Chapter 14

The four of us stared at that glowing whirlpool of light swirling at the portal's center and illuminating the crypt's slanted sides, like we stood in an underwater cavern. Magic ebbed and flowed within that gleaming barrier. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear its strange song.

We dismounted cautiously, Adele scanning the strange, enchanted room with wide, fearful eyes.

Two enormous yellowed skulls dominated the space and horror slithered through me. Horror at what they were, what they represented.

Proof of an ancient past.

Or a glimpse into our hopeless future?

I prowled the edge of the room, crouching down before the piles of bones. More, surely, than ever came out of a single body. I studied them closer now than before, wondering if this was every bone from all the Old Gods. Stuck down here in the dirt, forgotten and abandoned.

"Don't touch anything," Tavion cautioned hoarsely, the first words I'd heard from him all day. He could no longer hide the constant trembling, his body wracked with shudders, face as white as his gleaming hair. The tremors had grown worse these past hours, and I opened my mouth to say something, then snapped my lips closed.

Tristan's narrowed gaze was fixed on Tavion's shaking hands before his eyes lifted to mine. I shook my head slightly, praying he didn't push the issue. Tavion didn't want our pity, and gods help me, but I wanted to protect him from prying questions.

One more day until we arrived at Nightcairn, then Lucius and I could get him into bed and have one of his father's healers look after him. Something in my gut wrenched. If Tavion couldn't be healed, if he couldn't ride, we'd be forced to leave him behind.

Something about being parted from him planted a panicked fear inside me.

"Touch nothing, do you understand?" I reiterated Tavion's warning to Adele, who stared at the skulls with a mix of fascination and horror. "They…they do odd things to you if you touch the bones."

Even as I said it, from the corner of my eye, Tristan drifted closer to the biggest one, his hand gripping the reins, his other resting on his knife, fingers twitching. As if steel would do him a bit of good.

"We truly have to walk through that?" Adele's eyes glowed the same unworldly hue as the blue light thrown off by the portal, hair as fine as spider silk floating around her haunted, beautiful face.

"It's like the warded wall above us separating Caladrius and Solarys, except it's below ground. The warding magic feels cold when you step through, but the effect doesn't last long, then we'll be on our way."

Not exactly true, but I didn't want to scare her.

"Anaria," Tavion hissed.

"Passing through the portal is the only way to reach Nightcairn Castle, Adele." My mother's eyes grew wider and more frightened by the second. "If we don't?—"

"Anaria. Look."

Tristan's horse wandered untended across the crypt; Tavion caught him by the reins seconds before he plunged headfirst into the portal. I sucked in a panting breath, fear clawing at my ribcage.

Tristan was frozen, his eyes focused on something far, far away, staring and staring, both palms flattened on the skull's rounded dome, resting over the empty eye sockets. Was that what I'd looked like? I wondered, before I snapped into action.

I crossed to Tristan, measuring his blank, empty expression, those glittering gold-green eyes staring inwards at nothing. But I knew exactly where he was.

Somewhere inside his head, he was reliving the past.

Tavion dragged me away. "Don't touch him. When Raziel touched you, he saw everything you were seeing, and he couldn't break free. The last thing we need is for you to get trapped inside that vision, too."

No, I remembered how all-consuming those visions felt.

How I'd been there, on that snow-swept cliff, facing the Fae armies ten thousand years ago.

How I was that…god. Amalla.

"We have to get him out." I glanced at Adele, her fist pressed to her mouth as if she was trying not to scream. "We can't just wait for the spell to break. The longer he's trapped inside, the more…" I rubbed my racing heart. "I felt too much while I was inside that vision, Tavion. Too fucking much." My emotions flared like wildfire.

"I know," he muttered, pressing his cold cheek against mine. "I know. I was there, too."

Blood trickled from Tristan's nose, pooled on his lips, then dripped from his chin onto his shirt. Still no flicker of emotion on his pale, hollow face, as if he was held captive by whatever awful scene was playing inside his head.

Tavion trembled uncontrollably against me, and this time, he couldn't stop, a pained grunt sounding in his throat. I closed my eyes, swallowing down the tightness in my throat.

Tristan was frozen, Tavion could barely stand. Adele was so weak she swayed on her feet.

We couldn't get trapped down here.

Who knew how long before the Oracle—or something equally deadly—found us?

I had magic, but in this confined area I was more apt to hurt one of my friends than an enemy, and we only had a day's worth of food. Think, Anaria, think.

