Chapter 12

Torin took Zor's arm and they were gone, sending a shockwave of feelings through me.

Panic, because this was all happening too fast.

Anger, because no sooner than we were together, fate always tore us apart.

And gods, what if this was the last time I saw them? What if all those things I'd never spoken aloud never got to be said?

When Raz raised his hand in farewell and disappeared a second later, I almost vomited. Then Simon shifted into his owl form, wings beating hard as he rose above the trees. I watched until he was a tiny speck against the sky, then followed Tristan and Adele down the narrow, rocky path, trying to ignore the deadly drop on one side.

One stumble and if we didn't die, the noise would bring the Reapers down upon us, and then…I decided not to think about that.

Adele had gone out of her way to avoid me. Probably a good thing, because I didn't know which version of her I faced this morning.

My mother, a helpless pawn who would bear the scars of her suffering for the rest of her life?

Or a willing participant in an intricate plot to claim enormous power and influence over a third of our world? Perhaps she felt entitled to such power after all she'd lost. And after surviving twenty years in the king's dungeons…maybe she was.

I reached into my pocket and rubbed my thumb over the keystone's smooth surface, the rhythmic pulse settling me during our harrowing journey down the mountainside, keeping my weight tipped back as my horse picked its way delicately around the rocks.

We stuck to the no talking rule until we got to the forest. Even when we were beneath the canopy of leaves, my eyes wouldn't stop drifting to the Reapers. Parsing over the latest revelation—where they came from.

Sentient remnants of Corvus's magic.

As if he poisoned everything he touched like cancerous rot.

While we rode, I focused on what lay ahead, both for us and for Raz and Zor.

Five days. Five days of keeping my head down and my mouth shut, which sounded like a good plan since I knew nothing about witches.

A joke, given half the blood in my veins belonged to them.

I wondered if my magic was all Fae, or if that, too, was tainted by my other bloodline, either a blessing or a curse as everything was these days. Even now, magic pulsed inside me, surging up my throat in a wave so powerful I choked it back down.

It had been so long since I'd expelled any of my power, the magic shoved at my skin, barely contained by the iron bands, a slumbering beast fighting to be set free so it could devour the world.

I pressed my hand over my racing heart.

No, not devour the world.

I allowed myself to drink in the smell of this forest, the pulsing aliveness of this air we breathed. The insects buzzing in our faces, the bird singing joyously overhead as we splashed through a stream, horses dropping their heads to snatch a mouthful of water before we pulled them up and kept them relentlessly moving.

I would create a world where life could thrive.

Where no one suffered and died and starved while the powerful gloated from their thrones.

The idea of their depravity—the Fae King, the Descendants, all these powerful beings who thought they were better than the rest of us—sent anger slicing through me, cleanly as a razor. There had been a time when I'd been too powerless to change the world.

But now…power was not what held me back.

No, it was something I despised even more than kings and Oracles and Old Gods.

Politics.

Now we had to secure strong allies, set our strategies in place, and pray our alliances held.

And once everything was in place, when we'd secured our position, we'd spring our trap. I could already picture the vague shape of our battle plan, but saw the pitfalls, too, perhaps more clearly than our victory, and that scared me more than anything.

But first we had to make it through these tunnels and past the portal.

Then…then I'd face the High Barrens Coven and perhaps—if I was careful and very, very fortunate—I might win Zorander his army. We needed an army to win this war and take the Shadow King's throne.

Might against might was our only strategy right now.

We rode until noon, until we got to the tunnels, overgrown with a thick curtain of vines and bracken, ferns taller than my head swaying in the breeze. We stopped, Adele hunched into a ball, her cloak hiding her face.

"This wasn't here yesterday," Tristan observed quietly before he dismounted and burned a smoking hole straight through the brush. "No torches anywhere in sight, though there should be some at the first stopping point." His eyes crinkled, then a slow smile spread across his face as he released another flare of rippling heat. "Good thing you brought me with you, princess, otherwise you'd probably get lost in the dark."

I didn't know what surprised me more.

Tristan making a joke, or the fact that I was relieved to have him with us. I offered him a tentative smile of my own. "Good thing you can't fly, you mean, otherwise you'd be heading to Darkhold instead of joining us on this cushy ride through the underground." His grin widened, hazel eyes dancing as he conjured a ball of fire in his palm.

"Say what you will, you'll be thanking me once we get inside those tunnels."

I barely remembered Tavion carrying me through here yesterday, other than a few fragmented memories. Tavion frowned at the overgrown entrance. "I'll help him or this will take for fucking ever." Tavion's feet hit the ground with a heavy thud. Even from here, I saw his hands shake when he wound the reins around the pommel of his saddle.

"Are you ready, Anaria? Two days to Nightcairn, then we head to the High Barrens."

I ripped my gaze away from his trembling hands and mustered a smile. "I'm ready. I only wish you could stay home for longer than one night. Get some real rest. We all need it."

His mouth was a hard line as he watched Tristan burn a curtain of vines away from the entrance. "Let's hope Torin told us the truth and the tunnels keep us hidden from the Oracle. I have no desire to do battle down in this dark hole."

He drew his sword as he strode off, then hacked away the growth, the smell of burned and crushed leaves perfuming the air as they slowly revealed the enormous arched opening.

Adele's shoulders hunched, making her appear nothing like the arrogant female of last night. "Do you have to rest?" I asked softly. "We could stop for an hour."

She raised her head enough for me to see her clenched jaw beneath the shadow of her hood. "I don't stop until you do."

There was an edge of familiar stubbornness to her voice I recognized all too well. "Then we ride until we're almost to the portal and make that our first stop." Tristan and Tavion remounted before turning their horses toward the hole, now large enough for us to file through one at a time.

"Tristan first, then Adele, me, and Tavion. How does that sound?"

"As good as anything, princess." Tristan urged his horse forward, darkness swallowing him until a burst of golden light ignited over his head, and some of my own fear faded away. We were deep in the tunnel when I looked back.

The forest had already closed off the hole, as if covering our tracks.

That night we slept like the dead surrounded by a circle of blazing torches, the sort of sleep that devoured you so completely you didn't dream and woke the next morning feeling heavy and off balance.

Maybe that was the reason we were quiet while we ate, packed up, and fell back into line.

Or maybe because in a few hours we'd reach the portal.

We'd stand in that room with the skulls and face everything they represented.

Our past.

Our futuresif we weren't careful. We eased past the underground river, keeping well away from the dark, rushing water, not daring to fill our canteens, our breaths clouding the thick air, the darkness turning threatening the closer we got to that room.

When the hazy blue light from the portal reflected on the hewn walls, I half wondered if it was too late to turn back.