UNLEASH THE STORM

STEEL & STONE: BOOK 5

ANNETTE MARIE

CONTENTS

Description

The Steel & Stone Series

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Excerpt

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Description

Piper thought she could handle the Sahar, the most powerful magical weapon in existence. She thought she could protect her loved ones and stop a war. She thought she could make a difference.

She was wrong, and her mistakes were paid for in blood.

Leaving her world — and her failures — behind, she retreats to the Underworld with Ash and the other draconians. They forge deep into long abandoned mountains, the first draconians to fly the valleys and passes in centuries — or so they thought. Until now, Ash’s mysterious heritage has been nothing but a name, but his presence does not go unnoticed. A new danger stalks him, one that may be even greater than what they escaped.

Cut off from the power she’d come to rely on and lost in a world where she doesn’t belong, Piper has never felt so hopeless. But she must find her strength, and find it quickly, before she loses Ash to an ancient power he can’t fight, before her home is devastated by the daemon war, and before her mind, body, and soul are consumed by the Sahar’s insidious magic.

The Steel & Stone Series

Chase the Dark

Bind the Soul

Yield the Night

Feed the Flames

Reap the Shadows

Unleash the Storm

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Unleash the Storm

Book Five of the Steel & Stone Series

Copyright © 2016 by Annette Marie

www.authorannettemarie.com

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design Copyright © 2016 by Annette Ahner

Cover, Book Interior, and Website Design by

Midnight Whimsy Designs

www.midnightwhimsydesigns.com

Cover Photographs (female model) Copyright © 2016 by Miranda Hedman

Model: Miranda Hedman

www.mirish.deviantart.com

Editing by Elizabeth Darkley

arrowheadediting.wordpress.com

ISBN 978-1-988153-01-8 (EBOOK)

ASIN B016E6Y270 (Amazon)

Version 03.04.16

ISBN: 978-1-988153-01-8

Chapter One

Piper crouched behind the boulder, her heart beating fast against her ribs. Stretching her neck, she peeked over the top of the rock and squinted at the shallow gorge ahead, cloaked in harsh shadows. She flexed her fingers as she scanned for signs of movement.

Beyond the gorge, towering mountains pressed close on all sides, leaning over her no matter which way she turned. The bold, jagged peaks cut at the sky like stone blades. She was getting used to it, but the feeling of claustrophobic insignificance still caught her in unguarded moments. High above the mountain ridges, the two suns of the Underworld glared brightly over the dark rocks. They lit one curved sliver of the massive planet in the sky with gold light, the other half invisible like a waning moon.

The mass of Periskios, the mysterious planet, was about to swallow the first sun. The two stars travelled the skies side by side, one preceding the other each dawn and sliding below the horizon ahead of its brother before night claimed the land. The patterns of light and dark in this world weren’t the predictable days and nights of Earth. Some nights were pitch black and short, while others went on and on, the darkness broken only by the glowing planet in the sky. Murky twilight would taunt her with the promise of coming light, only for the suns to linger out of sight for hours before appearing.

As she squinted upward, the first sun crept closer to the left edge of Periskios. Light flared brightly as it slipped behind the planet, then dimmed. Slowly, she straightened her legs, keeping bent at the waist to stay hidden behind the boulder. Darkness was coming—the terrifying pitch black of the eclipse night—and the reduced visibility would be far more of an advantage for her adversaries than for her.

Her skin prickled, an instinctual warning. She spun around.

Black wings flashed wide as a draconian dropped off the cliff wall behind her. Swearing, Piper sprang onto the boulder and leaped off it as the draconian slammed into the ground where she’d been standing. She dropped into a roll and came out of it in a full sprint, charging down the gorge. Her daemon muscles surged with strength and her dairokkan trailed behind her like shimmering ribbons. She risked a glance over her shoulder. Her adversary lifted a hand, a spell already forming.

She dove to the side. The spell hit the rocky ground and exploded in a shower of pebbles. Her right hand connected with the ground as she spun in a one-handed cartwheel and landed on her feet, running again. She dashed into the gloom of the gorge. The ground grew steeper and the rocky walls closed in on either side. She slid on the loose rocks underfoot, struggling to maintain her speed and balance as she dodged boulders.

A flash of movement on her left. She sprang right and spun, skidding as pebbles cascaded down the gorge. The second draconian launched out of the shadows barely three feet away. Icy terror washed through her. She threw her hands up and caught his forearms as he bowled her over. She hit the rocky ground on a scaled shoulder. Yanking her feet up, she planted her boots in his stomach and snapped her legs straight. He flipped over her head and landed hard, wings splayed over the rocks.

Piper rolled to her feet, leaped over him, and bolted down the gorge. The end beckoned. Sunlight sparkled on the stream as the water rushed perpendicular to her path. Fluttering in the breeze, a strip of red cloth was tied to a tree branch sticking out of the bank. Anticipation surged. She was almost there.

She spotted the third draconian up on a ledge, already casting a spell. Diving, she came down on her hands and launched into a forward flip. The spell blasted a hole in the rocky ground behind her. She landed on one foot, skidding awkwardly to regain her balance on the loose shale, and stumbled back into a run, lungs burning.

The ground leveled out and the gurgling sound of the stream filled her ears. Two huge boulders stood like sentries on either side of the gorge walls, leaving a narrow passageway she would have to cross to reach the stream. The perfect place for an ambush, with no way to tell on which side her attacker was waiting. Running through the center would be stupid. She had to pick a side.

Her last attacker had been on her right, so she charged the boulder on the left. Leaping off a nearby rock, she landed on top of the boulder and jumped down, intending to slam feet first into the draconian hiding behind it.

Her feet hit gravel in the gap behind the rock. No one there. Damn it! She frantically scrambled out of the gap, head whipping side to side as she searched for the next attack.

A body slammed into her back. She crashed down on the pebbly slope, her arms pinned to her sides and a pokey pair of knees digging into her back.

“Do you surrender?” her assailant growled from above her.

“Ugh,” Piper panted. “Fine. I surrender.”

Her attacker laughed, her high, bubbly voice echoing off the gorge walls. The weight left Piper’s back and she rolled over, chest heaving as she caught her breath. The draconian stood over her, hands on her hips, wings half-spread and tail snapping back and forth as she surveyed her victim with a grin.

“We knew you would think we were hiding behind the boulders,” Raisa boasted, “so I hid nearby instead. It was Sivan’s idea.”

Piper grimaced as she clambered to her feet and brushed gravel off her clothes. It didn’t surprise her that Sivan had anticipated her train of thought and used it to plan an even better ambush.

“You’ve lost four times in a row now,” Raisa informed her, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I can count,” Piper grumbled. Tackled by a kid. So embarrassing.

Crunching rocks announced the other draconians as they came down the gorge. Kiev flashed her a smile as he scrubbed dust out of his wavy hair; he was the one she’d flung over her head with her feet.

“You were pretty close that time,” he told her.

She shrugged, her gaze flicking to Sivan. The second draconian boy brushed past them without a word, and she was surprised the ground around his feet wasn’t frosting from the arctic aura around him. When she’d first met him, her immediate reaction was relief that Kiev had been the boy who needed her help and not Sivan. She seriously doubted Sivan would have been as gracious as Kiev about being put in the care of a haemon girl.

Seiya glided down from the ledge where she’d thrown her attack at Piper. After landing, she carefully folded her wings, the motion too precise to look natural. The injury to her wing from weeks ago was still healing.

“That was good,” she said. “You’re getting better at assessing the terrain quickly.”

Piper shook her head and sighed. When she’d asked for help learning how to fight outside the limited scope of her Consul training—meaning one-on-one fights with the purpose of diffusing the situation, not killing your assailant—she hadn’t realized just how large the gaps in her skills were. Even something as simple as running through a gorge while under attack was difficult; she had to choose her path, try to locate potential enemies, keep track of assailants she’d already downed, anticipate potential ambushes. But she was learning—and learning fast. These “games” were also teaching her how to use her daemon form more efficiently and were improving her physical conditioning. She needed to be as prepared as possible for whatever was coming.

Following after Sivan, she and the others exited the gorge and splashed through the stream to the far bank. Kiev grabbed the stick with the flag and they trudged upstream while Raisa chattered about her epic takedown of Piper.

Piper smiled ruefully and didn’t comment. Raisa was just old enough to want to keep up with the teenagers but too young to actually compete. But it was good that she wanted to try; not all the female draconians were interested in learning combat skills.

Her head tilted back as she took in the surrounding peaks. The second sun neared the brightly lit sliver of Periskios. Soon it would disappear too.

They’d been travelling for almost three weeks, by her best estimate, though “weeks” were not an applicable measurement of time in this world. With each cycle of light and dark, they’d moved deeper and deeper into the endless Underworld mountain range. Ley lines probably ran through the mountains somewhere, but without knowing where they were, they had no choice but to travel the long way. That was the downside to ley lines: daemons could only use the lines they knew about.

The area they were travelling through was former draconian territory, once fiercely protected by the Taroth family. The Hades family had assimilated the more hospitable regions of Taroth land after destroying the family, but they hadn’t bothered with the mountains; only a caste with wings would want to live here.

But Piper wasn’t sure why the Taroths would have wanted to live here either. The mountains were beautiful but harsh. The large forests were mainly coniferous trees and supported little life, and the soil was too rocky for agriculture. It wasn’t like the lush, rich lands of the ryujin, that was for sure.

She and the others followed a bend in the streambed and, as they came around an outcropping of rock, their camp was revealed. Eight female draconians and an incubus sat around the small fire, with a handful of low, brown canvas tents behind them. She huffed, blowing her bangs away from her face as a sickening whoosh of dread slid through her, but it was over quickly. Through a combination of fluke and necessity, she and Lyre had discovered a way to counter the Nightmare Effect: constant exposure. Short of life or death necessity, she wouldn’t recommend it as an option to anyone.

When she’d learned months ago that going through the Void to another world created daemon glamour, she hadn’t considered that daemons who hadn’t been to Earth wouldn’t have glamour. Which meant all the females, except Seiya, had no glamour to use to protect Piper and Lyre from their Nightmare Effect.

Being constantly surrounded by draconians out of glamour had not been fun. In fact, Piper and Lyre had wondered if they would live through it, not knowing if they could ever adjust. They’d both dropped weight, too sick with fear to eat, before they’d finally desensitized, to everyone’s relief. Now she only got twinges of fear if she was away from any of them for a length of time, but it quickly passed.

Waving a hello to the women around the fire, Piper dropped down beside Lyre on a blanket spread over the rocky ground. It had taken her a little while to get used to him in draconian garb. The fitted black leather looked good on him—everything looked good on him—but it was still a little odd. She supposed she looked just as peculiar wearing a mix of draconian gear and her bright, shimmering ryujin top.

Raisa bounded past her and plopped down beside Shona, her mother, and reiterated the whole story of Piper’s defeat in glorious detail.

“Went well?” Lyre asked Piper.

“If you call getting trounced by a kid going ‘well,’ then sure, went great.”

“Every little bit helps,” he said sympathetically. “You need to condition yourself to our world. I felt woozy for weeks the first time I went to Earth. It takes a while.”

She didn’t mean to complain; her pride was just taking a beating. She really did need to build up her strength, especially since she needed to keep up with a bunch of draconians. The Underworld was kind of like being at high altitude—the air was thinner and everything was more difficult. And she was literally at a high altitude on top of that.

With a final bright flare, the second sun disappeared behind Periskios, fully eclipsed. For a minute more, a thin line of light glowed along the left curve of the planet, then that too faded. Utter darkness fell across the land, erasing the surrounding mountains from her vision.

She hunched closer to the fire, the only source of illumination, and let her gaze wander from one face to another. Though not all present at the moment, there were fourteen draconians in total, including Ash and Seiya. Four males, ten females. On the other side of the fire, a wisp of a girl sat on her mother’s lap, holding a crudely sewn stuffed dragonet toy. Yana held up the toy, spreading its wings out as though it were flying, and looked up at her mother with one large, sky-blue eye. Her other eye was covered by a white patch held in place with ties woven into her dark hair. Piper hadn’t asked yet what had happened to the girl’s face; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Sivan, sitting opposite Piper, held a curved knife in one hand and smoothly ran a wet stone down its length. The sound of rock on steel made her grit her teeth. Beside him, his half-sister Jezel chewed on a piece of dried meat and stared at the fire with a scowl. They were about the same age, with different mothers but the same father—one of the draconian males who’d died in recent years.

Piper was still sorting out how everyone was related. Kiev alone had a mother, sister, two aunts, and two cousins among the fourteen draconians. As far as Piper knew, they’d avoided any inbreeding, but Samael must have been desperate to add some new blood into the gene pool. His best option would have been Ash, who’s only relation among the entire group was Seiya, but as Seiya had mentioned months ago, Samael had never managed to coerce Ash—though his steadfast refusal had resulted in severe punishments for him and Seiya both.

A shiver ran through her as her gaze slid to the woman sitting closest to the fire, holding her hands toward the flames to ward off the cooling air. With the sides of her head buzzed short and spiky red hair flopping over her forehead from the longer section on top, Coby looked like she could beat up any guy who ticked her off—but the swell of her belly told a different story. Though she appeared around the same age as Piper, she was noticeably pregnant. The father of her unborn child, though, was dead.

The visible proof in front of her that these women had been used as broodmares made her sick. That same fate had awaited Seiya, cheerful Raisa, even little Yana, so shy she rarely left her mother’s side.

Raisa jumped to her feet, startling Piper out of her thoughts, and pointed skyward. “They’re back!”

Piper looked up but couldn’t see a thing in the darkness. Only when firelight caught on the reflective steel of their gear and weapons did she spot them. Wings spread wide, the two men glided to the camp and landed a dozen yards away. Her heart hammered, partially from the spike of fear triggered by Raum’s return, partially from the relief of seeing Ash again.

Folding his wings, Ash strode to the fire. Lyre pulled a water canister from the pack behind him and held it out. Ash accepted it and tipped his head back to drink, putting his back to the fire—probably to warm up from the chill air of the higher altitudes. Raum stopped behind the women on the other side of the fire. Yana detached from her mother and silently approached him, holding her arms out with the dragonet toy hanging from one hand. He reached down and scooped her up, holding her with one arm while Ivria passed him his own water canister.

Piper tore her eyes away before she got caught staring. It still blew her mind to see Raum casually holding his daughter like any other father. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her that he would have children, but his refusal to escape Asphodel before this made all the more sense to her now. He would have been abandoning his own child to suffer the punishment of his betrayal.

Ash dropped down on the blanket beside her, breathing deep. Her eyes moved anxiously from the dark circles under his eyes to the hollowness of his cheeks. He was pushing himself too hard. He should have been taking it easy while he finished recovering from the injuries he’d sustained in the Overworld. Whenever she and the others were resting, Ash and Raum were scouting the path ahead or backtracking to check for pursuers, sleeping only in short bursts.

As Ash closed his eyes, the water canister hanging from one hand, Piper exchanged a worried look with Lyre. But there was no way to talk Ash into taking it easy. Raum couldn’t do all the scouting himself, Kiev wasn’t experienced enough, and Seiya’s wing was still healing.

“How did it go?” Raisa asked eagerly. “Anything interesting?”

“Still no signs of habitation ahead,” Raum replied. Yana leaned her head on his shoulder, hugging her toy. “We’re almost out of this barren terrain. We’ll reach more hospitable valleys soon.”

“How much farther do we have to go?” Jezel asked, her voice flat as she waved her piece of dried meat in irritation. “How long do we have to keep this up?”

Coby snapped her glare to the teenage girl, one hand pressed to her round belly. “However long it takes to be safe, girl. Do you want to go back to Asphodel instead and see how Samael rewards you for your absence?”

Jezel tossed her short hair out of her eyes and tore off another bite of her jerky.

“Let’s pack up,” Raum said. “I want to put out that fire as soon as possible.”

Kiev and Sivan rose and started to dismantle the nearest tent. Lyre stretched with a muffled groan and began picking up the scattered items nearby. With everyone occupied, Piper slid closer to Ash and touched his hand.

“How are you holding up?” she murmured.

He glanced at her, his gray eyes weary. “Fine.”

“Ash, please. You look ready to keel over.”

A trace of a smile touched his lips. “We’re almost there. Another half-cycle, and we can set up a more permanent camp and rest as long as we need to.”

“Half-cycle,” she repeated in a mumble, her eyes lifting to the black sky where the unseen planet lurked. The stars had come alive, glittering in the sky.

Underworld daemons didn’t track time through days and nights; those terms were meaningless in this world. Instead, they counted cycles. A cycle began with a day of light that ended in the unnatural night caused by the regular eclipse where Periskios blotted out the suns, casting a deep darkness over the world. Another day followed the eclipse before eventually giving way to the longest night Piper had ever experienced. When the darkness finally yielded to the suns again, the cycle began anew. The full progression took the rough equivalent of seventy-two Earth-hours.

With each cycle lasting about three Earth days, “weeks” were pretty meaningless. According to Ash and Lyre, ten cycles was about a month, which was how she was translating her current stay in the Underworld into three weeks, but daemons rarely marked time with any kind of precision; they really only counted cycles and seasons. She would never have guessed from her interactions with them on Earth that daemons had little interest in tracking the passage of time beyond the basics.

Pulling her eyes away from the black sky, she stood. “I’ll help pack things up. You stay put and rest.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. She suppressed her worry about his health and crossed the camp to help Raisa, who was struggling to bring down a tent by herself. She glanced back at Ash, sitting alone, and it struck her again how different he looked without glamour compared to the other draconians.

Her first sight of him among the entire group had been a shock. They all had the same wings and tails, the same dark scales running over their shoulders and the tops of their arms down to the retractable claws that tipped each finger. But Ash’s three horns on each side of his head were unique, and the dark, swirling patterns that marked the transition of scale to skin were much clearer on him than any other draconian. The others looked almost washed out in comparison. Natania was probably right; seeing him next to so many of his kin, Piper had trouble believing he wasn’t a Taroth descendent.

Though the other draconians’ Nightmare Effect could still influence her, she continued to possess complete immunity to Ash’s. She’d eventually gotten around to asking him about it, and the way his face had softened at the question made her stomach swoop. Trust, he’d said. Complete, utter, fearless trust. The magic of the Nightmare Effect fed off even the slightest hint of fright, and only a total absence of fear or doubt—conscious or subconscious—could negate it.

“Whatchya staring at?” Raisa asked, peering around Piper’s shoulder to follow the direction of her gaze. She pulled a funny face as she collected the tent poles and folded them into shorter rods. “Ash again? You see him all the time.”

Piper blushed at getting caught staring—again.

“He just doesn’t quite match the rest of you, that’s all,” she said, pulling her eyes away to concentrate on laying out the canvas.

“Oh, yeah, well, he’s always been different.”

“What do you mean?”

Together, Piper and Raisa folded the material up into a small square.

“Well,” Raisa said, “I was pretty young when he tried to escape with Seiya, but before that, my mom always told me to stay away from him.”

Piper paused, bent over the tent as she looked at the girl. “Why?”

Raisa widened her eyes. “He never listened. He was constantly disobeying orders and getting into fights with guards. He was always in trouble, and my mother didn’t want me to get in trouble from being nearby.” The girl grinned. “I always thought he was really cool—but kinda scary too. Then he almost escaped, and after that he was never around much. Samael was always sending him away or locking him in the bastille so he wouldn’t cause problems.”

“Ash did it on purpose.”

Piper jumped in surprise, turning to find Jezel standing behind her, licking the salt from her snack off her fingers.

“He told me once that he would never let it be easy for Samael,” the girl said.

“Let what be easy?”

“Owning draconians.”

Raisa beamed. “I told you he was cool. And then he escaped! The first one to ever escape and not get killed after.”

“Escaped with your help,” Jezel said to Piper, her flat tone a stark contrast to Raisa’s enthusiasm. “How did that happen, exactly? You’re a weird haemon, but still just a haemon.”

“A lot of luck and some outside help,” Piper replied, keeping her tone friendly. She tipped her head toward the last tent. “Can you help us pack up that one?”

Jezel glanced at the tent, looked back at Piper, then walked away—in the opposite direction of the tent. Piper sighed. Teenagers. Had she been that bad a few years ago?

Raisa rolled her eyes as they headed for the last tent. “Don’t mind her. She’s always like that.”

“At least I’ve got you for company,” Piper said. “If I were stuck with just Jezel and Sivan, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Raisa giggled and Piper hid a momentary flicker of guilt. She really shouldn’t judge any of the draconians for having morose attitudes, considering the pasts they’d only just escaped. Pushing her bangs out of her face, she pulled open the flap of the tent. Inside, a heap of snoozing dragonets took up most of the space.

“Okay, guys,” she told them. “Time to rise and shine!”

A couple heads popped up from the pile and sleepy golden eyes blinked at her. Zwi climbed out first and nudged a couple of the others. A few firmer nudges, then a sharp nip to someone’s flank. A yelp and they were all up at once, trotting out one by one—Zala, Nili, Teva, and five others. Zwi fluffed her mane importantly and strutted out last.

The dragonets stretched their wings while Piper and Raisa dismantled the tent and packed it up. She carried the packs over to the pile by the campfire, where Ash still sat, dozing with his chin propped on the heel of his hand. Piper stood beside him as Kiev joined them. Teva, his dragonet, appeared at his ankles and transformed in a whoosh of black fire. He quickly loaded the dragon with supplies, strapping the packs firmly to Teva’s back. One dragon could carry four fully loaded packs, weight that would have only slowed down the draconians.