"We can't leave him stuck in his own head and do nothing, Tavion." I pulled away, letting his shaking hands slide off my shoulders. "I'm going to touch him. Not the skull. Him. That's what Raziel did." I slanted him a look, then my eyes dropped to his knife.

"You will use pain to pull us both out." The blood drained from Tavion's face when I caught him by the arm and dragged him closer, until we were face to face, my eyes boring deeply into his. "Look at me, Tavion. Trust me on this. You are going to cut me. Nothing deep, only enough pain to pull me out of the vision. I'll bring Tristan with me. It's worked before."

I worked up a watery smile. "Besides, that's better than getting punched in the mouth, you have to agree."

"Gods, Anaria." Tavion looked stricken, his pale green eyes darting between me and Tristan. "I cannot hurt you. Don't ask me to because I can't."

"You can and you will." I cupped his chin before I pulled the knife out of his sheath and folded his fingers around the silver hilt. "Not deep. Just enough to bring me out of the vision. You are not hurting me, I am asking you to do this, and I trust you, do you understand?"

He nodded, miserable. I almost felt guilty, but seeing Tristan's blank stare, the blood dripping down his face…we didn't have a choice. I pressed my lips to his, letting our breaths mingle for a bare second before I pulled away. "You can do this, Tavion. Now let's get Tristan out of there so you can go home."

I stepped closer to Tristan, whose arms shook from the strain, sweat dripping down his cheeks, red curls matted to his face. I debated where to touch him. Bare skin would be best, given how direct contact to the skulls dragged us straight into the visions.

I swallowed and wrapped my palms around Tristan's throat, my fingers caressing the strong, tanned column of tendons and muscles. The last thing I heard before the world disappeared was Tavion choking out my name.

We were too late. We'd tried to get here in time, to save them, but…we'd failed.

I—we—stood in a wooded grove, gathered around the bodies of three of our kin. Ten gods, ten magical gifts, now reduced down to a pitiful seven. I stared at my hands. Not black, not completely. There was still some pale flesh visible, still something vaguely mortal about me, but I could feel it happening.

The Change.

The transformation grew more insidious every time I used the magic, like a weed that had taken root at my core, and no matter how deep I dug, I'd never scrape it out.

Rain pelted down, not hard enough to extinguish the raging fires licking up the tree trunks, blistering the tender flesh of my legs. Not just hurting me but hurting my mates. And I could not abide their suffering, not even for a moment.

Even now, my power strained to get out, a dull, brooding ache I could never quite get free of.

On instinct, I sent out a wave of magic, extinguishing every single flame in an instant until only the sound of pounding rain remained.

We were gathered in a circle, and though not one of us looked familiar, I knew everyone's name. Vitigis, Adaric, Gattica, the largest of us all, and Saphrax, his long black teeth glinting as he bared them at Corvus and Gelvira, the reason we were all gathered here.

The reason three of us—the best of us all—were dead. All of them gods of birth and life and growth.

Killed by the two dedicated to death and destruction.

"They deserved to die." Corvus nudged at one of the blackened husks, his foul shadows crawling over Procyon's smoking corpse, and the husk fell to pieces as if rotting from the inside out, stark white bones poking through ruined flesh. "They rose up against us, tried to eliminate us."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell the twins they were the ones who deserved to die, but Saphrax banded his enormous hand around my arm before speaking softly into my mind. "Do not endanger yourself, Amalla, there is nothing you can do for our friends now."

The twins were a blight upon this world. This entire universe.

Chaos and corruption, poisons that leached into every crack and crevasse of this planet and sucked the magic dry. If we were not careful, they'd kill us all, one by one, until they were the only things left.

Of course, if they did that, this world would die, and them along with it. There was no way out of this realm. Not now.

"Perhaps they did," Vitigis agreed neutrally. "But killing them was rash and foolish. Vega was the god of rebirth. Terros the god of living things. How will the magic be replenished now? Or did you mean to condemn us all to a slow, inevitable death?"

The twins traded a look I did not like one bit. "We will wait until the magic is depleted, then make a sacrifice of blood. Surely, the universe cannot deny us then?"

"You wish to kill the creatures of this world to bribe the magic?" I asked, not believing her arrogance. "We are stewards of this world, not destroyers. Remember what happened to our last home."

Gelvira traded a glance with her brother. "We have been experimenting on the creatures that call themselves the Fae. They possess enough rudimentary magic; a sacrifice will work."

I did not want to know about their experiments, or how long they'd gone on, or the limits of the twins' cruelty.

"Such things will stop. If I hear your cruelty continues…" I stared down at Terros and Vega. "I will end you myself."

