my jaw but don't rehash the dangers of channeling the amount of magic required to shift the water now. Autumn made it clear that with the enhanced power the runes give us, come increased dangers as well. Burning out. Losing our lifeforce. Even losing the dragon inside us, which is even more frightening.

"It will be cold," Cyril says, his battlefield calm wrapping like a shield around me. "Cold enough that you will think you cannot breathe. But that's an illusion formed of panic. You'll be able to take in air. To move. And you'll have to keep doing both."

"Right. Got it. Breath and move." Dressed in woolen tights and form-fitting tunic—the best battle attire we could scrounge up from the pooled resources of Agatha's cabin—I try to project the kind of warrior calm that he wears like a second skin. I don't think it's working well enough to fool him, not with my stomach knotting so tightly it hurts—but I try. I check the weapons sheathed along my body, the steel I'm bringing both for myself and my mates, and hope its weight doesn't drown me. "One question though. Where did all this stuff go while we were in dragon form?"

Cyril gives me a bewildered sidelong glance. "This came to your mind now?"

"It came a while ago. I was saving it for when I could use a moment of procrastination."

He snorts. "I have no idea. The same place as our clothes go. If magic can shift us from fae to dragon and back again, keeping track of our clothes seems like a small matter." He runs his hands over the buckles of my weapons even though I'd done that already, then secures a rope around me. His movements are crisp and certain, not a single flick of the hand a wasted motion. If all goes well, there should be only a bit of swimming involved, but he isn't taking chances with my skills. My lack of skills.

I hope I don't drown us both.

"Anything else you want to do before we get to it?" he asks.

"I'm good."

"Nymph." Cyril's voice softens, but the hand that comes up to grip my chin is as solid as the weapons strapped to me. His scent brushes over my skin. "You are here because you are powerful. Because we are all more powerful when you are beside us."

Our bond punctuates his own certainly in his words and I nod, the knot in my stomach eases slightly. "I'm ready."

"I know you are." His warrior's calm is infectious as we step into the water.

Black water assaults me at once, a wave crashing over my head within seconds. Cyril's hand is firm on my back, keeping me from tumbling over as the cold shock of the sea engulfs me. A tiny sliver of his magic flares, pushing the water away from our faces.

"You can breathe," Cyril reminds me.

I force air into my spasmed lungs, reassuring myself of his truth as we move forward, half-leaping half-swimming along the seafloor. With each step, liquid darkness presses on me more and more from all sides, yet my face remains dry, the sound of my breathing loud in the small bubble of air. The tiny bioluminescent lights from distant marine life shine like stars in the water. It would be a beautiful sight if the sea wasn't trying to kill me.

My muscles burn with the effort, the cold numbing my fingers and toes as I fight the current.

Unfortunately, none of my powered up magic actually makes my body stronger.

Another wave shoves me hard, making me lose my footing and I skid along the grainy sand and rock of the sea floor. I fall, wet clothes and weapons dragging me down until the line goes taught around my waist. Then Cyril is there, his hand gripping mine, tendrils of reassurance calming me through the bond.

I hate that he has to use his strength to reassure me, when he is already parting the damn ocean for us.

A few minutes in, I stop trying to keep track of direction. I focus only on putting one foot in front of the other as Cyril leads us through the water. The deeper we get, the closer to the cliff, the less we can afford for his magic to be seen—and the more he has to use to keep us from drowning.

Soon, even the air bubble he's been holding around us is too much to risk. We must hold our breath, gulping air only when the rhythm of the lapping waves allows Cyril to shift the water undetected from above our heads.

I try to keep my eyes open, but the salt stings fiercely, the roused sand scratching my face. Inhale, I order myself, focusing on only one tiny thing at a time. Hold it. Step. Keep going through the burning in my lungs.

Wildcat, what's wrong? Tavias's voice roars suddenly in my mind. Where are you?

I gasp in shock, pulling in water. Panic rushes into me. There is water in my throat. Water in my lungs. Water all around me.

Cyril shoves the sea apart and grabs around my waist, his fist pushing hard into my belly until I sputter. Then his hold shifts to my hips, bracing me as I choke and cough life back into my body. His muscles tremble from the strain, yet he holds, rooted to the sea floor.

When finally I stop wheezing, he squeezes my shoulder once and lets the sea close above us once more. There is no time for anything more.

Tavias? I reach out for him with my mind, this time on purpose. The rune on my wrist burns, helping me tap into my dragon's magic.

I'm here.

I fill Tavias in on the situation, which helps keep me focused on something other than the cold sea pressing in on me from all sides. Especially once Cyril must go in front and put all his focus into locating the entrance, leaving me only the rope tether to follow him by. I'm almost on top of him when I realize that he's stopped moving, his magic pushing water away to reveal our quarry.

The grate covered entrance into the cliff looks like a solid mass under water, its edges blurred by the sea's movement. And it's twenty feet down from where we stand, the cliff dropping into an abyss of ocean too deep to see.

Cyril turns to me. We can't speak this deep down, but I understand as he wraps my arms around his waist in an order to hold on, then taps a count of three on my hand. I grab a great lungful of air as Cyril opens a path to the water's surface one final time. Then he plunges us into the deep. My ears scream from the pain and pressure that drowns out even Tavias's steady voice in my head.

We approach the grate, Cyril's powerful legs propelling us through the water. My heart pounds but I make myself release Cyril's waist and grip the grate instead. It's large and old, its bars encrusted with sharp barnacles that cut my palms—but the freedom from me gives Cyril the freedom of movement he needs to find the lock.

Cyril moves around the grate, the bubbles of his slowly exhaling breath letting me track his location. Breath. Stars. I want air. My lungs hurt. Burn.

Stay with me wildcat, Tavias urges.

The soft, almost imperceptible, click of the lock giving way as Cyril presses his sigil ring to a faintly glowing rune is the most wonderful sound I've ever heard. Cyril shoves the grate in and it gives, thank the stars, even if the hinges groan in disapproval. I scramble inside.

The transition is immediate. The chaotic embrace of the ocean is gone, the water in the tunnel barely shifting around. I swim in and up, until air touches my face. Stale air, but air. I gulp it gratefully, filling my aching lungs again and again until I am sure I am alive. And breathing. And shivering.

Then Cyril is there and we are moving again, scrambling forward along the up sloping tunnel. We are in.