A woman joined Kiev, her grayish blue eyes scanning the remaining packs. Mahala was one of the older women—probably in her early twenties, which was pretty old for Samael’s draconians. Only her sisters, Shona and Denna, were older. Mahala clucked her tongue softly and another dragonet hopped over and transformed. Kiev and Mahala loaded the dragon quickly.

Piper watched Mahala surreptitiously, curious about the woman. She was quiet, rarely offering her opinion on anything, but she didn’t have the soft, motherly air of her two sisters. She reminded Piper of an older version of Seiya, lithe and graceful with a high ponytail of long, raven-black hair and eyes that seemed to see everything.

Ash rose to his feet beside her as Raum returned to survey their work. With rushes of fire, three more dragonets transformed—Zwi, Zala, and Nili. Already familiar with the drill, Piper climbed onto Zwi’s back and got comfortable, stroking the dragon’s mane. Raisa hopped on behind her, tucking her wings out of the way. Lyre mounted Nili, and Seiya lifted the second youngest girl—Netia, a tiny waif of a thing—onto Zala’s back before climbing on as well. Yana, the youngest, would be carried in her mother’s arms.

Raisa sighed glumly as the other draconians stretched their wings to warm up their muscles to fly.

“I wish I could fly,” the girl grumbled.

Piper glanced back to see Raisa watching Jezel enviously. She’d learned since joining the group that draconians weren’t capable of flight until well into puberty. It would be a couple years still before Raisa’s wings were strong enough for anything more than short glides.

“Same formation,” Raum announced. “Is everyone ready?”

Piper glanced around as everyone nodded, their faces lit with harsh orange light from the fire: Denna, Shona, and Mahala, the three older sisters. Ivria, holding little Yana in her arms. Coby, one hand resting on the bulge of her stomach. Kiev and Sivan, with Jezel standing between them. Seiya and Netia on Zala’s back. Raisa behind Piper. Lyre astride his dragon mount. And then Ash and Raum, decked out in weapons, ready to fight to protect them all.

Raum spread his wings and sprang upward. Sivan and Jezel went next, then the women, then the dragons. Piper clutched Zwi’s mane as the dragon took three running steps and jumped toward the sky, laboring the get them airborne. Kiev brought up the rear, following in Teva’s wake.

She looked back. Below, Ash was a dark shadow on the ground as he extinguished the fire. He would circle the camp, carefully obliterating the signs of their presence before catching up to them. She bit her lip, facing forward again, and squinted against the wind. The others were barely discernible silhouettes, but ahead, a tiny flickering white dot marked Raum’s location and provided a point of reference as they followed him blindly through the night.

She marveled at the bizarre chain of events that had brought her here. Months ago, she could never have imagined she would be hiding in the Underworld with a group of refugee draconians, flying through the desolate, majestic peaks of the Taroths’ former territory in search of a place to make their new home.

Longing twisted in her gut and squeezed her throat. A new home. Her old home was gone—blown up, the remains nothing but charred rubble. She needed to put down new roots, needed somewhere to call her own, but she wasn’t sure this was the place she wanted to call home.

Chapter Two

There was no way to mark the passage of time in the impenetrable darkness. The night dragged on, broken only by their brief, infrequent rest stops. Ash, Raum, and the boys could fly for long stretches without breaks but the women couldn’t. Coby was already struggling, her pregnancy far enough along that she probably shouldn’t be exerting herself so much. Ivria had to carry Yana, who was too frightened to ride a dragon with someone else. Jezel didn’t have a lot of stamina either. The only one who looked capable of keeping up with the guys was the mysterious Mahala.

Piper’s whole body ached with tired stiffness by the time a line of light lit the right side of Periskios, a razor-thin crescent in the black sky.

Raum began to descend. Zwi glided through dark oblivion, following Raum’s tiny light. Jagged peaks appeared all around them as more sunlight slipped around the dark shape of Periskios, revealing the string of flying draconians and dragons, their wings beating tiredly. She twisted to look back at the distant shape of Ash guarding their backs.

Raum descended toward the side of a steep mountain, the terrain clearly unsuitable for a camp. As the sheer rock face blotted out all else, he banked to the left and glided down between the main peak and a smaller offshoot. On the other side, a sheltered dip in the rock created a large, empty bowl, invisible from every angle but directly overhead.

They all swooped down into the bowl, landing with the sound of rushing air and beating wings. The dragons chuffed and groaned in relief, folding their wings the moment their passengers dismounted. Raisa jumped to the ground, her usual bubbly energy diminished but not entirely gone. Piper slid off more carefully, her legs stiff and weak. She was feeling the exhaustion even in her daemon form, which meant it was time to switch back and recharge. Though using up her magic exhausted her, her human body didn’t handle the demands of dragon-back travel in the sometimes harsh Underworld weather very well.

Kiev, Teva, and Ash drifted in last. As soon as they landed, the two draconians pulled the packs off the weary dragon. Teva transformed back to his dragonet form the moment he was free of his burden and jumped onto Kiev’s shoulder, hanging limply.

“Couldn’t have found something a bit more comfortable, Raum?” Coby asked, looking around the bowl of rock with a glum expression as the brightening sunlight revealed just how barren it was. “Rock beds aren’t the most comfortable.”

“We had a good reason for selecting this spot,” he replied. “Come see.”

He strode toward the farthest end of the bowl, where the rock walls rose to the towering summit, and disappeared into a crag. Eyebrows shooting up, Piper exchanged a look with Lyre and they hurried after him, the other draconians following curiously. Her legs ached but she traipsed into the crag and discovered a winding path that steepened as it curved between sheer-sided rocks. Huffing, she climbed up the last of the incline and reached level ground.

Raum stood a few feet away, waiting. Beyond him, a large pool of water emitted white steam that rose in lazy spirals. Water cascaded over a short waterfall into the pool and another dozen plumes of steam marked other hot pools higher up the slope.

“Hot springs!” Seiya gasped. “Raum, how did you find this?”

“We spotted the steam while we were scouting our route.”

“I forgive you, Raum,” Coby said magnanimously, staring greedily at the hot water. “This is far better than a soft bed.”

Talking excitedly, the women started back down the path, assigning tasks to set up camp as quickly as possible. Piper listened to their voices grow distant as she walked over to the edge of the pool and knelt by the damp rocks. Hot steam washed over her face. The smell of sulfur was faint but enough to warn it was not drinking water. She dipped her fingers in and closed her eyes. Ah, the temperature was perfect.

“You okay?”

Piper jumped in surprise, looking back to see Lyre waiting for her.

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Just wanted a quiet moment.”

He wandered over to stand beside her. “I know what you mean. It’s difficult being surrounded by people constantly.”

She nodded and splashed a little of the water, watching the ripples. “I miss home. I miss the Consulate. I know it doesn’t exist anymore, but some part of me is convinced that if I just went back, I would find everything exactly the same as in my memory.”

He gazed at the water, his eyes distant. “Homelessness is a terrible feeling. I don’t imagine it’s any easier for the draconians. Even a terrible home is still a home, and familiarity is comforting …” He shrugged. “Eventually, you realize that people are a better home than a place.”

She tugged thoughtfully on the end of her ponytail. That was true, wasn’t it? She would rather be on the run with Ash and Lyre than back at the Consulate alone. Loved ones offered far more comfort than four walls and a roof could.

Out of nowhere, grief stabbed her. Her breath caught as anguished sorrow filled her lungs like suffocating water. She squeezed her eyes shut, memories of her mother from her childhood competing with those final moments, the reaper’s blade, the blood. Her eyes burned and sobs fought to escape her throat. She swallowed hard.

Lyre touched her shoulder as he knelt beside her. “It’s okay to cry.”

She angrily wiped away a few stray tears. “I’ve done enough crying, don’t you think? Crying won’t change anything.”

“Grief festers if it’s ignored,” he told her gently. “Tears are good for the soul.”

She cocked her head. “When’s the last time you cried?”

“Me?” His eyes dropped and for a bare second, she would have sworn sorrow as sharp and cutting as her own flashed through his eyes. Then he smiled and shrugged, but his casual demeanor didn’t quite seem genuine. She’d accidentally touched a nerve.

Pushing down her grief to deal with later, she sat on her heels and tilted her head back to take in the towering peak above.

“I feel like we’re so far from civilization,” she said, steering the conversation onto more neutral ground. “Don’t you think Ash and Raum are overdoing the scouting and stuff? How could anyone find us here?”

“Just because we don’t know where the ley lines in these mountains are, doesn’t mean other people don’t,” he said, relaxing with the change of topic. “And other daemons aren’t the only concern. The Underworld is home to many creatures that consider human-sized prey a great meal.”

She blinked. “Oh. I hadn’t considered other predators.”

He gave her shoulder a squeeze and rose to his feet. “We should go help the others set up. The sooner we have camp ready, the sooner we can try out these hot springs.”

She stood but didn’t turn away from the water. “Is this it? Is this what our lives are now? Hiding in these mountains, soaking in hot springs while Earth burns?”

“You don’t know that anything on Earth is burning,” Lyre replied, suddenly stern. “And no, this isn’t our lives forever. Nothing is forever, Piper. Nothing is set in stone. Today, tomorrow, the next week or even the next year, we’ll help Ash and Raum create a safe home for the draconians. After that? Who knows. If you don’t like it here, you can leave. We want to protect you, but we won’t hold you prisoner.”

She faced him, letting out a long breath. “I’m sorry. I sound ungrateful, don’t I? I just feel so helpless …”

He hesitated, a veiled look crossing his eyes. “You know we can’t give it back.”

She flinched. Hazy memories of white power and explosive destruction had haunted her dreams since she’d woken in the Underworld. She didn’t know who had the Sahar—Ash, Lyre, Seiya, one of the dragonets—and they weren’t telling her. Short of an end-of-the-world emergency, they would never allow her to touch the Stone again, and she couldn’t blame them.

She’d eventually pried some details out of Lyre about what had happened. While under the Sahar’s influence, she’d killed a bunch of Gaians, all of the Ras … and she’d fought Ash and Lyre, doing her best to kill them both. Lyre, working from a distance, had escaped unscathed, but Ash hadn’t. She’d broken four of his ribs and sliced a deep gash in his abdomen. He’d lost a lot of blood in the time it took to subdue her and retreat from the Gaian facility. If Raum hadn’t joined the fight, she might have killed Ash. The thought made her sick.

She understood the danger of the Sahar, that the risk she would lose control like that again was too great, but she still felt like she’d lost her right arm. The Sahar had been her trump card, an unbeatable power she could fall back on when things got bad. Being without it made her feel pathetically weak and helpless.

Speaking of weak, the hollow ache in her head warned her she was running low on magic. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her human form. Tingles rushed over her skin and her weariness quadrupled in an instant. She swayed before Lyre caught her arm, steadying her.

“Ugh,” she grunted, opening her eyes. “My legs feel like jelly.”

“The hot springs will help with that.”

Stretching her arms over her head, she swept her gaze over his glamoured form. “Does it bother you, staying in glamour even in your own world?”

“I’m used to it. It would be inconsiderate to drop my glamour around so many women without good reason. If it were just the guys, the effect would be diluted enough that I could get away with it.”

Out of glamour, Lyre’s real form was so striking and magnetic that he was downright hypnotizing. His aura could easily overwhelm a woman’s will and give him an unfair amount of power over her. Piper didn’t blame him for keeping that particular ability under wraps around the draconian women, half of whom were already halfway smitten with him.

Her brow wrinkled. “Did you say the effect would be diluted on the guys? I didn’t think aphrodesia affected men at all.”

His lips curved, a wicked twinkle in his amber eyes. “Well, it doesn’t work as fast or as well, but with a bit of time and effort, I can catch anyone.” He smirked at her obvious doubt. “Ash didn’t believe me either. I proved it to him.”

Her eyes went so wide they probably doubled in size. “You—you what?”

“He said there was no way I could make my aphrodesia work on him,” Lyre said casually, lifting his hands in a shrug-like gesture. “I took it as a challenge.”

“Lyre!” Hot embarrassment rose in her cheeks. “Stop messing with me!”

“I’m not,” he said, his amusement vanishing. “He didn’t think it was possible, so I made sure he understood the danger.” His gaze intensified. “Never assume you’re immune to anything, and you’ll be a lot safer.”

She nodded slowly. Daemon magic was complex, especially their inherent caste abilities. She would do well to remember not to underestimate it. Puffing out her cheeks, she glanced at Lyre and wondered if she dared request the details about the lesson he’d taught Ash on incubus aphrodesia.

Seeing the silent laughter sparking in his eyes as he waited for her to ask, she decided she didn’t dare.

Chapter Three

Piper stood on the path, listening to the low chatter of voices and the splash of the small waterfall just out of sight. She had a blanket wrapped around her body, and under it, she wore nothing but her bra and underwear.

She’d drifted off while the others were cleaning up after their meager dinner of dried rations and soup, and by the time she’d woken, everyone had been almost ready to leave for the hot springs. She’d scrambled to get ready but they had already left the camp, calling for her to hurry up.

Biting her lip, she listened to them talk and a wave of loneliness washed over her. No one had intended to exclude her; they’d been telling her to get moving. It wasn’t their fault she’d fallen asleep, and it was silly to feel hurt that no one had waited for her. She wasn’t a child who needed her hand held.

She straightened her shoulders and forced herself into motion. As she rounded the bend, the springs came into view, the waxing crescent of Periskios reflecting on the rippling surface of the water. Clouds had drifted in, muting the light of the suns.

The draconian women were scattered throughout the water, submerged up to their shoulders. Since she’d seen them leaving, she knew they all wore modest undergarments—fitted little shorts and tight chest wraps. The women had donated a set to her so she could rotate out her regular undergarments for washing, but today, she was wearing her original bra and underwear, and both were a good bit more revealing than their clothes.

As she approached the pool, she realized most of her self-consciousness was unwarranted—Ash, Lyre, Raum, Kiev, and Sivan were nowhere in sight.

“Sleeping beauty awakes!” Coby called teasingly, waving at Piper to hurry. “Get your skinny butt in here before the rest of us get too waterlogged.”

Piper dropped her blanket on a rock at the edge of the pool. The air had a cold bite to it, raising gooseflesh over her skin, but in the next moment, she was splashing into the pool. Warm water rushed over her, instantly blissful.

She moaned in appreciation. “Oh, this is soooo good.”

Coby grinned. “Pretty damn wonderful, isn’t it?” She fluttered her fingers on the surface, sending droplets flying. “The pool gets hotter the closer you move to the waterfall, if this isn’t enough for you.”

“Hmm, hotter might be better,” she said thoughtfully, crouching until she was submerged up to her neck. “Where are—”

A few feet away, Yana flapped her small wings, splashing water everywhere with a peal of laughter. Piper shielded her eyes with one hand as Ivria plucked her out, lifting her over to the shallower spot. As the woman turned, a large puckered scar just below her shoulder blade was cast into sharp relief. Ivria sank back into the water and smiled apologetically at Piper.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Huh? Oh, I was just asking where the guys are.”

Coby pointed to a plume of steam beyond the little waterfall, higher up the slope. “That spring over there. Shona decided the risk of adolescent hormones was too great for co-ed bathing.”

Piper flicked a glance at Jezel and Raisa, the former sitting in silence while the latter splashed around like a kid at the swimming pool. Probably a good idea. She was a little relieved herself, because she probably would have had trouble keeping her eyes off Ash.

She rolled her shoulders, feeling the pull of stiff muscles. “I’m going to try the hotter end.”

“Me too,” Coby said. “My lower back is killing me. I can’t wait until this baby pops.”

“Have fun,” Ivria said, leaning back against a rock. “I promise to fish you out if you faint.”

Coby waded toward the other end of the pool. Piper followed, waving to Seiya, who was chatting with Shona and Denna in a deep spot. The water grew steadily hotter as she and Coby neared the short waterfall. Mahala sat alone in a little nook of rock, her eyes closed as steam rose all around her.

“Holy shit, this is hot,” Coby announced, plunking down beside Mahala. She leaned back until the water was level with her collarbones.

Mahala opened her eyes, watching Piper sink down as well. Piper resisted the urge to fidget. She hadn’t spoken much with Mahala since joining up with the draconians. She wasn’t talkative like Coby, and Piper couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated. It didn’t help that Mahala was absolutely stunning, with long raven hair and lovely, delicate features.

The hot spring and soft sounds of splashing water and conversation soothed her tension and she relaxed back against the rocky edge of the pool. Somewhere in the distance, the eagle-like calls of hunting birds echoed through the mountains, fierce and lonely.

“This is glorious,” Coby said, her eyes closed. “If only our permanent basecamp could have something like this. I could get used to a daily soak.”

Piper trailed her fingers back and forth in the ripples as the heat soaked into her tired muscles. “How will that work? How long will you live in a camp?”

“It won’t be forever,” Coby said. “Just until we find something better.”

“We don’t want a semi-permanent home here,” Mahala said, her low voice smooth and almost sensual. “We want a permanent one. It’s simply a matter of finding the best location where we will have sturdy shelter, fresh water, edible vegetation, and decent hunting.”

“Not a demanding list of requirements at all,” Piper said with a smile. “So you’ll eventually build your own little … village?”

“Yes. It won’t be a glamorous life, but …” She gave a small shrug. “It’s infinitely better than what we came from. These mountains are our home, even if we’ve never been here before.”

“There’s also the chance we might join a community instead of start one,” Coby said. “For as long as I can remember, there have been rumors about draconians living in secret here.”

Piper sucked in a breath. Draconians here? Ones who’d never been enslaved by Samael?

“Rumors mean little,” Mahala replied, her tone growing stern. “If there were draconians here, Samael would have hunted them down by now. We must not raise the children’s hopes.”

Coby grimaced. “You’re right. It’s just, you know, Kirya had to have come from somewhere, right?”

Mahala pressed her lips into a thin, unhappy line.

“Who?” Piper asked hesitantly.

“Ash and Seiya’s mother,” Coby answered. “She was ‘wild-caught,’ as the reapers used to call it. Samael’s hunters brought her in when she was a youth. They’d killed her father and older brothers, and her mother died in the fighting, so it was just her.”

“She was very special to many of us,” Mahala said. “She was old enough to know of the traditional values of our people and shared them with us before she died. Even though she was with us for only ten or eleven seasons, she made a great difference.”

Piper pressed her hands together under the water. “How did she die?”

Rage flashed over Mahala’s face, unexpectedly aging her. “Priel killed her.”

“Who?”

Mahala’s eyes focused. “Sorry, a male draconian.” Seeing Piper’s shock, she smiled grimly. “Samael is a master at breaking the spirit and twisting the mind. He needs the males to be obedient, either because they care about us too much to disobey, or because they come to enjoy what they do. Priel enjoyed it.”

“Did Samael tell him to kill Kirya?”

“No. Priel decided he wanted her. She fought back, and he killed her. Samael might very well have executed him for killing an important female—a new bloodline—but Raum and Ash got to him first.”

“But … but Ash would have been only …”

“A child. Still a child.”

She’d wondered before how young Ash had been when he’d first killed, but she never would have guessed he had still been a child. She almost asked how old exactly but decided she didn’t want to know.

Giving her head a little shake, she looked between Mahala and Coby. “So both Ash’s parents were captured by Hades as adults or near adults?”

Mahala nodded. “I was a young child when Kirya was brought in, but I still remember the commotion. His father was …” She smiled faintly. “He was chaos incarnate.”

Seiya had told Piper the story of Ash’s father. A Hades force returning from a battle had stumbled across a small settlement of draconians. Ash’s father had single-handedly held off the entire army while his kin escaped. He’d been captured alive—most definitely not his intent—and had made Samael’s life hell for a short time before he was executed. Before his death, he’d been forced, through a combination of drugs and magic, to impregnate Ash’s mother. His last words had been to tell Kirya what Ash’s full name was to be: Ashtaroth.

“We’re all tied together by blood—siblings, half-siblings, aunts, cousins,” Coby said, “but Ash’s only relation is Seiya. Even Seiya has a couple relatives; she’s cousins with Sivan and Jezel on her father’s side.”

Piper glanced toward Seiya, only semi visible through the steam. “She is?”

“Jezel is my niece,” Mahala said. “And she’s Raisa’s half-sister and Kiev’s cousin on her mother’s side, and Sivan’s half-sister and Seiya’s cousin on her father’s side. You can see how interwoven our bloodlines are. We truly are one big family—except for Ash.”

Piper resisted the urge to massage her temples, her head spinning with the complexity of their family tree. “Did it bother you that he only wanted to save Seiya?”

“Not me,” Mahala said. “I was envious of his freedom to make the attempt. I understood that he kept his distance from us not to be cruel, but to protect us. When he escaped, Samael didn’t punish us. He knew he couldn’t use us to draw Ash back. I was happy for him. He, more than any of us, needed to be free.”

Piper tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“He couldn’t be cowed. Samael knew that too. Ash would either break completely or die, but he would never truly become an obedient slave.”

“Like Raum?” she asked hesitantly.

“Raum …” Mahala trailed off, her eyes distant.

“Raum was lost for a long time,” Coby said slowly. “He was already sliding, and then Samael killed his first child … the poor girl was still a baby. After that, Raum was just this … empty, obedient shadow. He wasn’t vicious like some of the others, but he did whatever Samael ordered, even if that meant beating one of us.”