"What about the balance?" Corvus sneered. "What about?—"

"This world is full of humans and Fae and other beings. Antagonize them and they will unite against us. I refuse to wage a deadly war to survive. I would rather die."

Pain slashed across my arm, and I blinked in confusion at the red furrow carved into my arm that had just…appeared out of nowhere.

Saphrax's nostrils flared. "You're hurt." His dark-as-night eyes flew to mine, flashing red-gold for a split second. "Amalla, you're bleeding."

"It's only a cut, Saphrax, nothing big enough to worry about."

"You are injured, my Amalla. You are bleeding. There is so much blood. Too much blood." His panicked roar shook the trees overhead, his eyes flashing back and forth, black to red to gold as he crushed me against him, his body trembling.

The forest crumpled around us, as if the rain was melting the trees away, Saphrax roaring and roaring, shaking everything around me, the walls of my chest caving in from the force of his rage…

I blinked and the rain-soaked forest became hewn stone walls.

The stench of burning flesh turned to damp, moldy stone.

A chill shivered down my spine. The vision hung on with stubborn claws, filling my head with a foggy kind of horror as I sorted through the strange yet familiar images. I rubbed my face, half expecting to find it wet from the rain. Panic surged through me as I catalogued the new information.

Corvus and Gelvira had killed the other three gods. Gods of life and rebirth.

Theycreated this death cycle the world was now trapped inside.

This was all their fault.

Tavion's eyes glimmered with tears, his face a mask as he lifted me to my feet, the bloodstained knife still gripped in one hand. I cupped his face, searching his eyes before I brushed my lips over his. Gentle and soft but enough of a reassurance a shudder wracked him before he sagged against me. "Thank you. I can always depend on you, Tavion. You have never let me down. Now let me check on Tristan so we can quit this place for good."

I didn't bother cleaning off the dust. I headed toward Tristan, crouched on the floor, still half lost in the vision, hazel eyes so wide I saw the whites all around them, his expression wrecked.

"What was that? Where were we? How did I know that was you?" The words came staccato fast, each one punctuated by a fast, desperate inhale.

I didn't know what alerted me to the danger.

The sudden flicker of red flames in the depths of his eyes, the tightening thrum in the chamber as some strange, dark power was called upon, but something—instinct, maybe—had me ripping the iron bands free and throwing up a shield between me, Tavion, Adele…and whatever Tristan just turned into.

He shifted so fast the change was instantaneous, becoming the embodiment of a living flame. His long, sinuous body was covered in golden fire, and he was so big he took up half the crypt, long tail slashing back and forth, the end covered in wickedly sharp spikes.

Those spikes crashed into my shield and sent me flying back, fire crawling over the surface of my barrier, his serpent-like head weaving back and forth, red-gold eyes searching for some way to reach us.

His mouth gaped open, curved fangs gleaming.

To devour us.

His terrified horse, caught on the other side, dodged back and forth then leapt over the thrashing, deadly tail and darted straight into the portal, the glowing light swallowing him up, the monster snapping those fearsome teeth together with an empty clack that shook my bones.

"What…what is that?" Adele clung to me, her ruined fingers digging in so hard yet I didn't have the heart to pry her off as I sent another surge of magic into the only thing keeping us alive.

My barrier shivered every time a blast of fire flared across it, every time that lashing tail struck like a battering ram. He paced back and forth, using the taloned points of his wings like two legs, that merciless gaze pinned on us.

"Wyvern," Tavion said, at the same time I hissed, "Dragon."

"Dragons have four feet," Tavion explained, as if it really mattered how many feet the creature had when the vicious beast swallowed us whole. Still, some distant part of me appreciated his thoroughness. "And their tails aren't barbed."

"What is a wyvern?" Adele was bone-white, her eyes taking up half her face.

"Deadlier and meaner than dragons," Tavion hissed. "That's really all you have to know."

As if the thing heard him, those spikes slammed against my shield. Once. Twice. Three times, my magic shuddering with every blow. If he got through my shield, we were dead, but if the wyvern went through that portal before we did…we'd be trapped here. We'd have no alternative but to retreat back to Caladrius and take the land route, a four-day journey fraught with dangers.

And if he emerged at the other end, only a short walk—an even shorter flight—to Nightcairn Castle…Tavion and I traded a look.

Lucius and everyone else at the castle would be fighting for their lives.

If I dropped this shield and he chased us back through the narrow tunnels…he'd incinerate us before we ever reached the end.

His powerful back legs thrust his long body forward, head weaving viciously like a snake on that long neck, his taloned wings digging chunks out of the rocky floor as he pivoted and spun, searching for some way through. I glanced at the knife gripped in Tavion's hand.