“I’m not entirely sure when he began to change,” Mahala murmured. “It was very subtle and he was careful to hide it so Samael wouldn’t notice. About two years ago, he came to Denna, Shona, and I to tell us we needed to start carefully preparing the others for the day when we would escape—or die trying.”

Piper exhaled, her head swimming and emotions churning. “He’s lost a child and had another already, even though he’s still so young?”

Coby snorted. “He’s not that young. He’s, what?” She looked at Mahala. “Only a few seasons younger than Shona, right?”

“Yes, older than me but younger than Shona.”

Piper looked between them. “How old is that, exactly? He looks, like, twenty-four or twenty-five to me.”

“Twenty-four Earth years, right?” Coby said, wagging her finger.

Piper blinked.

“What makes you think your years are the same as ours?” she asked with a chuckle.

“We don’t track age aside from a few milestones,” Mahala explained. “Different daemon castes age at different rates so it would be foolish to compare the number of seasons we’ve each been alive.”

“Wait … So you don’t know how old you are?”

“I know my age relative to the others. Raum is a few seasons older than me and Ash is a few seasons younger.” She shrugged. “What else do I need to know? Why do I need to assign a value to it?”

“But …” She shook her head. Her age had been an important part of her identity growing up. The idea that daemons didn’t know or care about their ages was bizarre. “But Ash told me he first tried to escape Asphodel when he was fifteen and Seiya was thirteen.”

The two women exchanged looks.

Coby lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “He must have picked an equivalent human age for simplicity. He might keep track of passing Earth years—he’s spent enough time there—but I seriously doubt he actually knows exactly how old he is in human terms.”

Piper frowned. So Ash had lied to her? Or had he just gone with a number he thought was about right to keep things simple? That conversation had happened when they’d only known each other for a handful of days.

“As Mahala said, it doesn’t matter since all the castes age differently.” Coby raised her eyebrows. “How do you know we even age at the same rate as humans?”

That got her attention. “What do you mean?”

“Well, compared to some other daemon castes, we age quickly until puberty then it slows down. I don’t know how we compare to humans. Some castes age more quickly than us, some more slowly.” She tilted her head toward the spiral of steam where the guys were soaking out of sight. “Take your incubus friend, for example.”

Piper tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “What about him?”

“Didn’t you know that incubi straight up stop aging when they hit adulthood?”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yep. Lyre could be twenty or thirty seasons—or he could be a hundred. No way to know.”

“A hundred?” she gasped. “Wait, how long is a season?”

Coby pursed her lips. “In Earth terms? I really don’t know. A hundred is probably a bit of a stretch though.”

“I don’t think incubi are a long-lived caste,” Mahala murmured. “Besides, daemons that old have a feeling about them … like Samael does.”

A little shiver ran up Piper’s spine. “Samael?”

“Yes. He’s much older than any of us. Three or four times my age, at least.”

“He is?” she whispered faintly. No wonder the Hades warlord was so terrifying.

“And I believe he is quite young still for his family line. His grandfather was the Hades Warlord who wiped out the Taroth family and first enslaved draconians. Our family’s destruction is recent history to Samael, not ancient.”

“I … That’s just …”

“So, you see,” Mahala said serenely, “age as a number is meaningless to us. We place value on the strengths of the daemon: experience, knowledge, skill, power.”

Piper gave a slow nod. “If reapers live for so long, how long do draconians live?”

Coby’s face fell and she didn’t answer.

“Not all reapers live as long as the Hades family line,” Mahala clarified. “There is a lot of variation among bloodlines. As for draconians … we honestly don’t know. Samael doesn’t allow us to reach the end of our natural lifespans.”

“Oh …” Piper looked down as she stretched her leg out and poked her toes out of the water, the air chilling her wet skin.

She’d always sort of wondered how Ash had built such an impressive, infamous reputation in only a few years, but maybe he wasn’t just a couple years older than her like she’d always assumed. What if draconians lived hundreds of years like reapers? Would Ash live for two or three centuries? If they stayed together, would she age while he stayed young looking for her entire lifetime? She closed her eyes. It didn’t matter. One night, one month, one year. She’d already decided she would take whatever time with him she could get. If it didn’t bother him, and she was sure he must have already considered the issue, then she wouldn’t let it bother her either … at least not yet.

“I’m kind of envious of incubi,” Coby murmured, tilting her head back as though basking in the steam. “To stop aging when you’re young and beautiful? A pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.”

“We hardly plunge toward wrinkled old age,” Mahala replied dryly. “I wouldn’t want to look as young as him forever. No one takes you seriously when you look too young.”

“He just needs a few scars,” Coby said flippantly. “Scars make a man look more respectable. Just look at Raum and Ash.”

Piper pulled a face. “Scars only tell you how good a guy is at getting into fights. I hope Ash doesn’t feel like he has to catch up to Raum or something. I like his face the way it is.”

Coby snorted a laugh. “I don’t think they’re competing directly. Besides, Ash is doing just fine collecting scars. I saw his newest one. If that doesn’t earn a man some respect, I don’t know what will.”

Despite the scalding water, Piper’s blood chilled. “What newest one?”

“From his last battle, right before you all joined us here.” Coby waved a finger at her. “Weren’t you there? You were pretty beat up yourself. Maybe you missed it.”

“Ash was wounded in the abdomen,” Mahala said, “though I don’t recall if anyone mentioned how he received the injury.”

“But wounds healed with magic barely leave scars at all,” Piper whispered.

“Only when the healing is performed slowly and carefully,” Mahala told her, her voice gentling. “Wounds healed on the battlefield must be closed quickly. Scarring is inevitable.”

“Otherwise Raum’s face would look a lot prettier,” Coby added with a chuckle.

Piper couldn’t quite manage to take a deep breath. She had wounded Ash while she was crazy with the Sahar’s power. He had a scar from an injury she had given him?

Without thinking, she pushed roughly to her feet and grabbed the edge of the pool.

“Piper?” Coby exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

She heaved herself out, water cascading off her body. Cold air hit her wet skin but she hardly noticed. Heedless of the rough, slippery rock under her feet, she clambered over boulders and past the small waterfall toward the plume of steam Coby had pointed out earlier. As she rushed to the spot, five silhouettes took form among the steam in the second pool.

“Ash!”

The indistinct shadows of the males twisted toward her in surprise. She dashed into the steam, realized at the last second that the edge of the pool was right in front of her, and managed to jump in instead of fall. She landed with a splash and spun, scarcely registering the others, until her eyes found Ash.

He sat in the pool, the water up to his collarbones. The shock on his face looked almost silly next to the menacing horns on either side of his head. “Piper, what—”

“Stand up,” she ordered.

“What—”

“Get up!”

With a bewildered sideways glance at Lyre, he stood. Water rushed down his chest in glistening rivulets and at any other time she would have been entranced by the sight of him—toned muscles sheathed in warm skin that looked utterly silky in the muted sunlight. But instead, her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the ugly, jagged line of white that slashed across his abs just below his ribcage, rending the smooth flow of skin. She stared at the scar, frozen with horror. She had done that. She had done that to him.

He saw the direction of her gaze and his brow furrowed worriedly. “Piper—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said hoarsely.

“It’s not a—”

“Don’t tell me it’s not a big deal!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I did that to you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Piper—” Lyre began, rising as well and reaching toward her as though to calm her down.

She stepped away from his hand. “And you! You hid this from me too!”

“Piper,” Ash said, “I’m fine. It’s just a scar—”

“That I gave you.” She looked between them, disbelief competing with her horror. Didn’t they get it? Didn’t they understand why she was upset? She had permanently damaged his body. She’d disfigured him with her attack, her magic. Somehow, the reality of what she’d done, what she’d tried to do, hadn’t sunk in until now—until she’d seen the proof of the injury she’d given him.

Her eyes were pulled back to the scar, a white line almost as thick as her finger that spanned nearly the width of his stomach, interrupting that expanse of perfect abs she’d so frequently admired whenever he was shirtless. She had done that and she didn’t even remember.

Ash looked past her then back to her face. “Piper, can we talk about this later?”

She looked over her shoulder. Raum was reclining in the water, one arm propped on the edge of the spring pool, his face inscrutable—but Kiev and Sivan were staring at her, mouths hanging open. For a moment, she thought they were shocked that she was responsible for Ash’s injury. Then she realized they probably hadn’t taken in a word she’d said, seeing as she was giving the two teenaged boys a fantastic up-close view of her near nakedness.

Her cheeks flushed. She jerked away from Ash and Lyre and hauled herself out of the pool. Without a word, she strode away, but not in the direction of the other women. She walked into the spiraling steam, letting the others disappear in the mist. Her embarrassment from strutting around mostly naked in front of all the guys quickly faded as she pictured Ash’s new scar.

What was the matter with her that she would still be longing for the Sahar after what she’d done? She had almost killed Ash and had left lasting damage to his body. She would never touch the Sahar again. She couldn’t risk a repeat episode, couldn’t risk that she would hurt him like that again—or succeed in killing him.

The steam hovered all around her, warm despite the occasional touch of a cold breeze. She wound between boulders and small, bubbling springs as she meandered up the slope. Pressing two fingers to the spot on her arm where she’d carried the Sahar, she swallowed hard. Seeing Ash’s injury could convince her that the Sahar was too deadly for her to wield, but Lyre’s report of all the people she’d killed in her grief-fueled rage hadn’t been enough?

She trudged upward, wanting to leave all reminders of the others behind in the clouds of steam. Sorrow rose inside her yet again, a suffocating weight in her chest that squeezed her lungs. Maybe her mother would have had advice to offer her. If nothing else, her mother would have held her and comforted her. Her relationship with Mona had been tangled and painful, torn and damaged by lies and betrayals—not all of them Mona’s fault—but at its heart, there had always been love.

Roughly scrubbing the tears off her face, Piper paused on the steps. She blinked and looked down.

Steps?

Crouching, she touched the steam-dampened rock, clearly shaped like crude stairs. A path of steps curved downhill—crumbling and littered with debris but unmistakably a man-made path. Ash and Raum had been searching for any signs of habitation here, recent or ancient. Did they know about this?

Excitement warred with unease and she briefly considered calling for Ash, but no. First she should make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. Glancing once more in the direction of the others, she started up the steps, moving slowly. The stairs rose gradually up the slope, the hot springs increasing in frequency until the path led her through a maze of bubbling holes. Steam surrounded her, whiting out the mountainside, and all she could hear was bubbling water.

The path rounded a bend and a dark shape took form in the mist. She found herself standing in the entrance of a stone gazebo. Eyes wide, she stepped into the center of the round space, carved benches on either side decorated with faded geometric designs. An arched opening on the other side beckoned.

She stopped beneath the arch, its posts slotted for a torch or light to be attached. Just outside the gazebo, a small, perfectly round pool steamed in the still air. Beyond it, a valley stretched, mountains bathed in soft light rearing toward the cloudy sky. The view was breathtaking.

With one finger, she traced the weathered geometric design carved into the post beside her. She recognized the designs; she’d seen them in Natania’s memories of the draconians’ ancient home. They must have built the gazebo and hot spring hundreds of years ago.

After three weeks in the mountains, she’d finally discovered signs of Ash’s ancestors. She’d thought she would have been more excited, but instead, lonely sorrow pierced her, sad regret that the people who had created this beautiful, peaceful retreat had been destroyed because of greed, ambition, and power.

Chapter Four

With a soft chirp and the flutter of wings, Zwi landed on the gazebo railing beside Piper. She chittered in reprimand.

“Hi Zwi,” Piper murmured, dropping her hand from the carved design.

If Zwi had come to find her, then Ash probably wasn’t far behind. What would he think of this place? The breeze whispered through the gazebo, chilly on her bare skin. Since he was already on the way, she might as well wait. Stepping out of the gazebo and onto the steps, she dipped a toe in and discovered perfectly hot water. With a little shrug, she descended into the pool. The steps continued underwater to the bottom, polished smooth by the long-ago craftsmen.

With quiet wonder, she waded to the far side and discovered a submerged seat carved into the rock. Sitting, she folded her arms on the ledge and rested her chin on them, staring at the fantastical vista before her. She was probably the first haemon to ever see this place, and likely the last.

As her eyes travelled over the majestic lines of the mountain peaks, her attention caught on a distant summit, little more than a shadow against the cloudy sky. Its shape was strange, somehow unnatural. A twinge of familiarity whispered through her.

Still perched on the railing, Zwi grumbled in annoyance, then took off, disappearing into the steam as she headed back down the slope. Piper blinked after her. A moment later, soft sounds of movement reached her and she looked back toward the adjacent gazebo.

Ash appeared from the mist, her blanket draped over his shoulder and his eyes roving over the gazebo. He’d donned his pants, and she belatedly realized she had no idea what he’d been wearing—or not wearing—when she’d confronted him in the spring. He had to have been wearing something though. She was sure she would have noticed otherwise.

As his gaze locked on her, her breath caught. He looked through her, into her, down to her soul with one glance. Her heart beat faster.

The view beyond her drew his attention away. The shadows inside the gazebo embraced him, absorbing his wings and tail so they almost seemed like shadows too. Her eyes darted to his new scar and she bit her lip. He dropped the blanket over the railing and stepped into the pool, heedless of his pants.

“Ash,” she began, trying not to look at the scar as horror reignited inside her. “I know you don’t think—”

Without a word, he crossed the pool to her. Then his fingers were under her chin, tilting her head up, and his mouth was on hers.

Heat rushed through her and she thought she might melt from the inside out. Her arms snapped around his neck as she crushed her mouth to his. Her intended words were instantly forgotten. Since she’d woken up in the Underworld, they hadn’t had a truly private moment together—until now.

One hand still holding her chin, trapping her mouth against his so tightly she could barely breathe, he slid his other hand around her waist and scooped her into his chest. She gasped against his lips. He pulled her up, then turned and sat on the bench. She straddled his legs, their kiss unbroken, and pressed her hands to his chest, sliding them over the dips and curves of his muscles and the smooth scales that edged his stomach. Memories of the last time she’d touched him like that came rushing back, her stomach doing summersaults of desire.

Then she slid her hands lower and found the unfamiliar ridge of the new scar.

She froze. His eyes—black as the night, hungry and hot—lifted to her face. She hesitated, aching with need for him, but aching even more from what she’d done to him. Her hands were still pressed against the scar, a reminder she couldn’t ignore.

His fingers brushed gently across her cheek. “I would have endured far worse to save you.”

“Not to save me,” she corrected in a near whisper. “To stop me.”

He shook his head. “No. You were in the grip of something evil. All I wanted to do was save you from it.” A shadow passed through his eyes, a ghostly remnant of fear. “I wasn’t sure if you were still in there, or if you’d been lost entirely to the Sahar.”

“But you still had to stop me,” she mumbled, “or I might have gone on to kill everyone in the city.”

That shadow slid through his eyes again and he looked away from her. “If the only way to stop you had been to take your life with my own hands … I would have let you kill them all.”

She gasped. “But Ash, what’s my life compared to an entire city of innocent people?”

He shrugged, gazing across the pool to avoid her eyes.

He would have stood back and watched her slaughter thousands? But … maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. His honor was important to him, but his absolute, unbending loyalty trumped all else, a loyalty that belonged only to a small, select number of people: as far as she knew, just her, Seiya, and Lyre. That loyalty was the reason he’d been willing to leave the other draconians behind to save Seiya, even though saving them all was the more honorable goal. Loyalty over honor.

It amazed her that she, somehow, had earned his steadfast loyalty.

Pulling her hand from the water, she touched his jaw, turning his eyes back to hers. Slowly, she traced the scales across the top of one cheekbone and down to the design in the hollow of his cheek. Leaning down, she brushed her lips over his. His arms slid around her. Closing her eyes, she kissed him again, tasting him, losing herself in him.

When they were together, forgetting everything else was so easy—where they were, the dangers, their responsibilities. She wished they lived in a world where they could run away together and leave it all behind, but as much as it was a pleasant fantasy, neither of them would be willing to do that. Ash had left the draconians behind once already and he was determined to make up for what he saw as a past sin—or maybe what Raum considered to be Ash’s past sin. And she wasn’t ready to abandon her father and uncle, the only family she had left, along with the Consulates and Earth to whatever the Hades and Ra families were planning next.

But for now, all she cared about was Ash’s arms around her and his mouth on hers.

A shriek erupted somewhere above them. Piper jumped, half pulling free from Ash as he twisted to look behind them. Another shriek: the call of the hunting birds she’d heard earlier—only much closer. She craned her neck but couldn’t see anything through the steam.

Ash stood, pulling her up with him. “We should head back down.”

Disappointment squeezed her; she didn’t want their time alone to end so soon. “Because of a bird?”

“Because of a very big bird. And I doubt it’s just one.”

He pulled her toward the gazebo.

“Wait, one more thing.” She tilted her head. “How long is an Underworld season?”

He raised his eyebrows at the random new subject. “It’s similar to an Earth year. We have a long warm season and an equally long cold season.”

“Oh. And how many seasons old are you?”

Amusement touched his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I was talking with Coby and Mahala and it came up.”

“And did they tell you that daemons don’t record or celebrate birthdays?”

“Well … yes, but …” She looked into those gray eyes that could see right down to her soul and realized it didn’t matter. Mahala was right. Age was a number that only mattered to humans. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

He smiled briefly and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her close. Before he could speak, another hunting cry pierced her eardrums.

“Um,” she said, “maybe we should go now.”

They hurried up the steps and into the gazebo. The cold breeze sliced over her wet skin as they rushed out the other side and onto the winding stairs going down the slope.

“The blanket!” She stopped, detaching from his arm. “We forgot it. I’ll grab it.”

His eyes flashed toward the sky and his wings twitched with tension. “Hurry.”

She trotted back up to the gazebo, annoyed by the steam obscuring her path. Darting across the gazebo floor, she yanked the blanket off the railing; they didn’t have enough supplies that they could abandon perfectly good blankets for no reason. As she swung the blanket around herself like a towel and turned to leave, a small flash of motion caught her eye. She looked back at the pool with the vista of mountains beyond it. Something dark was floating atop the water. Glancing at the empty sky, she hopped down two steps into knee-deep water for a closer look.

It was a black feather. A huge black feather as long as her arm and twice as thick. Holy crap, Ash hadn’t been kidding about big birds. Her skin prickled with fear and she spun around, intending to duck back into the shelter of the gazebo.

In a rush of massive wings, something grabbed her and wrenched her into the air.

The world spun and the steam of the springs swirled crazily as the bird launched back into the sky, Piper trapped in its grasp. The blanket around her had tangled up the deadly, curved talons, saving her from what might have been instant death. Her eyes flashed over the humungous raptor with its hooked beak the size of her head, massive feathered wings, and a long snake-like tail with feathers fanning out on each side.

The wind whipped at her. The mountainside was already a deadly fall away. Holy shit.

“Ash!” she screamed.

The raptor shrieked, seemingly irritated to realize she was still alive and being noisy. Its talons clenched around her, digging into her body through the blanket.

“Ow!” she yelled, frantically wiggling her arm out of the blanket straightjacket. She raised her freed hand, ready to cast a nice blast of magic into the bird’s face. Looking around, she strained to spot Ash.

A whistle cut through the air. Halfway between her and the rocky slope, Ash flew after her, his wings beating hard to catch up to the bird. Close enough.

She summoned her magic, the sucking sensation in her head warning her that she was running low on power. Ignoring it, she drew her hand back and hurled the swirling blue and purple fire into the bird’s beak.

It shrieked in pain—but didn’t drop her.

“Goddamn it, bird!” she snarled. She didn’t have much magic to work with here! Fear pounded in her head. She lifted her hand and pictured a band of interwoven blue and purple light—a spell she’d first used while shaded and had since practiced with limited success. Desperate measures.

She slashed her hand through the air and the ribbon of magic snapped out in a perfect arc, slicing across the bird’s legs and underbelly. Hot blood sprayed in her face. The raptor’s cry of agony nearly burst her eardrums, and then she was falling.

The blanket fluttered away while she plummeted at top speed. Enraged raptor cries erupted all around them, filling the sky with noise.

A whoosh of wings, and hands snatched her from her free fall. She clamped her arms around Ash’s neck, looking over his shoulder. In a flurry of black feathers, the rest of the raptor flock swept over the nearest mountain and dove with murderous intent for her and Ash.

“They’re coming!” she cried.

He folded his wings. They plunged downward, gaining speed by the second. His wings opened again and they banked sharp and fast, zooming past a rocky outcrop and out over the valley beyond—away from the hot springs. Confusion cut through her fear as the furious flock sped after him, the thunder of their wings as loud as a storm. Then she realized he was leading them away from the others. She imagined that raging mass of beaks and talons descending on the spring with the helpless women and children and fully agreed with his decision.

Thankfully, the birds followed them away from the springs, focused on revenge.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked urgently, raising her voice over the wind.

“Nope,” he replied tersely, wings beating rapidly.

She looked back over his shoulder. “Um. They’re gaining on us.”

The giant birds were indeed gaining on them—fast. The gap was closing at an alarming rate. Ash was flying hard, but they were in open sky where the raptors’ greater wingspan was to their advantage. The birds rose higher, gaining altitude as they closed the distance.

“Here they come!” she yelled in warning.

The nearest raptor, its tail trailing behind it like a feathered banner, let out a furious shriek and dove for Ash’s back. His arms clamped tight around her and he banked, shooting off to the side as the bird plunged past them. The rest of the flock attacked. He spun through the air, twisting and whirling to avoid the flashing talons and snapping beaks. Piper couldn’t so much as breathe as they barrel-rolled through the air a thousand feet above the ground, black feathers and glaring red raptor eyes everywhere.

Ash dodged another bird and spun to the left, and then his luck ran out. Two birds slammed into them simultaneously. The force of the collision tore her out of Ash’s grip. She fell, spinning out of control.

Panic ripped through her, followed by a wave of calm as her thoughts cleared. Tingles rushed over her as she took on her daemon form, strength filling her body.

Talons grabbed her arm, the tips piercing her flesh. Her fall stopped abruptly, distant pain tearing through her as she swung by one arm from the bird’s grip. Her eyes flashed across the bird to the sky above. Ash, a sword in each hand and wings beating the air, slashed at a raptor, ripping it open from gizzard to tail. Then the flock closed in and he vanished in the swarm of black feathers.

Fury rose through her—a vicious possessiveness. How dare those birds attack him. He was hers.

Reaching up, she grabbed the bird’s legs and ripped her claws through its skin. It screamed and released her—but she didn’t release it. Clinging to its leg, she swung herself up and grabbed a handful of feathers. With a mighty heave, she pulled herself onto its back.

The bird freaked out. Shrieking in terror and writhing madly, it spun and ducked and twisted in the air to dislodge her. She clung onto it, clawed fingers and toes dug into its feathers.

A deep bellow cut through the clamor of raptor cries. She twisted around to see Zwi in full dragon form zooming toward them as fast as her wings could carry her.

“Zwi!” Piper yelled.

The dragon spotted her and altered her trajectory, rushing toward her and her raptor. As soon as the dragon was near enough, she leaped from the bird’s back and flicked a hand out behind her. A slicing ribbon of magic cut through the bird as Piper landed on Zwi’s back.

Zwi arched around on spread wings toward the cluster of flapping wings, where Ash was fighting off the flock. Zwi roared as she charged straight into them, teeth flashing and front talons ripping at black feathers indiscriminately. Piper flung out her hand again, a band of magic severing the two nearest feathered wings.

Where was Ash? She couldn’t see him. She needed to see him.

Zwi suddenly disengaged, back-winging away from the flock. Then she tucked her wings and dove away from the raptors, leaving Ash somewhere in their midst.

Light glowed from within the center of the flock. With a silent detonation, black power exploded outward, blasting through the raptors. Feathers flew in every direction. The remains of the birds rained down toward the distant ground.

Zwi leveled out, gliding on outspread wings. His own wings beating with clear fatigue, Ash descended toward them and dropped onto Zwi’s back behind Piper. The dragon immediately banked toward the mountain slope. With a clatter of talons, she landed on an outcrop of rock and folded her wings.

Ash slid off the dragon and staggered with exhaustion. Piper leaped down too and grabbed his arm. She shoved him to the ground, surprising a gasp out of him.

“Piper …” he began hoarsely, struggling to catch his breath. He moved to stand but she roughly pushed him down again. Methodically, she examined his body for injuries. His bare arms and chest bore shallow scratches from raptor talons, but none were deep. She checked his legs, his wings, even his tail for damage.

“I’m fine, Piper,” he said, a note of caution in his voice. “You can relax now.”

She sat on her heels in front of him, eyes narrowed. “Did you kill them all?”

“I think so.” He hesitated. “Why?”

“They attacked you.” She grabbed his chin, tilting his face to examine a scratch down his cheek. “They hurt you,” she growled. “They aren’t allowed to hurt you. You’re mine.”

His head turned back to her. In an instant, his eyes went from stormy gray to pitch black. “What did you say?”

“You’re mine.” The words came out layered with challenge, daring him to deny it, her shaded calm somehow mixing with anger and possessive fury. Then she grabbed his head, fingers hooked in his horns, and kissed him. Her kiss was harsh, fierce, demanding. Aggressive.

He growled against her mouth, kissing her back just as ferociously.

All of the sudden, her legs gave out and she flopped down on him. Tingles rushed over her as she slipped unintentionally back into her human form. Exhaustion followed in a crushing wave, sweeping away her possessiveness.

“Owww,” she groaned.

She looked at her arm, surprised to see the deep gashes above her elbow and streaks of blood across her skin. Ash propped her up as her limbs trembled and fatigue gripped her entire body.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I—I think I overdid it a little,” she replied breathlessly. Her head spun. “Maybe a lot.”

He gazed down at her with dark eyes, analyzing her as if she were a strange specimen in a zoo.

“What?” she grumbled, feeling a blush coming on. “I get a little weird when I shade, okay?”

His lips curved and he leaned down, brushing his mouth over hers. “No complaints here. We should get back before they come looking for us.”

Wrapping his arm around her, he pulled her to her feet. She leaned on him hard, her shaking legs barely supporting her weight. Spending all night in her daemon glamour had sucked her magic almost dry. Returning to her daemon glamour and using even more magic to fight the raptors had depleted her reserves and exhausted her body. The next few days while she recovered were going to suck.

As Ash led her over to Zwi, she glanced around at the empty sky. “Speaking of the others, why didn’t anyone come to help? I don’t see how they could have missed the commotion.”

“I had Zwi make sure Raum got the others to safety first.” He glanced in the direction where he’d blasted the flock to smithereens. “There were quite a few more than I initially realized, and it’s better that the others were protected. Rocs are aggressive, stubborn, and stupid. Not a good combination.”

He lifted her onto Zwi’s back, then let out a long sigh as he stretched his wings, probably steeling himself for the flight back. Piper slumped on the dragon’s back, weaving her weak fingers into Zwi’s mane and hoping she didn’t fall off.

As Ash stepped to the edge of the rocky outcropping and leaped into the air, Piper hunched lower on Zwi’s back. The dragon sprang off the edge, spreading her wings to glide after Ash. Pressing her lips together, Piper stared at the draconian.

While she’d been shaded, the thought of anyone hurting him had filled her with rage. The quiet, fierce love she felt for him as a human had transformed into aggressive, furious possessiveness. She’d seen the same daemon reaction before when Lilith had dosed Ash and Lyre with her aphrodesia; they’d both reacted with similar possessive aggression. She was guessing her reaction was pretty typical for a daemon, and it didn’t seem to bother Ash—aside from bringing out his aggressive side as well. She was a little embarrassed about the way she’d reacted, but something else was nagging at her, chewing a little hole of anxiety in her belly.

If her reaction to Ash while shaded was to protect him, why had she tried to kill him while shaded at the Gaian facility? Had it been the Sahar’s poisonous hatred overriding her daemon instincts … or had something else been driving her to kill him?

She clenched her teeth. She wished she could remember what had happened in that fight—but if she remembered the fight, then she would also remember all the people she’d killed, and she’d probably never sleep again.

Chapter Five

Sleep didn’t do as much to restore her strength as she would have liked. Even after waking, she was forced to stay in her weak human form. When they set out again, the strange, gloomy twilight had settled over the land. Periskios hovered in the deep blue sky, half lit by the setting suns, the other half in darkness. When she’d first seen the planet, she’d thought it moved across the sky, but she’d soon learned it was the suns, stars, and moons that moved. Periskios never changed position, always hovering just above the mountains that formed the southern horizon.

They flew low in the valleys to stay hidden as twilight gradually—very gradually—deepened into darkness. The forests of tall, spindly, inedible trees they travelled over seemed endless, coating the slopes of the mountains, and when they landed in a sheltered hollow of the forest, she had to wonder if Raum was just saying that the terrain would soon improve merely to keep their spirits up. She hadn’t seen any signs of more hospitable land.

The suns were long gone from the sky when they went to bed, but it wasn’t dark. Though sunlight no longer touched the landscape, Periskios received the full light of the unseen suns. The planet glowed in the sky, its surface covered with swirling white and gold clouds, slowly waxing like the giant moon it so resembled. When the long night reached its halfway point, Periskios would act like a full moon, casting silvery light across the mountains.

As she lay wrapped in a blanket in a tiny tent with Seiya sleeping on one side and Raisa on the other, sleep tugged at her eyelids but she couldn’t manage to drift off. Ash was out scouting, forfeiting his rest yet again. A quarter cycle of travel more, Raum had promised as they ate another meal of bland soup, then they could set up a more permanent camp.

Her thoughts returned to the carved gazebo and pool. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Ash she was pretty certain it had seen the touch of draconian hands. The delay was mainly because telling him would involve explaining how she was so certain it was draconian architecture.

She’d never spoken to anyone about her shared dreams with Natania. The soul that lived in the Sahar was dangerous and insane, but she’d helped Piper more than once. As uncomfortable as the dreams were, she wished she could talk to Natania again and ask about the springs; if Natania had visited them in her past life, she could potentially offer insights into the area. Or maybe she would just taunt Piper and be supremely unhelpful. Their conversations could go either way.

She also wouldn’t mind the opportunity to ask Natania about what had happened in the Gaian facility. Had Piper gone insane because of shading? Or had her insanity come from the Sahar—as Ash and Lyre believed? Or had she gone insane … because she was actually insane? What if she’d become unstable after all the terrible things she’d experienced in the past months and another berserker episode was coming? Her mother had been crazy; maybe it ran in the family.

But Natania was even crazier, not to mention manipulative, and if it had been the Sahar’s overwhelming rage that had driven Piper to murder people, Natania wasn’t likely to be forthcoming about it.

She sighed in the darkness of the tent and smoothed her hair away from her face. A quarter cycle—about eighteen hours—of travel. Her body ached with exhaustion and her arm throbbed where the roc’s talons had cut her. Ivria had carefully healed the injury, but pain still lingered deep in the muscle and would take time to fade entirely. She would have loved another soak in those hot springs. She smiled a little to herself, picturing the smooth pool by the gazebo with its breathtaking vista of mountains.

In her mind’s eye, she saw again the strangely shaped peak in the distance at the farthest end of the valley. A sense of vague recognition trickled through her. Maybe because she had just been thinking about Natania and their shared dreams, she recalled the vision Natania had shown her of a colossal dragon carved into a summit in the center of the draconian community. That strangely shaped peak at the end of the valley … could it have been the carved dragon from a different angle? No. No way had that statue survived a war and five centuries of abandonment in the harsh mountain elements.

She squeezed her eyes shut to banish the idea. But she ended up lying awake for far too long, wondering if the ancient settlement had really been that close—or if it was just the wishful thinking of a homesick haemon who didn’t belong in this world.

Piper decided she should have a little more faith in Raum.

The mountains were still in the deep embrace of night when they resumed their travels, but building excitement permeated the long hours. The glowing face of Periskios in the dark sky revealed a transforming landscape that grew more inviting with each mile they flew.

The steep, barren peaks of the mountains softened and the valleys grew deeper and wider. Unfamiliar species of trees overtook the slopes, their bizarre, fiery red leaves adding spectacular bursts of color to the landscape even in the silvery light. As they descended into one of the smaller valleys, protected by steep cliff walls, she spotted a narrow waterfall plunging down the nearest mountain, the water disappearing into the forested valley.

Raum led the descent, gliding toward the base of the waterfall. As they neared it, a pool at the bottom was revealed, glittering in Periskios’s light, and she could hear the rush of the falls. Raum drifted across the water and landed on the far side. The others followed, and Piper let out a relieved sigh as Zwi’s feet touched down. She slid off the dragon’s back, landing on oddly cushioned ground. She poked one toe bemusedly at the carpet of low, vine-like plants with tiny green leaves and orange flowers that coated the ground as thickly as any grass on Earth. It was oddly spongy to stand on.

After catching their breaths from the flight, or stretching after dismounting their dragon rides, the others quietly explored the immediate area. Raisa and Netia ran to the edge of the water, peering into the crystalline liquid.

Piper did nothing more than stand in place, shifting her weight from foot to foot as her eyes scoured the dark sky. Periskios’s immense round face was fully lit, reflecting light that, while not as bright or warm as actual sunlight, was more than enough to see by.

Ash swooped into the clearing, landing beside Zwi. She huffed in relief and joined him as he folded his wings, breathing hard. She touched his arm, unable to do anything else for him.

“No more flying for a while, huh?” she asked with a weak smile.

He grunted. “Give me a day or two.”

“Look!” Raisa exclaimed, pointing excitedly at the water. “Fish!”

“Oh thank the Moirai,” Coby proclaimed. “Actual real food.”

With an excited giggle, Yana ran heedlessly toward the water. Raum scooped his daughter into his arms before she could reach the dangerous depths and swirling current.

“We picked this spot,” he told them, “for the access to fresh water and meat, as well as the shelter of the mountain and forest. We should be comfortable here for the next few weeks.”

“But there’s nothing here,” Jezel said flatly, eyeing the trees with distaste. The teenage girl swung her eyes back to Raum, unintimidated by his disapproving stare. “This is just a forest in the middle of nowhere. We can’t live here.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kiev snapped, sarcasm coating each word. “Let’s just fly back to Asphodel. That’s way better.”

“We can’t go anywhere else,” Shona, the second eldest woman, said sternly. “We can’t hide among another caste; they are too afraid of Hades to keep our presence a secret. This is the only option we have besides returning to slavery.”

“Unless you want to go back to Samael and start breeding some new slaves,” Coby added, pointing aggressively at her huge belly.

Jezel sneered and turned away, stalking off into the trees.

Shona let out a loud, frustrated sigh. “Kiev, follow her, would you? Let her cool down alone, but make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”

Grumbling, Kiev traipsed after his cousin. Raum and the three older sisters walked around the clearing beside the waterfall, discussing the best layout for a permanent camp. Piper inched closer to Ash, sliding her hand into his while no one was looking. His fingers curled around hers, warm and comforting even though he’d closed his eyes, practically falling asleep where he stood.

“Hey, Piper,” Lyre called.

He stood beside the pool at the base of the waterfall, Raisa and Netia beside him as he waved her over. Glancing at Ash, Piper reluctantly slipped her hand out of his and trudged over to Lyre. Ash followed wearily.

“What is it?” she asked, glancing between him and Raisa with narrowed eyes. They both had the same mischievous grins.

“Well,” Lyre drawled, nodding toward the waterfall, “we were looking at those fish down there and wondering how to catch some for dinner …”

“Oh?” Piper squinted past him. The water was so clear that the pebbly bed was perfectly visible even at the deepest point, where sleek shadows hovered peacefully, occasionally darting around with shocking speed.

“And then,” he continued, “Raisa very astutely observed that you are, in fact, a—”

“—water daemon!” Raisa blurted eagerly.

“A haemon with roots in an aquatic caste,” Lyre continued smoothly, “and that perhaps you would have some ideas on an efficient way to procure some fish.”

Piper looked at Lyre, at Raisa’s beaming face, then back at Lyre. “Are you serious?”

Lyre’s eyebrows shot up. “I was, actually. Those fish are too deep to spear from the surface and we don’t have any fishing rods. Someone is going diving.”

“And why not you!” Raisa bubbled. “We haven’t seen you swim yet, even though you have fins!”

“Fins?” she repeated blankly. In her opinion, her dairokkan didn’t look much like fins at all. “Those aren’t really for swimming. I don’t think I’ll be better at it than anyone else.”

“Why don’t you give it a try?” Ash said unexpectedly. “You were more than agile in the river in the Overworld.”

She flashed him a questioning look.

He shrugged. “Zwi saw you in action in the water.”

“Oh. Right.”

She shifted her weight uncomfortably. She might have been able to swim like she’d been born underwater while in the Overworld, but she’d never had the opportunity to explain to Ash and Lyre about the strange, ancient elemental power that ruled the rivers in the ryujin’s territory. Except for that one time, she’d always been a terrible swimmer barely capable of a doggy paddle, and she really didn’t want the entire group to watch her flounder like a drowning fledgling.

Ash, Lyre, Raisa, and Netia were watching her expectantly. She sighed, resigning herself to the coming embarrassment. Grumbling under her breath, she unbuckled her sword and passed it to Lyre, then removed her boots. As swiftly as possible, she stripped down to her undergarments—this time, draconian-style mini-shorts and chest wrap—and dumped all her clothing on the ground.

Pointedly ignoring Lyre’s crooked smile and the appreciative glint in his eyes, and not daring to look at Ash at all, she dipped her foot into the water and shivered. It was no hot spring. Gritting her teeth, she stepped in and waded up to her calves. The smooth, slimy pebbles shifted under her bare feet.

“Holy shit, this is cold,” she gasped. She glanced back pleadingly at Ash, hoping he would call her out, but he looked far too amused.

“Why don’t you try using your glamour?” he suggested.

“What? Oh right.” Heat rose in her cheeks. Duh.

Briefly closing her eyes, she called on her magic and tingles rushed over her skin. The icy touch of the water instantly muted to a pleasantly cool temperature. Opening her eyes, she steeled herself. The shallow, pebble-covered shore dropped off a couple yards out, getting very deep very quickly. At least the water was clear as glass; everyone would see her drowning.

The others would start laughing soon at her hesitancy. Time to get it over with.

Clenching her hands into fists, she took three running steps through the shallow water, sending it splashing in every direction, then dove forward as the bottom fell away. Cool water rushed over her as she went under, eyes squeezed shut.

The moment she was submerged, a switch flipped in her brain. Her eyes opened. She could see perfectly under the water. Her dairokkan flowed out behind her, sending a thousand messages per second to her brain—the flow of the current, the depth of the pool, the disturbances far below as the fish hovering at the bottom flicked their fins. No ancient presence permeated this water like in the Overworld, but she still felt more at home than she had since arriving in the Underworld.

Stretching her arms in front of her, she dove toward the bottom. Her ears popped rapidly as she descended and everything took on a strong bluish-gray tint. As the bottom grew nearer, she realized she’d misjudged its depth from the surface. It was deeper than twenty feet, though by how much, she wasn’t sure. Her senses told her how far she was from the surface in relation to the bottom, but she had no idea how to translate gut instinct into measurements.

The light dimmed more as she reached the bottom. She let out a small stream of bubbles to reduce the pressure in her lungs. Ahead, the slim, dark shape of a fish hovered just above the bottom. Goddamn it, why hadn’t she brought a weapon? She flexed her fingers. Claws it was then.

She kicked her feet and shot toward the fish. She was practically on top of it when she realized that her misjudgment of the depth of the pool meant she’d also misjudged the size of the fish. The monstrosity in front of her was almost as big as she was. She flailed in the water, recalibrating her perception of everything around her. Her senses told her all the fish were around the same size.

The beast she’d charged darted a few feet away with one flick of its tail, turning its head to eye her with one black orb. Its heavy body was dark, almost black, with bluish-silver streaks along its sides and a silver underbelly. A spiky fin on its back rose up like a warning flag. Other sleek shadows drew closer, the rest of the small school coming to investigate the intruder. Oh boy.

She assessed her surroundings, slowly exhaling more bubbles. Nervously, she swam a little closer to the first fish. It darted away another couple feet. Blowing out more air to make her body less buoyant, she pushed down to the bottom and braced her feet against a large rock. Taking aim, she launched off the rock at the fish. Grabbing it halfway up the body, she sank her claws into its scales—but she had no idea how to kill a fish. Where was its jugular? Did it even have a jugular?

The fish thrashed violently, throwing her off it. She expected it to swim off at top speed, all her efforts wasted. Instead, it spun around—and charged her. She threw up an arm as it slammed into her, driving her down into the bottom. Sharp fish teeth scraped the scales that protected her forearm.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed in a burst of bubbles.

Heart pounding, she kicked the fish hard in its underbelly. It let her go. She pulled her feet back, planted them on the bottom, and launched upward with every bit of force she could muster. She shot toward the sparkling surface, and her senses screamed at her that the entire school of fish was rushing up after her, led by the one she’d scratched up. She would reach the surface at the same time they reached her—and then they would take some very large bites out of her mostly unprotected flesh.

As she closed in on the surface, a dark shadow from near the shore flashed toward the center of the pool. She crashed through the surface, sending water spraying everywhere, and flung her hands into the air. Ash grabbed them as he swooped over her, yanking her out of the water.

Right behind him, Zwi swooped down on huge dragon wings. As the school hit the surface in a thrashing, churning mosh pit of enraged seafood, the dragon snatched one giant fish in her jaws and another with her front talons. Ash banked back toward the shore with Piper hanging from his hands by her wrists. Her audience had multiplied—pretty much everyone was standing there, watching.

Raisa, Coby, and Ivria cheered as Ash set Piper down on the shore and landed beside her. Zwi flew over their heads and dropped her catch on the ground. The two fish looked even more massive out of the water. One was dead, its head crushed by Zwi’s jaws. The other flopped violently, throwing itself in every direction, gills pumping.

“You did it!” Raisa bounced up and down, clapping her hands together. “That was awesome!”

“First you were almost bird food,” Coby said with a smirk, “and now nearly fish food. You seem determined to feed the local wildlife.”

Piper threw her hands up. “They didn’t look that big from the surface. Is everything here so oversized?”

“No, you’re just extra lucky.” Coby rubbed her hands together. “I’m starved. Let’s get camp set up so we can start cooking.”

Laughing and talking, the draconians headed back to the unpacked gear, passing many thanks and congratulations to Piper as they went. She couldn’t help her embarrassed smile, standing beside Ash in her underclothes as she dripped water everywhere. As the others moved away, Lyre came to join them.

“Um,” he said, holding her clothes in his arms with a towel folded on top, “I, uh, owe you an apology. I had no idea those fish might be dangerous.”

“Really? I assumed it was all a devious plot to get rid of me. How could you not know that those were super murder-fish, just waiting to rip me apart?”

He snorted and held out the towel.