Tavion was sick.

He couldn't shift into his wolf form and our weapons would do nothing against…this.

If Tristan got through my shield, he'd slaughter us for sure, probably eat us from the feral hunger shining in his eyes. There was nothing left of Tristan in those glittering eyes, only an endless hatred.

Another roar and the walls around us shuddered, spilling dust and rock down over us. It went on so long I wondered if the entire crypt might collapse around us, burying us all down here for an eternity. Finally the thunderous sound stopped, the wyvern pulling back, head weaving back and forth not ten feet away.

"Did you know about this?"

"This?" Tavion looked as shocked as me. "Fuck no. The DeVaynes have always been a secretive bloodline, but wyvern shifters…not a clue."

"Can we convince him to shift back?"

Instinct had us flinging ourselves backward as his tail connected with the shield, followed by one of those enormous talons ripping down through my magic like a knife carved though butter. The barrier parted enough for me to smell him, all bloodlust and ashy fire tinged with something metallic that coated my mouth like fresh struck lightning.

"I don't think Tristan's in control right now. So no, I'd say until he wrestles back dominance, we're trapped."

"In the vision, he…Saphrax…Tristan was upset I was hurt." I traced my fingers over the shallow cut on my arm, the same place the gash appeared in the vision. "He was thrown by the fact I'd been injured. That's what set him off."

Strange, when Tristan barely noticed me most days. But the sight of my blood had set him off and if we didn't fix this, and fast, we were dead.

"Whatever you're thinking, Anaria, stop right now."

"Take Adele and the horses and head into the tunnel, because in a minute, I'm lowering this shield." I nodded to my mother, who was already limping toward the opening, leading her steed as the wyvern roared, sending a shower of dust down over us.

"Not happening." Tavion snorted, like I'd suggested something ridiculous.

"I wasn't asking permission; I'm telling you what's about to happen. Take the other two horses and follow my mother. I can protect myself." I saw his dark, knowing smile and shrugged. "Okay, I can protect myself enough that I hopefully won't get incinerated."

"You can't take on a wyvern, Anaria. See that tail? Those spikes are venomous. So are those fangs. His fire is hot enough to melt bones and he's stronger than my wolf. You cannot win against him."

"You have to let me do this, Tavion." It was getting impossible to hold both an argument and the shield steady. "You just…you have to." I softened my voice. "Please. Please do this for me. Think of this as a favor."

He barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. "You owe me so many, I've lost count." His voice had that steely edge I was starting to dread. "I am not leaving your side."

Fuck. Every part of me fought doing this, but he'd left me no choice but to tell him the truth. A truth that would not only wound his pride but wound him.

"You're sick, Tavion." I held his gaze steadily. "Your hands are shaking, you got caught mid-shift, and now you're afraid to try again because you know if you do, you won't come back. You can't transform. You can't help me right now," I said miserably, Tavion's expression slowly changing from confusion to frigid anger.

"I have one chance to get us all to Nightcairn alive and this is the only way I know how to do that. Please, I'm asking you to help me by staying out of the way."

Something feral glimmered in Tavion's eyes and I braced myself for the argument I saw poised on his bone-white lips, but he just growled through clenched teeth?—

"I'm not fucking sick. You don't know what you're talking about."

I could have endured shouting easier than Tavion's quiet, seething rejection, and how he never turned around when he left with Adele, not even once.

But I could only fight one battle at a time, and right now, I had a pissed-off wyvern to deal with.

When Tavion had been gonefor two minutes, I stepped closer to the barrier, enough to see the myriad of colors in the wyvern's scales matched Tristan's red-gold hair perfectly. Enough to see that venom did, indeed, drip from the ends of those deadly fangs.

"Why did you choose today to shift, Tristan?" I asked softly, squatting down. "Of all times, this is the absolute worst."

He dropped his head, those glittering eyes pinned on me, and I couldn't remember ever feeling quite so prey-like before. But he wasn't ramming the barrier, or flinging those deadly spikes against it, trying to impale me.

"Here is what we are going to do. We are going to take a chance on each other. We don't know each other well. At all, really, but we are going to take a chance. I won't hurt you, so please don't eat me."

I wrapped a layer of magic around myself, my skin prickling from nerves. Barrier enough, maybe, to protect me from the venom in those sharp teeth and wicked spikes.

I sucked in a breath, opened up a small section of shield, and slashed the knife across my arm, the vicious flare of pain turning my vision white. Blood ran down my arm in a red river, tracing my fingers with warmth and dripping into the dirt below.