She grinned and accepted it. “Don’t worry about it, Lyre. We might need a different strategy for next time though.”

“We’ll come up with something.”

She quickly dried off and Lyre passed over her clothes.

“Where did everyone come from?” she asked as she pulled her garments on. “Did they all run over the moment I dove in?”

Lyre glanced at Ash before answering. “They had lots of time to wander over and see what was going on. You were underwater for over ten minutes.”

She froze halfway through shoving her right foot in her boot.

“Ten minutes? No way.” She looked at Ash in disbelief.

He nodded. “At least. We didn’t know what to do. You didn’t look distressed, but …”

“But we couldn’t believe how long you were down there,” Lyre finished, his eyes alight with admiration. “That was damn impressive.”

She stared at them. “Ten minutes?”

“Yup. Are you sure you aren’t hiding gills anywhere?”

“Very sure,” she said weakly. She hadn’t noticed the strain of holding her breath. It really hadn’t felt like she’d been underwater that long.

Shaking her head, she hastily finished putting on her boots, thinking it was too bad she’d had to leave the ryujin after only a few days. There was so much she didn’t know about her caste. Their ability to communicate with the ancient elemental power in their territory, their bonds with the silver water dragons, their capabilities underwater, their mysterious telepathy—she knew almost nothing about any of it.

She, Lyre, and Ash approached the two fish Zwi had plucked from the water. Back in dragonet form, Zwi sat on top of the dead one, head high and mane fluffed proudly as she supervised the second one. It had stopped struggling and lay on its side, gills still pumping. Piper stood beside it, feeling small. It was about five feet long with a jutting jaw full of sharp teeth. She absently rubbed the scales on her forearm as she stared at those teeth.

Lyre and Ash discussed how best to fillet the fish, neither sounding particularly confident in his skills. She lost track of the conversation, her eyes sliding toward the waterfall. Glancing back at the guys, she drifted away from them and returned to the edge of the pool. The shadows of the fish had returned to their spots at the bottom. Stepping into the shallowest edge of the water and hoping her boots didn’t get too wet, she crouched down until her dairokkan touched the water.

Her mind overflowed with sensations, but still no hint of a presence or power in the water. She ran her fingers through the ripples, watching the light shimmer across the scales on the back of her hand. Maybe there was a similar elemental power in this world that she just couldn’t sense. Her dominant bloodline was Overworld. Ash had talked before about how his Underworld magic didn’t mesh with the Overworld’s inherent magic, making his presence dangerously conspicuous in that world. Maybe her Overworld magic wasn’t compatible with the elemental power here.

When Natania had first told Piper about entering the Void to unlock her daemon blood, she’d explained that Piper’s form would depend entirely on her dominant bloodline. If her dominant line was Underworld, coming out of the Void into the Overworld wouldn’t have done anything. Even though she had Underworld blood, she would never be able to unlock it. When it came down to it, she was more half-ryujin than one-quarter Underworld, meaning she would probably never feel that sense of home here that she’d felt in the Overworld.

She stood and turned. Ash and Lyre were still standing by the fish but they were watching her, waiting silently. Her gaze slid over Ash’s three horns and the dark designs that swirled elegantly wherever scale transitioned to skin. As she understood it, all the ruling families had dominant bloodlines; otherwise, they would have had to inbreed to keep their lines pure. Ash had inherited most of his genes from his father. Even though he and Seiya were born from the same mother, in reality, Ash was barely related to his half-sister.

“What’s that look for?”

Ash’s voice broke through her thoughts. She realized she’d been staring at him as though she could x-ray him with her eyes. She quickly shook her head and started toward where the other draconians were setting up the tents.

“Come on, Piper,” Lyre complained, hurrying to catch up with her, Ash trailing after him. “That was the weirdest look. What were you thinking?”

She shook her head again. Nope. She wouldn’t tell Ash that she’d been thinking about how he wasn’t related to the rest of the draconians, who were like one big family. She wasn’t that cruel.

“I don’t think she’s going to tell us,” Lyre commented to Ash.

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Hey, I think she’s blushing. Maybe we don’t actually want to know.”

“Probably not.”

“Would you two shut up?” she grumbled, quickening her stride. Of course she was blushing; it was a natural reaction to being scrutinized, but now they probably thought her mind had been in the gutter.

Lyre chuckled. She glanced back at the two guys walking side by side, Lyre grinning mischievously while Ash outwardly appeared serious but with that quiet spark of amusement in his eyes. Her heart swelled with emotion. She stopped and the two daemons halted, Lyre opening his mouth to speak. She walked up to them and threw an arm around each of their necks, pulling them forcibly into a hug.

“Piper, what—” Lyre spluttered.

“Nothing,” she said, releasing them after a firm, heartfelt squeeze. “Let’s go help with the set up.”

Ash and Lyre blinked at her. Looked at each other. Looked back at her.

She smiled at them and walked away again. Behind her, she heard Lyre’s exasperated mutter.

“We incubi might claim to understand them,” he grumbled to Ash, “but no male can actually comprehend how a woman’s mind works.”

“It’s safer to not even try.”

Piper snorted and hurried to join the draconian women, leaving the guys to their philosophizing.

Chapter Six

Satisfaction added a little extra flavor to her dinner. Piper popped another bite of fried fish into her mouth, relishing the taste after so many weeks of dried rations and bland soups. Hunting dinner herself really added to the experience of eating it, especially since her dinner had tried to take a bite of her first.

She sat on a log with Ash on one side and Lyre on the other, both holding empty bowls, meals devoured. The rest of the group sat around the fire on logs they’d dragged out of the forest. Nestled against the steep, rocky cliff beside the waterfall, their tents waited for them. After some sleep, they would start constructing a wooden shelter. Periskios was waning again, meaning the long night was half over, but many hours of darkness still awaited them.

Piper’s gaze idly wandered from face to face as she finished her meal. Coby, Ivria, and Shona chatted cheerfully. Denna coaxed Yana and Netia, the two youngest children, to eat the unfamiliar fish while Mahala contemplated the fire. Seiya talked quietly with Raum, Kiev sitting nearby, listening. Sivan, Jezel, and Raisa played some kind of dice game in the light of the fire.

She hoped the draconians’ journey was almost over. Even this little valley would make a lovely home, assuming it could support them, while Raum and Ash kept searching for an ideal location. And maybe, just maybe, they would find another tribe of draconians living in these mountains. How wonderful would it be for them to join another group of their own caste and reconnect with their people and culture?

Beside her, Ash stared tiredly into the fire, his head bobbing occasionally as he nodded off only to catch himself. She would have badgered him to just go to one of the tents and sleep but she knew his pride wouldn’t allow him to retire first. He would wait until, at the very least, the children were sent to their beds.

On her other side, Lyre hunched over a small green gem, turning it slowly in his hands. Little sparks of magic danced around his fingers as he worked on whatever spell he was weaving. He spent most of their downtime working on spells. She suspected it was a usual pastime of his that he’d kept hidden from her before now.

She watched him spin the stone again and asked softly, “What are you making?”

He glanced up and flashed her a smile. “Nothing interesting.”

She gave him a hard look. “I doubt that. Why the secrecy?”

He pursed his lips and looked at the gem. “Not secrecy. Just …”

“Just what?”

“Well, I should probably be making defensive spells or something useful, which this isn’t. It’s just a bit of illusion magic that I was making as a trinket for … Seiya.”

Piper’s eyebrows rose and Ash’s head came up, turning toward Lyre.

He gave a little shrug. “Her spirits have been kind of low lately with how long it’s taking her wing to heal. I thought it might cheer her up.”

“That’s sweet,” Piper said hesitantly, not entirely sure how to respond. Wasn’t a custom-spelled gift kind of … romantic? “What’s the illusion of?”

“I’ll show you if I can actually get it to work.”

Ash leaned around her to give Lyre a hard look. “It’s not your fault.”

Piper blinked, confused. Lyre’s eyes dropped from Ash to the gem in his hands, his mouth twisting.

“You got her out of there,” Ash continued. “Don’t beat yourself up about her injuries. You stayed behind so she could escape. Neither she nor I could have asked for more.”

Lyre sighed, the sound full of regret. Sympathy welled in Piper. So that was it. His spell wasn’t a romantic gesture, but an apology that he hadn’t prevented the debilitating injury to Seiya’s wing in their escape from the Ra embassy.

“Yeah!” Raisa exclaimed, her voice cutting through all the quiet conversations. “I rolled a dragon king! You lose.”

Jezel irritably threw her dice down, scowling.

“A dragon king?” Piper repeated.

Coby glanced at her as she stretched her legs out. “Triple nines, the highest roll. Automatic win. It’s the same dice game most kids play, but we came up with more draconian names for different rolls.”

“I’ve never rolled a dragon king before,” Raisa gushed while Jezel rolled her eyes. “So cool!”

“You wouldn’t be so excited if the roll summoned the actual dragon king,” Shona teased her.

Raisa’s eyes widened. “Yes I would! That would be the coolest thing ever.”

“It’s just a myth,” Jezel said flatly.

Scowling, Raisa tossed her dice on the ground in front of Jezel. “I think it’s true. You can’t prove he doesn’t exist.”

“And you can’t prove he does,” the older girl snapped. “It’s just a stupid legend.”

“What is the dragon king?” Lyre cut in before the girls could get into an argument.

“Well,” Coby said, “it depends which story you’re talking about. The dragon king is supposedly the all-powerful, magical dragon who created the draconian people. In other stories, it’s another name for the great dragons—the really big ones.”

“Really big dragons?” Piper asked curiously.

“Yes, we have many stories of them,” Coby said. “Whether the great dragons are actually real or just a myth is up for debate.”

“Oh, tell her the story of the dragon king!” Raisa said. “I bet she hasn’t heard it.”

“It’s a draconian story.” Jezel jerked her chin toward Piper. “She’s not a draconian.”

“It’s just a story,” Coby said firmly.

“But—”

Shona clapped her hands once, silencing all talk. Even Raum looked over. Yana wobbled over to Ivria, her mother, and climbed into her lap, clutching her stuffed dragonet toy. Shona straightened, her serene aura of authority claiming everyone’s attention.

“At the beginning of time,” she began, her words taking on a slow, melodic rhythm, “the worlds were ruled by two great dragons. The black dragon was the Lord of Skies, and his sister, the silver dragon, was the Lady of Seas. They danced through the endless skies and waters of all the worlds, enamored with the beauty of each land. When one world tired them, they would dive through the fabric of the universe itself to a new world to explore, leaving trails of their magic across the lands.”

“She means the ley lines,” Raisa whispered to Piper, apparently concerned she wouldn’t make the connection herself.

“As the worlds spun and the universe aged,” Shona continued solemnly, “the great dragons tired of their explorations. They’d left so much magic behind upon the worlds they’d visited, and they were weary. One day, the Lord of Skies bid his dear sister a final farewell. He returned to his favorite world, a land where tiny dragon cousins had once soared through the clouds with him. There, he chose the majestic mountains for his resting place.

“He lay upon the earth and closed his eyes for the longest slumber—a sleep he did not expect to wake from. But as he prepared for his slumber, he felt the magic still flowing through him and thought of the great waste of allowing it to fade with him. So in a final act, he called the tiny dragons to him and invited the boldest and bravest to step forward. Those few he imbued with his power. The dragonets evolved in the forges of the king’s power into draconians.

“Each newly born draconian bore a flame of the king’s black fire within him, and the king bid the draconians to share their gifts with their dragonet brothers and sisters. To the strongest of the new draconians, the one who contained the greatest flame and greatest power, the king said, ‘You who bear the heart flame of my magic, I call on you to protect and nurture the fires of your kin. Be their shield, their taroth, and protect them until the day I awaken once again.’ And then the king’s eyes closed and he slept the silent slumber of the deepest night.

“The draconian who bore the king’s heart flame then took Taroth as his name, so never would he or his descendants forget that they were the shields of their people, the guardians of draconians and dragonets. He led them from the king’s sleeping place and out into the world where they too soared through the clouds, their chosen dragonet companions beside them, with whom they could share their flame and imbue the dragonets with a touch of the dragon king’s spirit.”

“And his size,” Raisa explained to Piper in a whisper, “so they can get bigger.”

Shona cleared her throat. “And the draconians flew through the skies of their world, each generation led by, and protected by, a Taroth who carried the king’s heart flame within him. Some say the king slipped into the deep, forever sleep of death. Others say he slumbers beneath the earth even now, recovering his strength and spirit until the distant future dawn when he will call the Taroth back to him and reclaim his heart flame so he may once again soar across the skies of a thousand worlds with his silver sister of the seas.”

Her final words rang through the clearing. The quiet night pressed down on the group as they all contemplated the story, their thoughts private and unspoken.

“Ash?”

The small, sweet voice barely penetrated the silence. Piper looked around in bewilderment, having no clue whom the voice belonged to. Everyone was staring at Netia, the second youngest girl, sitting beside Denna with her hands clasped in her lap as she looked intently at Ash.

“Yes, Netia?” he replied bemusedly.

Netia’s gaze became even more intent. “Why haven’t you had a baby?”

Piper’s mouth fell open. Coby choked on a stifled snort.

“A baby?” Ash repeated, sounding remarkably composed.

“You need to have a baby,” Netia said seriously. “Like Raum had Yana. You need to have a Taroth baby. If you die, the dragon king can’t get his heart flame back when he wakes up.”

“The dragon king’s heart flame is very precious,” Ash responded gravely. “I will protect it carefully until I can give it to the next Taroth.”

“Don’t die first.”

“I will do my best.”

The little girl gave a satisfied nod and leaned her head on Denna’s arm. Denna patted the child’s head, her face contorted with the effort not to laugh.

Coby let out a loud exhale as though expelling all the laughter she’d suppressed. “Nice retelling, Shona. Though the bit about the ley lines always makes me snort. Our legends are rather pretentious, aren’t they?”

“Just a bit,” the older woman replied with a smile. “That’s my favorite version. I’m less fond of the versions where the dragon king will eventually awaken and take all his magic back from all draconians, destroying us, or the one where he rises again to rule us as our immortal god.”

“Or everyone’s least favorite,” Coby said, “the one where the draconians actually stole the dragon king’s magic and on the darkest nights of each year, he hunts the skies for draconians from whom he can rip the magic out.”

“I like Shona’s version the best too,” Piper said dryly.

Raisa got up, leaving Jezel and Sivan to play dice, and sat beside the older women. “Shona, you should tell the story of Diza the Dragonet.”

Shona smiled and began a story about a mischievous dragonet who got lost in a dangerous forest. As Piper listened to the tale with a smile, Ash rose, slipping away from the firelight. She looked over as he headed away from the camp. Giving Lyre a questioning look, she got up and followed him into the surrounding trees.

She trotted a few steps to catch up before he vanished into the darkness.

“Hey,” she murmured. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he replied, his voice equally quiet. “Just needed some space.”

“Oh.” Her steps slowed. “Do you want me to leave?”

He reached back and grabbed her hand, pulling her after him. Her heart fluttered a little. She matched his stride as they wandered into the trees. She let the silence envelop them, content to keep him company.

The forest was quiet, the leafy ground absorbing their footsteps. The trees had narrow trunks and rose high above their heads before sprouting narrow canopies of red leaves, the scarlet washed out by the silvery light reflecting off Periskios. Pale light spotted the forest floor, illuminating dangling strands of white vines that hung from the branches of the trees overhead. Since Ash hadn’t warned her about anything, she assumed none of the plant life here would try to eat her, unlike in the Overworld.

She watched him out of the corner of her eyes as they meandered among the trees, their hands entwined. Netia’s question repeated in her head. The others had found it hilarious—mostly because it was so inappropriate—but Ash hadn’t looked amused. Piper wasn’t sure if he’d just been humoring the child, but she didn’t think it was funny either.

A dominant daemon bloodline like the Taroths’ would pass from father to son with minimal dilution, but she hadn’t thought about what that meant for the bloodline’s continuation. Maybe she’d subconsciously blocked out thoughts about it. If Ash was the last Taroth, the only way the line could continue was if he fathered children. Even as the very last Taroth, he could singlehandedly restore his family’s line—one of the reasons he was so dangerous to Hades.

If Ash didn’t reproduce, the family line and name would die with him. The responsibility for continuing the bloodline of the draconians’ ruling family rested solely on his shoulders. And if he were going to produce a Taroth offspring, it would be with a draconian woman.

Painful jealousy stabbed her but she shoved it down. One day at a time with him—that’s what she’d decided. She’d take whatever time with him she could get, and if someday he had to leave her to go make Taroth babies, then so be it.

“What did you think of the story?” Ash asked abruptly, his deep voice rumbling through her bones like part of the night. “About the dragon king?”

Unsure what kind of answer he was looking for, she said, “It’s quite the tale. Most cultures have a myth or two about their origins or their creator. What I found most surprising was the apparent reference to the Overworld water dragons.”

He stopped. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“The silver dragon, Lady of Seas,” she mused. “In a way, the water dragons are to the ryujin what the dragonets are to the draconians, though I don’t know what kind of bond the ryujin have with their dragons. It’s pretty crazy that a draconian legend would mention them though, huh?”

“Yeah …” He gave his head a little shake. The silvery glow of Periskios highlighted one cheekbone as he looked at her, the other side of his face in shadow. “I never liked the dragon king story.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a romantic pseudo-explanation for a lot of things we don’t understand. Where we came from, our bonds with dragonets, why we can help them change form. Even the ley lines and the different worlds.”

“But that’s not why you don’t like the story,” she guessed. “What actually bothers you about it?”

He grunted and pulled away from her. He strode half a dozen paces away, spun, and walked back. Stopping in front of her, he lifted his arms and spread his wings to their full span.

“What do you see?” he asked, his tone oddly flat, revealing nothing of his thoughts.

She considered him. A hundred answers jumped into her mind: the man she loved, for starters. A powerful draconian, a dragon in human shape, a fearless warrior. But he was looking for a particular answer and she didn’t know which one. Unlike Lyre, who could keep a conversation going in circles until she was dizzy, Ash was a straightforward guy. He wasn’t the type for word games, so she decided to cut right to the chase.

“What do you want me to say? I see the same thing you do in a mirror.”

He dropped his arms and snapped his wings in and out restlessly. His gaze shifted around the forest, landing everywhere but on her.

“I don’t look like the others,” he finally said.

She tensed a little. So that’s what he was getting at. He’d never before mentioned the differences between him and the others.

“Not that different,” she said cautiously. “You’re still very much a draconian.”

“I know I’m just as draconian as they are,” he said, half-mumbling. “But I’ve always been different, and not just in appearance. I’ve never fit in with them.”

She chose her words carefully, wary of inflicting an unintentional wound. “Well, the others are all related in various ways, aren’t they? Your bloodlines are different, so it’s logical that you wouldn’t quite blend in with the extended family group.”

His eyes flicked toward her. “But what bloodlines do I have?”

As soon as the question left his lips, his whole body tensed in anticipation of her response. This was what he’d been leading up to, she realized. He began to pace, striding one way then the other in front of her.

“It’s just a name,” he said, the words fast but quiet. “He was half insane by the time he told it to my mother. Maybe he just wanted to mess with Samael. No one knew who he was, not even her. She told me she didn’t plan to give me the name, to spare me the suffering of bearing it, but when I was born, she knew in her gut she had to honor his wishes. She told me before she died it was the right choice, that I looked so much like him that it was only right that I carry his name. She said I was strong enough to bear it.”

He stopped abruptly and faced her. “It’s just a name. I look a little different, but that doesn’t mean anything. That doesn’t mean I’m one of them.”

Piper watched him, aching inside. He was trying to convince her, and himself, that he wasn’t a Taroth. He didn’t want to be different, to carry the burden of a royal bloodline. It was more than Netia’s comment about babies, more than the dragon king story. This was something that had been eating at him for a long time—his entire life, maybe.

And she would have to crush his fragile hope for a final time.

“I told you about the visions I had of Natania’s memories,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “You know that I saw Nyrtaroth through her eyes.”

He went completely still, tension radiating off him.

She took a deep breath. “The resemblance between the two of you is unmistakable. He could have been your older brother. You look as much like Nyrtaroth as Miysis looks like Maahes.”

His shoulders slumped in defeat.

“I’m sorry, Ash.”

He shook his head, turning away and leaning one shoulder against a tree trunk. She twisted her hands together, wanting to reach out to him but knowing she should give him time to compose his thoughts. As he stared at nothing, all she wanted to do was hold him, to tell him it didn’t change anything.

“I guess I always knew,” he murmured. “I never wanted to believe it. It was easier to convince myself it was just a name meant to intimidate Samael.”

She moved to his side, sliding her hand into his. His fingers curled around hers. He stared out at the forest, his face in profile to her. The dark markings that swirled in the hollows of his cheeks spoke clearly of his regal ancestry. She’d never considered that Ash himself might not believe—or want to believe—the truth of his name.

“Is it that bad, being a Taroth?” she asked.

He sighed. “You heard the story. Taroth means ‘shield,’ and they are destined to protect the draconians—whether they want to or not.”

“You’ve always had a protective nature,” she pointed out gently.

“I’m not obligated to protect the people I love; I do it because I want to, because I care about you. But to be required to sacrifice my life for—for some inherited duty?” He let out another long breath. “Nyrtaroth is hated by pretty much all Underworld daemons. He sullied the Taroth name beyond salvation. Other castes hate him because now Hades is even more powerful, with no one left to challenge them. Because of Nyrtaroth, the draconians fell from being one of the most powerful castes to being slaves and outcasts.”

He turned toward her, putting his back against the tree. His eyes were dark and sadness lurked in the back of his gaze.

“If we found draconians here, what do you imagine they’d think of me? Would they hate me for being a Taroth? I bet they’ll hate me for having served Samael.”

She squeezed his hand. “Or maybe they’ll welcome a powerful, honorable draconian warrior who can help protect them from Samael. Maybe they’ll want the help of the last Taroth in rebuilding your caste’s strength.”

He rubbed his free hand over his hair. “I don’t want to be a leader. It’s hard enough just keeping the two of us alive.”

The ache in her chest grew, sympathy for his turmoil. Born a leader of a people who might hate him for the bloodline he carried. Born a leader but unwilling to lead—unwilling to take responsibility for more lives than he already had, not when keeping his small group of loved ones safe was almost more than he could handle.

“Then maybe,” she said teasingly, tapping him lightly on the chest, “they’ll just want you to make some Taroth babies for them, just in case the dragon king comes looking for his heart flame.”

He snorted. “I think I’ll pass.”

She planted her hands on her hips and gave him a stern stare, half serious. “Now that’s a terrible attitude to have. If you don’t have any children, the Taroth bloodline will die with you.”

“Maybe that would be for the best.” He reached out and slid his hands around her waist, drawing her closer. “Even if we found some draconians who wanted me to be their leader, I don’t give a damn. My life doesn’t belong to them any more than it belonged to Samael.”

She leaned against him, sliding her arms around his neck. His warmth suffused her body. He rubbed his cheek against her hair, then put his lips to her ear.

“The only one,” he murmured, his deep voice sliding down to her bones, “I want to belong to is you.”

She turned her head and blindly found his lips with hers, sinking her fingers into his hair. He locked their mouths together. As her blood heated with need, she pressed into him. His hands slid down her back and then lower, and he pulled her hips against him. She gasped and kissed him harder.

Time disappeared, all her senses lost in him, but eventually he leaned back, his arms around her loosening. She leaned her head against his shoulder, catching her breath as the haze of desire faded, her insatiable need for him unsatisfied.

“I think they just put out the campfire,” he said a little huskily.

“I suppose we should go back.” She meant the words but she didn’t actually move. She didn’t want to ever move. Back in the camp with people everywhere, they would once again have no privacy.

“Ash,” she began, leaning back to look up at him. “I was thinking …”

“About what?”

“Well, one of the things I saw from Natania’s memory was a draconian city in the mountains—these mountains, I’m pretty sure—and there was a fairly distinctive statue on the summit of one mountain. When we were at the hot springs, I think I saw the same statue in the distance.”

“Where? I didn’t see anything.”

“At the far end of the valley that the gazebo overlooked. I’m not sure, but what do you think about checking it out? It would give us a little time away from everyone and, if we found it, it would be cool to see a place where draconians used to live, right?”

He considered her suggestion. “Raum and I didn’t scout in that direction, so there could be something there that we missed. If it is a former draconian city, I would like to see that.”

She smiled. “You don’t mind flying all the way back?”

“We can travel much faster with just the two of us.”

A surge of guilt at encouraging him to travel immediately after arriving at the permanent camp made her step back. “Well, you should rest for a day or two, at least. Or maybe a week or—”

“A cycle,” he corrected. “Or two cycles, which is about a week on Earth.”

“Right, yes, two cycles. Or even three. You need to recover your strength and—”

He leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers, silencing her. Her hands jumped to his face, and she couldn’t even be annoyed. She could have happily kissed him until the world ended.

To her disappointment, he soon drew back. “We could both use some rest. We can go exploring once the camp is properly set up and the area is secured.”

“Deal.” She bit her lip. “We’ll need to come up with a reason for Lyre about why we aren’t bringing him with us.”

Ash smirked as he stepped away from the tree. “I don’t think we’ll need to explain anything to Lyre.”

“Oh. I guess not.”

Shaking her head at her foolishness—Lyre would know exactly why they wanted to go off on their own for a few days, no matter how plausible of an excuse they came up with—she slipped her hand into Ash’s as they headed back toward the camp. She hoped they would find the ancient draconian city, but she wouldn’t be too worried if they didn’t. Spending some time alone with Ash was all that really mattered, because she didn’t know how much longer they would have together. One day—one cycle—at a time.

Chapter Seven

Twilight settled over the mountains. She didn’t like the Underworld version. Twilight was supposed to be a short span of deepening darkness, not an event lasting hours. The unsettling limbo of neither day nor night made her antsy.

She sat astride Zwi’s back, her hands wound through the dragon’s mane, as they soared through the valleys of the mountain range. Steep slopes and sharp peaks surrounded them. The rock was primarily basalt, dark even in the bright sunlight. In the odd, muted twilight, the mountains were solid black, the texture of the rock invisible. In the valleys below, forests of red-leafed trees swayed in the brisk wind, their color slowly seeping away as the sky darkened.

Ash flew above her and Zwi, wings spread wide and locked as he glided effortlessly on the thermals rising from the cooling earth. Piper could feel the warmth carrying them gently upward. It was like floating, impossibly peaceful, and the view was spectacular.

They’d left during the last eclipse and flown throughout the day. With only a light pack and Piper’s weight to burden her, Zwi could fly many hours without a break, and Ash could fly even longer. Their stamina, combined with favorable weather, had helped them cover a great deal of distance. Instead of flying back to the hot springs and following the valley, Ash had cut a straight line in the direction of the dragon statue—or where she thought she’d seen the statue. They’d intersected the valley an hour ago and were following it until they found something. At least, she assumed it was the same valley; Ash said it was, but they all looked the same to her.

She hadn’t yet spotted the oddly shaped peak that had reminded her of the dragon statue. It worried her that she couldn’t see any similar summits. Had she been mistaken at the hot springs? What if they’d come all this way for nothing? The valley ahead eventually ended at a sprawling behemoth of a mountain that was definitely lacking a carved peak.

Ash didn’t seem worried about it. He’d said any exploring they did was useful since he and Raum wanted to map as much of the mountains as they could. Raum had said as much when they’d proposed their plan to scout the valley. Lyre and Seiya had been less enthused, not only skeptical about the presence of an abandoned city among the peaks, but also uncomfortable with Piper and Ash travelling so far without backup. Seiya had volunteered to come with them but Raum had shot that down fast; Seiya couldn’t keep up with her weak wing.

Seiya had subsided after that, leaving Ash and Piper to make whatever plans they wanted. Piper had seen what Lyre had meant about Seiya’s spirits being low; she’d given up so easily compared to the fierce protectiveness of her brother she’d displayed in the past. Or maybe she just trusted Piper more now.

The mountains drifted by and Piper relaxed on Zwi’s back. They would land soon and set up a camp to sleep for a few hours. Ash’s head was already turning this way and that as he searched for a good spot. He’d timed their journey in the hopes of finding the dragon statue before the long Underworld night, but it looked like they would be searching in the dark.

Ash’s wings tilted and he began a gradual, curving descent. The valley below was thickly forested—impossible to see if the terrain was suitable to make camp. She didn’t care where they stopped; she was just looking forward to a night alone with him. Memories of the park in Habinal City kept whispering through her head, distracting her from the breathtaking vista of mountains.

She sat up a little straighter, scanning the horizon once more in the final hope that she would spot something. Where was the dragon peak? Maybe she had just imagined it; it had been so far away from the hot springs. She could have been seeing almost anything.

As Zwi banked after Ash, Piper’s view of the oversized mountain that marked the end of the valley shifted. The diminishing light fell across the peak in a strange way, and she realized the single, wide peak wasn’t one mountain—it was two. As they arched through the air toward the east side of the valley, a gap became visible between the two peaks.

And framed clearly between the two summits was a distant, third peak, where a stone dragon perched regally on its rock throne, wings half-spread and neck curved in an elegant S.

“Ash, look!” she yelled. “There it is!”

Ash’s wings snapped down as he pulled a tight one-eighty, squinting in the direction she was pointing. His mouth fell open when he spotted the distant statue.

“Well, shit.” He snapped his wings open to catch another thermal. “Do you want to keep going?”

“Yeah, let’s check it out!” Remembering she wasn’t the one doing all the work of flying, she contained her enthusiasm. “Are you up for it, Zwi?”

Zwi rumbled a positive-sounding note.

“She’s good,” Ash said. “Let’s go.”

He shot forward, wings beating down. Zwi swooped after him. They closed in on the sprawling twin mountains. Ash flew higher, angling over the high pass between them. Piper bent low over Zwi’s neck, taking deep breaths as the air noticeably thinned. The carved summit loomed, beckoning them onward. The towering peaks on either side closed in around them and the wind in the pass intensified, buffeting Zwi from side to side. Both draconian and dragon flew hard, wings pulling up and snapping down with forceful beats as they fought the currents.

The punishing wind abated as they soared out of the pass. Another valley opened in front of them. A glittering lake filled the valley floor, its water tinted a crystalline aquamarine. Grassy—or rather, leafy—hills dotted with bright flowers surrounded the lake on three sides. Ahead of them, at the far south end, the fourth side of the lake was a gravelly shore that stretched flat for a dozen yards before morphing into steep-sided basalt that shot up hundreds of yards to the summit where the dragon perched, standing guard over the valley.

They flew over the lake toward the summit. As they drew near, the toll the last five hundred years had taken on the statue grew more obvious. The muzzle, once open in a soundless roar, was missing its lower jaw. One wing was mostly intact, but half of the other wing had broken off. Chips and chunks were missing, and the finer details of horns and scales had weathered away over the years.

It was still magnificent.

Ash soared upward until he reached chest height on the dragon, where he stopped, wings beating in an awkward up-and-down hover. He looked so tiny in front of it, his wingspan a fraction of the dragon’s. Its neck was as thick as his torso.

Zwi swooped past Ash, circling the statue. Ash followed, and they flew several slow circles around it, examining it from every angle. Piper tore her gaze away to look across the valley. It took her a moment, but she eventually spotted a balcony protruding from the sheer slopes of the mountains that formed the east and west walls of the valley. In the dim twilight, the balconies were almost invisible, mere shadows amongst the dips and crevices of the natural rock face.

Once she recognized one, she spotted another—and then another and another. Two dozen jumped out at her all at once on a single mountain face.

“This way, Zwi,” she said, pointing at the nearest balcony. “Ash, come on!”

Zwi glided toward the mountainside, hesitating until she noticed the balcony. She let out a deep-pitched chitter and swooped straight for it. Piper clutched her mane as the dragon landed with a thump in the center of the wide span of stone and held her wings out of the way for Piper to dismount.

Piper jumped down as Ash landed beside Zwi. He turned in a slow circle, eyes growing wider as he too spotted the dozens and dozens of hidden balconies and entrances all over the mountains on either side of the dragon summit. The summit with the statue didn’t have any balconies, instead standing in lone glory at the southernmost tip of the valley.

He brushed one hand across the carved rail, fingers tracing the faded geometric design. Circling around Zwi, Piper joined him at the railing.

“We found it,” she said, beaming. “Isn’t it magnificent?”

He nodded, amazement written across his normally stoic face. “That statue is something to see.”

“I wish you could have seen what it looked like five centuries ago.” She took his hand. “Let’s look inside.”

Together, they walked through the arched, carved entryway into the dwelling. Bits of rock littered the round, open space and a layer of grit, carried inside by the wind, covered every surface. Off to one side, two low-backed chairs had survived, one lying on its side with a broken leg. Moving away from Ash to the still-standing chair, she brushed the dirt off it, discovering wood that was still solid in places. In others, it was beginning to crumble, but it had held up well over the past five centuries. She wiped away more dirt to uncover a carved design on the back.

Ash picked up a broken board from near the entrance. He held it up, then looked at the wall beside the door.

“Look,” he murmured. “There’s a track there. I think this used to be a sliding door.”

Piper looked from the board in his hand, the bottom edge jagged from a rough break, to the remains of the door scattered across the floor, then to the chair on its side. Her excitement at finding the city faded into stomach-tightening sorrow. In her enthusiasm to see this place in the flesh, she hadn’t really thought about how it had all ended for the people who’d live here: in war. Ash was holding a piece of the front door of a draconian’s home, a door she imagined had been broken down as the Hades soldiers invaded. She could see it in her mind, a mother draconian rushing away from the shattering door with her child, knocking over the chair as she fled the coming reapers.

Ash met her eyes, the same grief reflected in his gaze. He carefully replaced the board on the floor and joined her. Side by side, they entered the next room. A window with a wide stone sill for sitting let light flood across the space. Across from the window, a round stone platform a couple feet high dominated the room, carved from the mountain. Piper walked closer, frowning in confusion, and picked up a shred of dry, rotted fabric.

“A bed,” she said softly. “This was a bedroom.”

Ash moved to the corner by the window and crouched. A small wooden chest sat in the shadows. He carefully wiped the dust off, then opened the lid. Piper knelt beside him. Inside, the chest’s contents—a collection of small stone and wooden toys—had been left untouched by the weather.

Her mouth trembled as she lifted a tiny doll from the chest, barely larger than the palm of her hand. It clicked quietly, tiny joints in the wood allowing the limbs to move. The wings of the little draconian doll hung from the back and a jointed tail swung back and forth. She looked at Ash, tears welling in her eyes. He gently took the toy and laid it back in the box before closing the lid.

Rising to her feet, she quickly left the bedroom, returning to the main room where she stopped, taking deep breaths to regain her composure. Ash followed her out, hesitating before approaching the second doorway. Steeling herself, she started after him. Before she could reach the threshold, he swiftly backed out of the room and grabbed her arm.

“Ash, what—?”

He pulled her back to the main entrance. “Wait here.”

“Why? What’s—?”

“Please.”

She snapped her mouth shut as he strode back into the room. A minute passed, then another while she waited anxiously. Then the air sizzled with coming magic. Black flames erupted in the room, swirling wildly as heat rushed out the doorway. She flinched back, her heart leaping into her throat.

As the flames died out, Ash reappeared in the threshold, unharmed and calm.

“What was that?” she demanded.

He glanced back at the scorched room. “It’s five centuries too late, but they still deserved a proper death rite.”

Her eyes widened. “There were … bodies?”

“Only bones were left.” His eyes shifted to the doorways they hadn’t explored. “I’ll check the rest of the rooms.”

She hurried out onto the balcony, where Zwi waited for them, and stopped at the railing, hugging herself. Her chest ached. After a minute, Ash joined her. He stared up at the dragon statue, sadness shadowing his eyes.

“Were there anymore … ?” she whispered.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick. She swallowed. “This was a stupid idea. When I saw it through Natania’s memories, it looked like the draconians would return anytime. I didn’t think about … I didn’t realize …”

He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She leaned gratefully against his side.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I … I think I needed to see this.”

She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He contemplated the dragon statue. “All the draconians I’ve known, except my mother, have lived in Asphodel their entire lives. They don’t remember what we were like before … who we once were or where we came from. My mother knew more. Before she died, she told me stories of our history and taught me about draconian values and honor—as much as she knew, anyway. She was young when they brought her to Asphodel.

“I thought I understood who we used to be as a people before Hades destroyed us. But seeing this place … How far have we actually fallen? Further, I think, than any of the draconians I know realize. Further than I realized. Our past … the time when we were a strong, respected caste was so long ago that the sense of what we’ve lost has become so abstract.”

Releasing her, he turned to face the entrance, leaning back against the railing. “But this place is real. A family lived here once. An entire community lived here. Who were they? What were they like? Is there anyone left alive today who knows what kind of daemons the draconians used to be? How will I ever know?” His face hardened. “How much of our culture was lost forever when the people who lived here died?”

“Samael broke the power of the draconians the same way he wants to break the power of every ruling daemon family,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “He won’t stop until he rules all the worlds, will he?”

“I wish I could go back in time,” Ash said, “and tell Nyrtaroth to forget whatever idiot plan he had and just make sure to kill every Hades reaper there was. The worlds would have been better off.”

With one finger, she traced the design on the railing. “I think that was his plan all along. Maahes wanted a weapon no one would dare challenge as insurance against Hades. But Nyrtaroth wanted to use the Sahar. I think he wanted to rid the Underworld of Hades, to make his people safe once and for all. It’s too bad he couldn’t control the Sahar.”

“It’s too bad no one can control it,” Ash said with a sigh. “For a while there, it seemed you could, but it was only a matter of time, I suppose.”

She heaved her own sigh. She was tempted to argue—to say that short of severe emotional trauma, she could control the Sahar—but instead, she closed her eyes and pictured the scar across his abdomen. The power wasn’t worth it. It frightened her that she had to keep reminding herself that the Sahar was too dangerous to ever wield again. Hadn’t murdering dozens of people made enough of an impression on her?

Ash moved over to Zwi and unstrapped their pack. As he pulled it off, the dragon transformed into her smaller form with a rush of black fire. She chittered and wandered through the arched entryway.

“Are we sleeping here?” Piper asked.

“It’s safe and sheltered.”

“I guess it is,” she said reluctantly.

He glanced at her. Understanding softened his gray eyes. “I don’t think they would mind. Their homes are open and spacious. I think they were welcoming to guests.”

She remembered the torches at each balcony from Natania’s memory and smiled in agreement. He held out his hand. She took it, and together they walked back into the draconian dwelling, the first people to call the city home, even if only a temporary one, in five hundred long years.

Piper stood on the balcony, her hands resting on the stone railing as she gazed upward. Periskios hovered in the dark sky like a massive full moon, casting bright, silvery light across the mountains. The dragon statue rose in front of the lower curve of the planet, silhouetted against the white and gold orb. The valley was washed in gray and silver, and she missed the orange flicker of welcoming torches from Natania’s memory.

Nothing moved. Not even the slightest touch of a breeze rustled leaves. Just utter silence but for the distant, almost unheard lapping of the lake in the valley far below, as though nature itself respected the sorrow that lingered in the city, hushing all sound but for the mournful water.

She sensed more than heard Ash approach. She glanced back to see him cross the arched threshold. He’d left his weapons inside the dwelling with their gear, and there was just enough light to create enticing definition where his shirt clung to his chest and shoulders. It was strange to see him back in glamour; his face seemed almost unfinished without any dark scales or the horns that normally framed it.

Though they’d slept in each other’s arms, their trip hadn’t been the romantic getaway she’d been anticipating, but she wasn’t bothered by it; being together was enough. He’d switched into glamour so she could sleep with him without his wings getting in the way, his arms around her, her ear against his chest as she listened to his heartbeat.

At one point, the chill in the air had woken her and she’d found herself alone. Ash had been sitting at the entrance of the draconian home, staring outside. She’d watched him, silver light casting soft shadows on his face, then got to her feet. Carrying the blanket with her, she’d sat beside him, tucked the blanket around them, and snuggled up to his side. Beyond the balcony railing, the dragon statue had looked like a dark wraith against Periskios’s pale face, its basalt wings about to spread wide. With Ash’s arm around her and her head on his shoulder, she’d soon slipped back to sleep.

As he joined her at the railing, she wondered how much he’d slept; he didn’t look particularly tired. He turned and slid his arms around her from behind, pulling her back against his chest. She leaned into him, contentment settling into her bones. Why couldn’t it always be like this? So simple, so easy. The quiet between them was impossibly comfortable; no words needed to be spoken. But their brief reprieve couldn’t last. They would soon need to return to the camp. Not only were they expected back, but Raum would want to know about the city. He and Ash would need to scout this area. If there were draconians living in these mountains, they would know about the lost city too, right? If Ash and Raum intended to find any sign of their kin, they should start their search with this valley.

She tilted her head back to rest on Ash’s shoulder. Her eyes wandered over the valley again until they came to rest on the dragon statue. Despite the damage, it was still breathtakingly majestic, Periskios’s light casting bold shadows over its form and the sheer slope beneath it. So realistic it could have come alive at any moment. The two mountains dotted with balconies, facing each other across the width of the lake, offered a perfect view of the third summit with the statue, so she assumed the ancient draconians had enjoyed looking at the carved tribute just as much as she did.

A slow prickle ran up her spine. She stiffened, her eyes narrowing as she studied the statue. Something seemed a little off, something not quite right …

The shadow beneath the statue moved.

Like darkness brought to life, the shadow expanded. Massive wings lazily unfurled, spreading to a span equal to the statue above it. A head lifted on an elegant, curved neck, stretching out of the shadows so that silver light spilled across obsidian scales and horns.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Not daring to look away, she grabbed Ash’s wrist and dug her fingers in.

“Is that,” she whispered hoarsely, “a real dragon?”

Chapter Eight

A dragon. A dragon clung to the rock beneath the statue of itself.

Piper stood utterly frozen, afraid to move. Ash had gone rigid behind her, his arms like vices around her middle as he too stared at the southern summit. She could hardly believe her eyes—an actual massive dragon, the creature from draconian legend. Where had it come from? What was it doing here? How long had it been here? It definitely hadn’t been there when they’d arrived.

The dragon moved, shifting along the steep mountain wall beneath the statue. As rock cracked under the beast’s talons, gunshot-like sounds shattered the silence, echoing through the valley. The ancient draconians had carved their tribute in perfect detail—the massive statue and the dragon beneath it were almost identical in size. She had never seen a living thing so large before.

Pulling its wings in, the dragon wove its head back and forth through the air as though thinking. Then the wings snapped open with a boom of displaced air. With impossible grace for something so enormous, it sprang off its precarious perch and swept through the valley, silver light rushing over the sleek obsidian scales and spines that covered its body—so beautiful and so terrifying.