Plop, plop, plop.

The wyvern's nostrils flared, claws scrambling across dusty stone as he tried to reach me, something like desperation pooling in his eyes. He hit the barrier and the thing heaved beneath the force before he went back to pacing, tail thrashing.

"You have to shift back, Tristan. I don't know how that works, exactly, but find the part of yourself, the Fae part, and focus on that." The beast shook his mighty head, fire pulsing over him in waves, gold and orange and red, like a living flame.

"You are beautiful," I told him, crouching down so we were almost nose to nose. "I don't know if I've ever seen anything so beautiful." Indeed, his scales shimmered with color, the pulsing fire enhancing the effect, and he backed away, shaking his head back and forth like Tristan was trying to wrest back control.

Like he was trying to remember how to shift.

I drew in a breath and dragged the knife over my skin again, blood blooming. The wyvern released a high, keening cry, rattling the crypt, dust and debris raining down over us, the portal glowing brighter. I licked my lips, cursed myself for a fool, and dropped the barrier between us completely.

I expected him to lunge for me.

Expected a faceful of teeth and a blast of fiery breath to be the last thing I ever saw.

But Tristan—the wyvern—prowled closer, every step careful and slow, as if he didn't want to spook me.

Or to keep me in place before he pounced.

"Give me back Tristan." I met those golden eyes steadily. "I know what you saw in the vision scared you. I was scared, too. All of this"—I waved my hand at the crypt, the portal—"all of this scares me. I don't know what to do next, don't know if we're making the right choices or the wrong ones."

Again, he made that keening, desolate sound, and I stretched out my hand, cautiously, so very slowly, until my fingers brushed his nose. Cool. For a beast crafted from flame and fire…he was cool to the touch, and I sucked in a surprised breath.

"I don't want any of this," I said softly, voicing the fears I was too afraid to tell anyone else.

"I don't want to be who I am." I ran my fingers over his nose, the scales the size of a fingernail, glimmering in molten shades of fire.

"There are times I wonder if it wouldn't be better to be a slave again. To go through my mindless tasks and drop into bed at the end of each day without worrying about the fate of the world, or if I'm going to turn us all into monsters."

He huffed out something that almost sounded like a laugh.

"Okay, into big, black monsters."

Light flashed, bright enough to blind, and I reeled backward, expecting the pain of fiery flames, but Tristan lay before me, curled up, heaving his guts all over the dirty floor. I crawled to him, pulling his sweat-slicked body into my lap. His arms circled my middle, fingers digging into my sides as he hung on for dear life, wracked with shudders.

His usually clear eyes were glazed over, hair matted down with sweat, and I curled myself around him, making my body his shield, his protection against whatever was happening inside his head. "You're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay, Tristan. I'm not leaving you. Just hang onto me and don't let go." I smoothed his hair back, wet enough it was dripping.

I wished I had something, anything to throw over him, but Tavion had taken my horse, and there was nothing left of his beautiful clothing but trampled shreds of fabric. "You touched the skull and were pulled into a vision. I went in to find you, but when you came out…you turned into a wyvern."

"I haven't…" His beautiful eyes were wild, unfocused, terrified. "I haven't shifted in years, not since…not since…" Tristan's mouth worked but nothing came out, as if whatever memory he was reliving was too terrible for him to put into words.

"It's okay, Tristan. I'm right here. You're okay. You're safe."

I pulled him closer, folding myself around him tighter. He was so frightened. Spooked, like an animal that had experienced too much cruelty and couldn't think around their terror.

I was still holding him when Tavion thundered back into the room, weapons in both hands, looking like he meant to carve Tristan's head from his body. I curled tighter around the archer in case Tavion decided he didn't like what he saw.

Tavion took one look at me, cradling a naked, shivering Tristan in my arms, and snarled, teeth flashing in territorial rage. Yes, he didn't like this one bit. "Give him a minute to get his bearings, Tavion. It's not like you haven't been in this exact same position before."

Well, not exactly with my arms around him, but still, we'd been here before, Tavion and me.

But Tristan didn't—couldn't—stop trembling, sweat dripping off him as if he was burning from the inside out. Adele crept forward with a canteen, and I dribbled water between his lips, past his anguished breaths.

One more day.

We had to make it through that portal, then one more day in the tunnels.

Then we'd be home.

The word reverberated through me as I lifted my hopeful gaze to Tavion.

But what I found reflected in his face hit me like a blow when he tossed the fur coat down beside me.

"When you're done coddling your new pet, get him covered up so we can keep moving."