Then she realized it was heading in their direction.

She shoved back from the railing, pushing Ash with her. He gasped, startled out of his speechless trance. They backpedaled across the balcony, but there was nowhere to run except into the dwelling—a dead end with no escape. The dragon snapped its wings down and shot toward them, filling her vision with its dark body. Its wings swept wide and it slammed into the side of the mountain, thirty feet above their balcony. Shards of rock rained down as its talons tore into the slope to hold itself in place.

Thirty feet wasn’t very far away for a creature of that size. Its huge, graceful head turned toward them, long neck curving like a swan’s. Spines framed its face on either side of a wide forehead that narrowed to a slim muzzle. Large spikes jutted above its shoulders to prevent attacks from above, and shorter, flexible ones ran down its spine, fading out halfway down its long, snake-like tail.

Its head turned as it fixed one big, pale blue eye on them. Her heart pounded. It was looking at them. Had it flown over just to examine them? Pressing back into Ash, she tried not to hyperventilate. He didn’t move either; he scarcely even breathed.

A low, bone-deep rumble came from the beast. Its mouth opened slightly, flashing rows of pointed fangs as long as her hand from fingertips to wrist.

A strange pressure filled her head, buzzing inside her mind and scattering her thoughts. She staggered half a step away from Ash, pressing her hands to her forehead. What the hell was that? It was like the dragon’s rumbling growl was vibrating inside her skull. What kind of power was this? How magical was the dragon? The creature before them was a flesh and blood beast, she was certain; it didn’t seem to be the god-like being from Shona’s dragon king story, but she had no idea what kind of supernatural powers it might possess.

Still squeezing her head between her hands, she twisted to look at Ash. He leaned against the railing for support, one hand gripping his head, his jaw clenched and his glazed eyes wide and staring.

The dragon grunted, and its eyes suddenly glowed blue. A small concussion of invisible power whooshed out from it. It hit her like an ocean wave and rushed over her with an unsettling friction. As it passed over her, tingles rushed over her body—familiar tingles.

She jerked her hands off her head, shocked to see mother-of-pearl scales shimmering on the backs of her hands. Her eyes snapped to Ash—he too had changed forms, his wings tight to his back and shock clear on his face. The dragon’s magic had pulled them both into their daemon forms. How was that even possible?

It stretched its neck out, bringing its head a little closer. Another rumble—and that strange buzzing pressure thundered through them again. Piper cringed, but this time it felt different—clearer but more powerful. The invisible force pressed down on her mind, pushing her body into the ground with it.

Beside her, Ash dropped to his knees on the balcony. He clutched his head in both hands, eyes squeezed shut. Piper struggled to focus. What was happening? What was the dragon doing to them?

His wings trembling from strain, Ash lifted his head, teeth bared.

“No!” The word burst out of him in a furious, desperate shout.

The pressure vanished as the dragon pulled its head back, fangs flashing as it pulled its lips up. Its eyes glowed brighter blue.

With an ear-shattering roar, it lunged at Ash.

Its weight hit the balcony and the whole structure shattered. The stone beneath her feet vanished. She fell as the dragon flashed past her for Ash, who leaped away from its deadly jaws.

She plummeted before slamming into rock. Crumpling in agony, she fought to breathe. With shaking limbs, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees and looked around wildly. She’d landed on the balcony beneath the one they’d been on. Gasping and pushing away the pain, she staggered to her feet and threw herself at the railing.

Below her in the valley, the dragon wheeled through the air, chasing a small dark blur that could only be Ash, his wings beating hard. He looked like a sparrow evading an eagle. Her heart leaped into her throat. He couldn’t elude the massive beast forever. Sooner or later, it would catch him—and kill him in an instant. Why was it attacking him? Why had he shouted “no” at it?

“Zwi!” she screamed.

The dragonet flew down from the remains of the upper balcony and landed on Piper’s shoulder, chittering in terror.

“Transform, Zwi! We have to help him!”

The dragonet let out a terrified squeak and jumped from her shoulder. She shifted to her dragon form in a rush of black fire and Piper sprang onto her back. They took off.

Deep down, she knew it was futile. They were no match for the dragon—a creature the draconians considered a god. If it had decided to kill Ash, no power she possessed could stop it—only, perhaps, the Sahar, but she didn’t have it.

But the futility didn’t matter. She wouldn’t flee while Ash fought for his life. They would either escape together or die together.

Zwi rushed toward the dragon as it banked in a tight turn, unable to match Ash’s agility. As they approached, Ash threw a blast of black magic in the dragon’s face. The ebony flames sloughed off the dragon’s gleaming scales like water splashing over glass, not slowing the beast in the slightest.

As Zwi closed in behind the dragon, Piper lifted her hands. Calm closed over her, clearing her mind. Possessive rage simmered beneath the calm—her need to protect Ash. She summoned an oversized orb of magic. Blue and purple fire swirled together, streaked with orange. Zwi shot over top of the dragon and she took aim. Lifting her hands over her head, she hurled the blast down.

It burst against the dragon’s right wing in a flash of orange. The beast bellowed, its flight faltering even though Ash’s attack hadn’t fazed it at all. Its head twisted, glowing blue eyes flashing toward Piper and Zwi. With a booming beat of its wings, the dragon swung around toward them.

Zwi roared, banking sharply. The dragon loosed its own roar, the overwhelming sound drowning out the smaller dragon’s voice. It shot toward them. Zwi darted downward, avoiding the dragon’s snapping jaws by a few inches—jaws large enough to bite Piper in half. They dove underneath the dragon. Beyond it, Ash headed for them, though what they could do even together to stave off the dragon, she had no idea.

As the dragon whirled around to pursue them, she conjured her next spell. The wings were its weak points. If she damaged the wings, it wouldn’t be able to chase them. Zwi arched around to face the dragon as it came at them. Piper stretched out her arm and pointed two fingers at the beast. She’d only witnessed this spell once but she instinctively knew how to duplicate it.

The dragon charged them, jaws gaping for a deadly bite. On its other side, Ash hurled a spiraling wave of black magic. His blast engulfed the dragon’s head, not harming it—but distracting it.

She cast a spear of blue and purple magic that shot from her fingertips. The spear hit the dragon’s wing and tore through the leathery membrane.

The dragon screamed, still hurtling toward them. Zwi dove again. With Piper clutching her mane, Zwi slipped past the flailing front claws and beneath the dragon’s belly. Piper raised her hand, intending to strike again.

The dragon’s tail snapped toward them out of nowhere, so fast neither she nor Zwi could react.

The impact was like being struck by a cannonball. Agony. Rushing, tearing wind. Spinning, falling. A glimpse of the ground rushing up. The shimmering reflection of Periskios on the rippling water. Then darkness.

She was floating.

The thought came to her sluggishly, a vague whisper in the dark haze in her head. Floating. That wasn’t right. Hadn’t she been falling? She struggled to piece it back together. Flying, falling … a colossal black tail whipping toward her.

The dragon. Ash. Zwi.

Her eyes popped open. She was underwater. She’d landed in the lake. Where was Zwi? She couldn’t sense Zwi in the lake with her. How long had she been underwater? Terror rushed through her. Kicking her feet, she shot toward the surface. Her head burst out of the water. Silence. No more beating of massive wings in the sky.

A hundred yards away, the dragon stood on the rocky shore at the base of the carved summit, its wings half unfurled over its back. Blue fire raced over the ground all around it, licking at its haunches. Blue light glowed in lines down the dragon’s neck and a hint of flames boiled out of its open jaws. It had one leg stretched out, its head down near the ground, focused on something trapped beneath its foot.

Panic froze her lungs. She swam for the shore and pushed out of the water. Then she ran, ran harder than she’d ever run in her life. Her body ached and burned, her injuries untallied and ignored. As she charged toward the dragon, she summoned her magic again. A glowing orb lit in her hands.

She threw it at the dragon’s head. The spell burst across its scales and all the nearby blue fire dissolved in orange light. The beast’s head jerked up and snapped toward her. As the blue flames flickered violently in the aftermath of her attack, she glimpsed a wing sticking out from beneath the dragon’s talons—Ash’s wing. Oh god. It had caught him.

He couldn’t be dead. Please, let him not be dead.

“Let him go!” she screamed.

The dragon’s lips curled back to reveal its fangs. It snarled, the deafening sound ripping out of its throat.

“He’s a draconian!” Tears of terror and desperation escaped her control and streaked down her cheeks. “Why are you attacking him?”

The buzzing pressure in her head crashed down on her again. Her knees gave out. She fell to the rocky ground, clutching her head. The buzzing fluctuated erratically like someone spinning the dials on a radio—then the sound transformed.

You are dragon-kin.

The deep male voice growled through her head, inaudible to her ears but clear in her mind. She gasped, jerking straight. The pressure in her skull—the weight of the dragon’s mind?—was still unbearable. The beast must be telepathic like the ryujin.

“So is he,” she gasped. “Let him go!”

The blood runs strong in him. The rumbled words were empty of emotion except for an undertone of—of wrath?

“Then why are you hurting him?” She almost couldn’t get the words out as the pressure in her head darkened her vision.

He resists.

“Resists what?”

Begone, silver child. The dragon’s head swung back toward his front foot where he had Ash pinned.

“Let Ash go first!”

The dragon bared his teeth and the flames around him leaped higher. Begone.

The threat was clear. Trembling, she pushed herself to her feet and raised her hands, calling on her magic. She wouldn’t abandon Ash. She was no match for the dragon, but she wouldn’t walk away, even if it meant her death.

“I’m not leaving without Ash!” She flung her hands out, throwing another orb of colored flame.

The dragon’s jaws snapped open wide and an inferno of blue fire boiled out of its throat. The flames swallowed her paltry attack and blasted toward her. She cast a shield at the last second. The fire ripped through the flimsy barrier and exploded into her in a flash of agony. Then darkness overtook her once more.

Chapter Nine

Cold water lapped against her right side. Her left side burned unbearably as though her skin had been dipped in boiling oil. Pain dragged her back to consciousness and she groaned. Well, she wasn’t dead. She hurt way too much to be dead.

Dread swelled inside her, competing with the pain. With effort, she managed to open her eyes. All she could see were the dark shapes of the pebbles in front of her nose, her cheek resting painfully on the ground. Sluggishly, she pushed up on one elbow and stared dully at the dark, still surface of the lake stretching away from her. Her heart thumped in her chest and only the pain of her burns kept her inner torment at bay. Why hadn’t she died? She would have preferred to be dead.

Her throat closed as dread took over. Tears stung her eyes and spilled over, burning like acid on her cheeks. Gasping and swallowing a sob, she pushed herself into a sitting position. It was still dark and clouds had rolled in, obscuring most of Periskios’s reflected light. Since the long twilight of dawn had yet to arrive, she hadn’t been unconscious for an excessively long time, but exactly how many hours, she couldn’t guess.

Terror twisted in her gut and she forced herself to look at the rocky shore of the lake.

The dragon was gone, the valley empty. The shore was devoid of life. Where the dragon had stood, all that remained was the dark, unmoving shadow of a fallen body. Grief ripped through her, more terrible than any burn.

She climbed painfully to her feet. No longer able to control herself, she sobbed, agony and anguish overwhelming her. Blinded by tears, she staggered toward the unmoving shape. When she reached him, she dropped to her knees, unable to stand under the weight of her grief.

Ash was lying face down where the dragon had left him, wings splayed awkwardly. One wing’s frame was twisted against the ground, broken in two places. Barely able to breathe through her tears, she reached out and closed her trembling hand around his lifeless fingers.

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

His skin wasn’t cold in death. It was warm—no, hot. Feverishly hot.

“Ash!” she gasped. Alive? He was alive?

She rose onto her knees and leaned over him, holding back her sobs. Without the sound of her weeping, his faint, shallow breathing became audible. Her hands fluttered over him and desperation squeezed her lungs. He was alive but hurt. How hurt? She needed to turn him over and check him. Her eyes flashed to his wing. The bones were clearly broken but the leathery membrane wasn’t torn, thank goodness; an injury to the membrane put the draconian at risk of never flying again, but bones could be healed.

Forgetting her own pain, she swiftly checked his back, arms, legs, and other wing for damage. She couldn’t see any other wounds but he could still have internal injuries. Shaking from stress, she gently folded his uninjured wing against his back and rolled him over that side, supporting his injured wing as best she could. She’d never been more grateful for her daemon strength; as a human, she would have had trouble moving his dead weight at all.

Once she had him on his back, she checked his torso for injuries, finding nothing obvious. His head seemed fine—no swelling, bruising, or cuts. But he didn’t open his eyes or respond to her voice. When she pried open his eyelids, his pupils were rolled back in his head. His breath came fast and shallow, and his skin was hot like he had a bad fever. Was he sick? Had the dragon poisoned him? Or was it a reaction to internal injuries?

Panic spun in her head. He was hurt, maybe dying. They were alone. The dragon could return at any minute to finish them off. All their supplies—and weapons—were in a draconian dwelling three quarters of the way up the mountain.

She struggled to her feet and finally looked down at herself. Her pants were charred and half burned away, but her dragon-scale halter top had protected her torso. Bright red burns dotted with blisters covered her arms; she must have thrown them up over her face, which wasn’t blistering—yet, anyway. Maybe her attempt to shield had blunted the worst of it or her skin as a half-ryujin daemon was somewhat fire-resistant, because she was pretty sure that blast of fire from the dragon should have melted her to the bone. Her limbs and spine ached from her multiple falls but she didn’t have any broken bones.

Pushing aside the pain, she turned in a slow circle, trying to remember where she’d landed in the lake after the dragon’s tail had hit her. She broke into an awkward, limping jog down the shore. Zwi had to be somewhere nearby.

It took her nearly twenty minutes of searching before she found Zwi among a pile of boulders near the shore. She’d transformed back into her dragonet form, her tiny body almost impossible to spot among the rocks.

Piper knelt beside the dragonet, her heart in her throat, choking her. Zwi’s golden eyes cracked open and she let out a tiny mewl.

“Hey, Zwi,” Piper whispered, her voice cracking. “How’re you doing, girl?”

Zwi mewled again, the sound almost inaudible. Tears trickled down Piper’s cheeks as she gently stroked the dragonet’s head.

Zwi’s wings weren’t just broken. They were mangled, the bones broken and the leather membrane torn. Unable to keep her hands steady, she lightly touched Zwi’s body, checking for more broken bones. Zwi whimpered with each touch and Piper almost broke down. She couldn’t tell how badly the dragonet was hurt. Not knowing what else to do, she pulled off her halter top and laid it on the ground, then helped Zwi crawl on top of it. Zwi cried when Piper lifted the sling off the ground, even though she tried her best to cradle the injured dragonet in the material without jostling her.

Heedless of the cold air on her bare skin, her torso clad only in a chest wrap, she hurried back to Ash and laid Zwi down beside him. The dragonet nudged his hand with her nose and whined plaintively, but he didn’t stir.

Piper stood beside them, slow shakes running through her body. She couldn’t heal them; she had no idea how. She couldn’t travel with them, nor could she leave them alone. She couldn’t reach their supplies. She had no way to contact the others or send a distress signal.

Lyre and Raum didn’t expect Ash and Piper back until after the next eclipse—still a long ways away. When they didn’t show up, Raum would come find them. He knew the general area that she and Ash had been heading for. It might take him a little while to find the correct valley, but eventually, he would come. All she had to do was keep Ash and Zwi alive until then.

Their lives were in her hands, and she’d never felt more helpless.

Piper sat beside Ash, holding his hand in hers and trying hard to keep her composure. She had to stay strong.

Hours had passed since she’d regained consciousness but she didn’t know how many. It was still dark, the long Underworld night dragging on and on. With clouds obscuring Periskios, she couldn’t even guess how much night was left by the waning shape of the planet. Exhaustion dragged at her but she couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t sleep until help arrived. Her head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the agony in every inch of her burned skin. A little while ago, she’d shifted back to her human form to conserve her magic, and the increase in pain levels had left her on the verge of tears since. Sometimes it was all she could do to just keep breathing.

The pain had been a lot easier to endure when she was busy. She’d first located a safe place—well, the safest place given their circumstances—to wait. It was a cave, for lack of a better term, in the base of the mountain beneath the dwelling they’d slept in. The draconians had made use of this space too: the interior had been carved into simple stalls, suggesting it had been a stable or shelter for some kind of domesticated animal.

Moving Ash had been a challenge. Knowing how fragile draconian wings were and how difficult they were to heal, she hadn’t wanted to drag him a hundred yards with broken wing bones. She’d cursed her shortsightedness at leaving their gear—and weapons—in a spot totally inaccessible without working wings. After some thought, she’d waded into the lake and dove down to the long strands of seaweed waving sedately at the bottom. She’d been blind under the water, Periskios’s light only weakly penetrating the clouds and completely unable to pierce the depths of the lake, but her dairokkan senses had guided her. She’d ripped several plants out of the muddy bottom and brought them back to Ash. Stripping off the leaves had left her with tough, rope-like stems that she used to carefully tie his broken wing to his side to stabilize it.

Once she had tucked him and Zwi safely into one of the stone stalls in the ancient stable, she’d returned to the beach to collect some twigs that had washed ashore and a few smaller seaweed plants. Applying the splints to Zwi’s wings had been horrific for both of them. The dragonet’s cries of pain had ripped Piper apart, but she couldn’t leave the poor girl’s wings the way they were. Now that they were bound to sticks with some wide seaweed leaves holding them to her body, Zwi seemed a little more comfortable.

Piper had returned to the lake a few more times, searching for anything useful. In the end, she’d collected several armloads of driftwood and caught a fish—a small one, thank goodness—and returned to their shelter. Behind one of the stall’s half-walls where the light would be partially blocked from the cave entrance, she’d built a tiny fire and cooked the fish over it whole; she wouldn’t have known how to fillet it even if she’d had a knife.

While the fish cooked, she’d gone outside and ripped up most of the low vines growing along the ground on the nearest hill. She’d stuffed some under Ash as best she could and had laid the rest down on the rock floor as insulation for her and Zwi—then reclaimed her top from the dragonet, needing the warmth. It was all she could do. No blankets, no extra clothing, and the light of the fire was too much of a risk to keep it burning indefinitely.

So here she sat, shivering with pain and cold beside the coals of the fire. Zwi slept fitfully beside Ash. Piper had fed her small bits of cooked fish before eating the rest herself. She had no idea how to make Ash eat; he couldn’t chew while unconscious. She didn’t even have their water flasks to try and get him to drink.

Her hand clenched around his. His skin was still feverishly hot and his breathing rapid. He could survive a fever that would kill a human but she was still scared. She’d checked him again for injuries but couldn’t find any. She didn’t know what was wrong with him. She didn’t know why he wouldn’t wake up.

If only he could tell her what was wrong—and what had happened. She’d gone over all of it in her mind, over and over. The dragon in the shadows of the statue—had he been waiting for them, or had their unexpected appearance in an abandoned city aroused his curiosity? He had used magic to force her and Ash into their daemon forms. At first, she’d been just as confused about that as everything else before reasoning that the dragon had done it to make communication with them—or rather, with Ash—easier. The buzzing pressure of his telepathy had changed once she was in daemon form, and it must have for Ash too.

What had the dragon said to him to make Ash respond with a desperate cry of “no”? Why had the dragon attacked him, pinning him to the ground? He resists. What had Ash been resisting? Being killed?

Shona’s tale of the dragon king kept weaseling back into her thoughts. It was just a story, an origin tale. She refused to believe the dragon who had chased them, who had bellowed in pain when her magic sliced its wing, was an all-powerful otherworldly being. But what if there was some truth buried in the myth? Coby had mentioned a version of the tale where the great dragon hunted draconians to steal their magic. Was that why Ash wouldn’t wake? Was that why the dragon had left him alive, because it got what it had wanted from him?

She stared hollowly at Ash, trying to calm her simmering panic. He would be okay. Once Raum arrived, he would know what to do.

Leaning back against the wall of the stall, she pulled her eyes away from Ash and resumed her watch on the opening of the stable. The dim light through the clouds had brightened, telling her that the night was half over—Periskios was brightest at midnight when its full face reflected the light of the unseen suns. Though it was a little brighter, a thick fog had rolled in off the lake over the last couple hours, obscuring everything three feet beyond the opening of the cave. Nervousness churned in her aching belly.

Time stretched out indefinitely as she waited, her eyes on the mist-enshrouded entrance and her ears tuned to the sound of Ash’s breathing. She counted each breath, analyzing it for any changes in rhythm. Back at the camp, Raum and Lyre wouldn’t have a clue yet that something had gone wrong. Once they realized Ash and Piper were running late, how long would they wait before starting a search? She didn’t think he would come right away; Raum had too much confidence in Ash’s ability to handle pretty much any situation. He would probably wait too long, thinking Ash had merely run behind schedule.

As the minutes dragged on, her tired thoughts wandered. What was her father doing right now? Had he recovered from his poisoning? Was he sorry for how he had acted while under its influence? And Uncle Calder—was he worried about her? He’d encouraged her to go to her mother and then on to the Gaian headquarters, and she hadn’t come back. He probably feared she was dead. She wished she could get a message to him.

Then again, if she were to magically gain the ability to send a message, she would send one to Raum to come rescue them.

Thoughts spun in her head, mixing with fear and dread. What if Ash died? It would be her fault; she’d brought him here. If he died, then she didn’t want to be found. She didn’t want to go on. It was stupid and melodramatic to wish death on herself just because the man she loved had died, but the thought of going on without him, with his demise on her shoulders and conscience, was too much to bear. Her heart twisted in torment as she remembered her blissful contentment on the balcony, standing with his arms around her, just before the dragon had revealed its presence.

Zwi made a tiny sound, a soft but harsh chirp, snapping Piper out of her thoughts. The dragonet was staring toward the entrance of the cave, even though from her spot beside Ash, she couldn’t see it. Piper’s eyes snapped back to the fog-shrouded entrance. She’d been gazing at the shadowy white wall but her thoughts had been miles away.

She rose to a crouch. Had Zwi heard something? All was silent except for the slow drip of water where the mist had condensed on the rocks outside. Only a few feet of ground was visible beyond the entrance before the mist swallowed it. Her dread increased until it was like a weight pressing on her lungs. Had the dragon come back? She’d put Ash and Zwi near the back of the stables; the dragon couldn’t fit more than its head and neck into the opening, but it could still roast them like meat in an oven with one blast of that blue fire.

No movement, no sound in the fog. She squinted harder and her heart jumped into her throat.

A shadow appeared: a figure cautiously approaching the cave entrance—a figure with wings.

Tears stung her eyes as relief swept through her, almost overwhelming the surge of fear from the Nightmare Effect. Raum had found them; she must have underestimated how much time had passed. She jumped up and ran toward the entrance as he paced closer, struggling to see through the haze as much as her.

As she rushed toward him, he saw her at the same moment she got a good look at him—and she skidded to a stop as electric terror jolted through her.

The draconian standing in the entrance to the cave wasn’t Raum.

He wasn’t any draconian she knew. She’d never seen him before. And judging by the black wrap covering the lower half of his face and the shining blade of the pike he’d levelled at her chest, he hadn’t come to rescue them.

Chapter Ten

She couldn’t breathe through her panic. She stood halfway between the draconian in the entrance and the stall where Ash and Zwi were hidden. Her eyes darted from the long-bladed pike in his hands to his partially covered face. His eyes were dark, whether naturally or from shading, she didn’t know. His gaze swept over her but revealed nothing of his thoughts, despite the oddity of her appearance; he couldn’t have been expecting an unarmed girl with charred clothes and blistering burns over half her body.

Her brain stuttered. A draconian. A stranger. Ash and the others had wondered if they would ever find any draconians in these endless mountains, but none of them had expected other draconians to find them. Where had he come from? Was he alone? How had he found her?

And, most importantly, what did he think of her?

Her heart hammered in her chest. Could she convince him to help her? Would it be stupid to even try? Whatever she did, until she knew what this draconian’s intentions were, she couldn’t let him discover Ash at the back of the stables, completely helpless.

Before she could react, another shadow materialized in the fog behind him. Two draconians. Shit. The second one joined his comrade, identical down to the face wrap and pike that immediately flashed down to point at her.

The hostile move snapped her out of her panicked indecision. Her fear disappeared as calm determination took over. Fierce, furious protectiveness burned through her.

Surprise flashed across the first draconian’s face. Had he seen her eyes go black with shading? Was he surprised at her resistance to his Nightmare Effect, normally effective even on shaded daemons?

Almost lazily, she settled into a fighting stance—knees bent, hands held loosely out to her sides with her fingers curled, ready for her claws once she shifted to her daemon glamour. Her instincts told her an attack was coming, and her claws and magic were the only weapons she had. She’d defeated a reaper on her own but draconians were more powerful, and there were two of them.

The lead draconian’s tail gave an abrupt sideways twitch, and they both charged.

She launched at them, switching to her daemon glamour mid-lunge. The first pike flashed over her shoulder, the blade skimming across her scales. She came up under the handle and grabbed it, shoving it upright. The draconian spun away from her, instinctively protecting his torso from her attack—but she wasn’t attacking. Her hand closed on the hilt of a short, curved sword sheathed at his hip. As he pulled away, she stepped back, freeing the weapon from its sheath.

She danced back a few more steps, keeping herself between them and the stall where Ash was hidden. Spinning her newly acquired weapon in her hand, she assumed a defensive stance, the blade angled toward the closer draconian.

The two analyzed her with dark eyes. They wouldn’t underestimate her speed a second time. The three of them held perfectly still, waiting to see who would make the first move.

She leaped for the nearer one. At the last instant, she dropped into a roll and slammed her boot into the ankle of the second one. He stumbled and she rolled fast as the first’s pike shot toward her. Springing to her feet, she slashed with her new sword, catching only air as the draconian sprang backward on agile feet, wings flaring for balance.

The second one came at her from behind and she ducked away. They danced around one another, weapons flashing, bodies swaying as they each fought to deliver death while avoiding it themselves. She ducked and spun around their pikes, her sword flashing but unable to taste either of them. They were too fast, too good—though not smart. If they’d been smart, they would have abandoned their pikes—too long and awkward in the confined space—or used their far more powerful magic against her.

Each strike came closer and closer to her flesh. She fell backward to evade the blade of one, landing on her back and rolling away as the other’s pike shot down, tearing through the side of her pants and over the scales that protected her left hip. Jumping to her feet, she retreated again, forced another step deeper into the cave—closer to Ash.

She had to drive them back. She was running out of time and options.

Drawing her arm back, she hurled her sword in the face of the nearer draconian. Shocked and caught off guard, he managed to cast a shimmering shield between his head and the blade. At the same time, she sprang for the other one. His pike whipped toward her and she took the blade in the forearm, letting her scales deflect it. Inside his guard, she grabbed him by the shoulder and launched herself over his head, tearing his wrap away from his face. She landed on his back, one foot braced on the empty sheath at his hip, a hand on his shoulder, and the other around his neck, her claws pressed to his throat where his pulse beat.

He froze. His comrade stilled as well, weapon held at the ready but unable to strike. She held on to her hostage, breathing hard, with adrenaline pounding through her blood. Her maneuver had only worked because it had been so reckless as to be insane; they hadn’t expected her to abandon her weapon and any attempt at self-defense like that. She was lucky it had worked; otherwise, she would be very dead.

She met the second draconian’s eyes.

“Leave,” she ordered.

He snarled, his sepulchral draconian voice sending a shiver up her spine. She didn’t expect him to comply, but he raised his pike, slamming the butt angrily into the stone floor. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious of his cooperation.

Then a cold blade touched her throat.

She went as rigid as her hostage, fury and desperation shooting through her.

“Release him.” The throaty female voice coming from behind her rang with command.

Piper held her hostage for a second longer, acutely aware of the blade against her neck. She could kill the draconian she held, but she would be slain in the same instant, leaving two draconians to find Ash.

Letting out a hissing breath, she removed her hand from the draconian’s neck. Keeping her movements slow, she climbed off his back and put both feet on the ground before releasing him entirely. He stepped away and spun to face her. His wrap hung around his neck and his mouth was pressed in a thin, angry line. He was around Raum’s age, with a handsome but hard face.

The woman behind Piper grabbed her by the hair. Her head was yanked back at the same time her feet were kicked out from under her. She fell, catching herself with her hands. The woman shoved her forcefully into the rock floor and her former hostage spun his pike around. The blade pressed against her spine in the middle of her back, trapping her in place. She lay helplessly on the floor, her burns and blisters throbbing, the rock cold under her cheek.

The woman came around to stand by Piper’s head. Why hadn’t she suspected there were more draconians than just the two who’d approached the cave? The female was dressed identically to the males in dark, leather-like clothing similar to what Raum and Ash wore, with a wrap hiding half her face. Even her dark hair was short like theirs, no longer than Ash’s. Her eyes, an unforgiving icy blue, flicked over Piper.

“What are you?” she demanded. A faint, exotic accent tinged her words.

Piper clenched her jaw and said nothing.

The woman walked a slow circle around Piper, examining her. She nudged one of Piper’s dairokkan with the toe of her boot, making Piper grit her teeth even harder.

“I have not seen this before. Where did you come from?”

Piper turned her head to keep the draconian in her line of sight, her heart hammering in her chest.

“The more questions you answer, the longer you live.” The woman crouched beside her head, giving her a hard look. “I will ask one more time. What are you?”

“A haemon,” Piper answered reluctantly.

“Haemon?” the woman repeated incredulously. “Haemons look like humans. You do not.”

“I’m just … a bit different from regular haemons.”

“Different.” The woman’s voice flattened. She stood. “I do not trust different. Why are you here?”

“Hiding,” Piper grunted. “I didn’t know anyone lived here. If this is your territory, I’ll leave.”

“Who do you hide from?”

Piper bit her lip. How would they react if she told them she was hiding from Hades? What else could she say?

The woman glanced at the second male. “Eyal, see what it is she hides in the stalls.”

Piper went rigid, unable to move as the second draconian male turned and strode toward the back of the stable, looking in each stall as he went. She wanted to scream as he drew closer and closer to the end.

Eyal reached the last stall and sprang backward, whipping his pike down in a defensive position.

“Vakash!” he exclaimed, his shock obvious. The harsh word sounded like profanity.

A high-pitched dragonet snarl answered him.

“What is it?” the woman snapped.

Eyal lowered his pike slightly. “A draconian and his dragonet. He appears unconscious.”

“Who?” the woman demanded, her hand jumping to the hilt of the sword at her hip. “No one has patrolled this pass in a dozen cycles.”

Eyal took a step into the stall, muttering something at Zwi, who was still snarling viciously at him. He leaned down, his head almost disappearing behind the half-wall.

“I don’t think I know him,” Eyal replied.

He leaned a little lower to see Ash’s face—Zwi must have been keeping him from approaching more closely—then jerked back. “Hedya, come! He is not one of ours.”

The woman stiffened, then strode over to join Eyal. Piper was so tense she was practically vibrating but the other draconian pressed the point of his pike a little harder into her back in warning.

Eyal pointed. “Look at his horns.”

Hedya craned her neck, then gasped.

“What is it?” the draconian standing over Piper demanded impatiently. He too spoke with an accent, his voice just as shiver-worthy as the others’.

“Three horns,” Eyal said. “He has three horns.”

The draconian beside her inhaled sharply. “It can’t be Jesyr?”

Piper’s breath stuttered. Jesyr? Another draconian who had the three horns of a Taroth? Eyal, Hedya, and the unnamed third draconian standing over her had matching sets of two horns and faded markings on their skin.

Hedya marched into the stall. Zwi’s snarl rose in pitch and the woman hissed something aggressively. She reached down, presumably turning Ash’s head to get a look at his face.

“He’s too young,” she said. “He’s not Jesyr, but …”

Trapped on the floor on her stomach, Piper could hardly see what was going on. Tension boiled inside her, her panic and desperation held in check by shading. She couldn’t lie there any longer. Unbeknownst to the draconian standing over her, the blade of his pike was resting on the back of her dragon scale halter top—meaning his blade was effectively useless.

She wrenched sideways and the point skidded across her top. As the draconian stumbled, caught off balance, she rolled and pulled her feet in, then pistoned them into his groin. Flipping onto her feet, she grabbed the handle of his pike and yanked it from his grip. She whipped it sideways, striking him hard in the side of his head.

He fell to his knees, stunned. She was already spinning around, his pike still in her hands, and charging toward the back stall. Eyal turned to see her coming just as she leaped over the half-wall and dropped in beside Hedya, crouched next to Ash’s unconscious form.

Piper grabbed the woman by the hair—payback—and flung her away from Ash. Then she leveled the pike at the woman’s chest and crouched defensively between Ash and the draconian.

“Stay away from him,” she snarled.

Hedya flicked a hand up. Her blast of magic hit Piper in the torso at point-blank range, hurling her into the rock wall. Her head struck the stone and stars shot across her vision, but she managed to land on her feet, half tripping on Ash’s legs. Pulling one hand off the pike, she flung it out at Hedya. Her swirl of blue and purple magic smashed into Hedya’s shield, dissolving it in a burst of orange light. Piper struck with the pike at the same instant, slamming the butt end into the woman’s sternum.

Hedya staggered back, gasping. Eyal made to lunge forward but she grabbed his arm, pulling him back several steps. The third draconian rushed up, stopping on Hedya’s other side. Piper tensed, spinning the pike to point the blade at them, heart pounding as she waited for their next attack.

Still breathing hard from the strike to the chest, Hedya’s pale eyes moved from Piper, to Ash behind her, and then to Zwi crouched beside Piper’s ankle, the dragonet less than intimidating wrapped in seaweed to support her wings but snarling viciously nonetheless.

She rubbed a hand over her chest and gave Piper a hard look. “You used the wrong end.”

Piper didn’t lower her weapon. “You had lots of chances to kill me too.”

Hedya’s eyes narrowed. Piper had realized after the fact that her fight with the two males, which had felt so desperate at the time, had been devoid of any intent to kill her. They hadn’t even used magic on her; they could have blasted her to smithereens.

The woman looked from Zwi, snarling beside Piper’s ankles, back to Piper. She reached up and pulled the wrap off her face. She was older than Piper had judged, maybe forty—though as she’d recently learned, her attempts to guess draconian ages were pointless.

“What’s wrong with him? Is he injured? Sick?”

The rapid-fire questions took Piper by surprise. She reluctantly lifted the point of the pike and set the butt end on the ground, keenly aware of Ash behind her.

“I’m not sure,” she replied slowly. “We were … attacked … and now he won’t wake up.”

Hedya slashed another look across Ash, then turned to her comrades. “Tiran, if you go fast, you should be able to catch Eliada before she leaves the outpost.”

The draconian nodded and spun on his heel, striding away from them to the exit of the cave. Piper’s eyes darted from him to the other two, frustration rising in her that she couldn’t stop him. The last thing she wanted were more potentially hostile draconians.

Hedya focused on Piper again. “You said you were attacked. By what?”

She hesitated. She didn’t want to tell them about the dragon. Shona had told the story of the dragon king with solemn passion, and reverence had tinged Coby’s voice when she had spoken of the great dragons. Piper didn’t know what it meant that a dragon had attacked Ash or how the draconians would perceive it.

“I don’t remember what attacked us,” she told them. “I was knocked out, and when I came to, he was unconscious. Our gear is up the mountain and I can’t get to it. I hid us here while I figured out what to do.”

“Were you burned in this attack?” Eyal asked, pointing at her blistered arms. Some of the blisters had ruptured during the fight and blood streaked her skin.

“Yes. I …”

“You can’t tell us anything about your attacker?” Hedya said, her voice hardening with demand. “You don’t recall what smashed through the stone balconies and scorched half the lakeshore black? You don’t know how you were burned?”

Piper shook her head mutely, not trusting herself to lie convincingly.

“We need to know what we’re facing,” Eyal said, his tone much gentler than Hedya’s. He obviously suspected she was hiding things. “Something that could do that kind of damage is a great threat.”

He had no idea how much of a threat. She shook her head again.

Hedya hissed in annoyance. “Do you have a name, haemon?”

“Piper.”

“And him?” She jerked her chin at Ash.

Piper said nothing. Ire flashed in Hedya’s eyes, darkening them from pale blue to cobalt.

“You said you were here to hide. From what?”

Piper debated whether she could get away with another lie. But what plausible excuse could she give for why a haemon and an unconscious Taroth were alone in an abandoned draconian city thousands of miles from anything?

“We’re hiding from the Hades family.”

Eyal shifted his weight uneasily but he didn’t look surprised. The draconians living here had to know that Hades was a threat to them; after all, the Hades family had to be the main reason they lived in secret so deep in the mountains.

Hedya flexed her jaw. “So he is one of the Hades draconians.”

“Not anymore,” she snapped, stiffening at the woman’s condemning tone. “And never by choice. Do you even know what Samael does to the draconians he captures?”

“We’ve heard rumors,” Hedya said coldly, “but no, we don’t know, because any of our loved ones who fall into Hades hands are never seen again.”

Her grip on her borrowed pike tightened as she glared at Hedya. She realized her legs were shaking and her burns were throbbing mercilessly. At some point, she wasn’t sure when, she’d slipped out of the shaded mindset. She leaned her borrowed pike on the ground and hoped they couldn’t see how much she was shaking with fatigue.

Unfortunately, not much slipped past Hedya. She leaned toward Eyal and murmured something. He walked off, leaving Hedya alone with Piper.

“Sit down before you fall down,” the woman said. “How long have you been here?”

After a short hesitation, Piper sank down to sit in front of Ash. Propping the pike against the half-wall, she half-heartedly wiped at some of the blood streaking her arm from ruptured blisters. If Hedya planned to attack her, she wouldn’t be much more useful standing than sitting anyway.

“I’m not sure how long,” she answered. “We arrived at twilight and we were attacked during the night.”

Hedya dropped into a crouch—still ready to defend, but no longer towering over Piper. Her eyes moved past Piper to Ash. Piper glanced at him as well. He hadn’t moved, his chest still rising and falling with short, rapid breaths. Zwi crouched beside him, panting with pain and nerves.

Beyond the cave entrance, the fog was still heavy and impenetrable. Thick darkness lay over the land. How long until Tiran returned with this Eliada person? What would happen then? The draconians didn’t seem to hold any animosity toward Ash, but she didn’t like Hedya’s reaction to hearing that Ash had come from Hades.

Eyal strode back into the cave, a compact leather bag over one shoulder. On the other, he carried Ash and Piper’s pack, haphazardly stuffed with the gear and weapons they’d left in the draconian dwelling up the mountain. He set it down outside the stall—out of her reach—then swung his pack off his shoulder and pulled it open to dig inside. He extracted a tiny jar with a cork in the top and handed it to Hedya.

She held it out to Piper. “Burn ointment. You should apply some to your skin.”

Piper blinked, surprised. She took the jar but didn’t open it. “What do you plan to do with us?”

“That is for Eliada to decide,” Hedya said. “But for now, we will make sure neither of you die.”

She rose and came into the stall. Piper tensed, clutching the jar.

“I will check him for injuries,” Hedya said, shooting her an annoyed look. “Do you object?”

“Oh … no, that would be good.”

She scuttled to one side of the stall so Hedya could approach him. Her heartbeat quickened; she desperately wanted to know what was wrong with Ash. Hedya had had many opportunities to hurt or kill both of them, so Piper was willing to give the woman the benefit of the doubt that she would only check his injuries and wouldn’t do anything malicious. Zwi growled softly but backed up a little too.

Hedya knelt by Ash’s shoulder and looked him over, then lightly touched the back of his neck with her fingertips. Her eyes darkened and lost focus.

“Broken wing,” she said. “Cracked ribs on the same side, and some internal bruising. Consistent with injuries caused by an impact or fall.”

“But no head trauma?” Eyal asked with a frown. “Why is he unconscious then?”

“I’m not sure … He’s running a high fever.” Hedya’s eyes focused on Piper. “Was he ill before you were attacked?”

“He was fine before,” she answered earnestly. “He had a bad chest injury a few weeks ago—uh, I mean, about seven cycles ago, but it was healed …”

Hedya looked back down at Ash and her gaze went distant again. “Yes, there is an old injury but his lungs seem fine. Why then …” Her brows furrowed. “I sense something … something strange with his magic.”

“His magic?” Eyal repeated blankly.

“Yes,” Hedya said, pressing her hand more firmly against Ash’s neck. “It’s almost like—”

Power exploded out of Ash. The blast of black fire flung Piper and Hedya away from him, throwing them onto their backs. The ebony flames burst with blue light as they vanished, gone as quickly as they’d appeared.

A quiet grunt of pain came from Ash. He moved for the first time since the attack, pulling one arm up near his face and bracing his forearm on the floor as he tried to push himself up.

“Ash!” Piper cried, jumping to his side, heedless of the danger of another magic attack from him.

She grabbed his shoulder and helped him turn over. He collapsed onto his back, chest heaving. His eyes were open but they stared straight through her, black as midnight. She pressed her hands to his hot cheeks, putting her face in front of his.

“Ash, can you hear me? Say something, please.”

For the barest instant, his eyes focused on her and a rasp escaped the back of his throat. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.

“No,” she gasped. “Ash, please wake up. Please!”

No response. He was gone again, lost to unconsciousness.

She held his face in her hands, struggling to control her emotions as her heart rent apart in her chest. So close, then gone again. Her hands shook and she reluctantly released him, pressing her fists against her knees.

“Is he still there, Zwi?” she choked. “Can you still reach him?”

Zwi whimpered softly and crawled back to his side, burrowing against him in misery. Piper sat there, lost in despair, before remembering she wasn’t alone. She turned around sharply, still kneeling on the floor.

Hedya stood beside Eyal. They’d both backed out of the stall. Eyal held his pike at the ready and Hedya had drawn her sword. She scrutinized Ash with cold eyes, then looked at Piper.

“There’s something wrong with him,” Hedya said, her voice flat and icy. “Something dangerous.”

“I—I don’t know—”

“Is it a poison in his magic? Is it something that could infect the rest of us?”

“What? No, it’s not—”

“Something has infected his magic.” She backed up another step. “Whatever it is, Eliada will decide his fate when she arrives.”

Piper’s hands clenched so hard her claws cut her palms. Ash wasn’t poisoned. Whatever was wrong with him, the dragon had done it.

The two draconians retreated, positioning themselves halfway down the aisle between the stalls. Piper’s mouth trembled and she swallowed back tears of desperation. Pulling herself together, she searched the bedding of vines until she found the little jar of ointment. Removing the cork, she inspected the few dollops of white paste inside.

As the smell of unfamiliar herbs wafted over her, she dipped her fingers in and smeared some over her arm. She suppressed a gasp as the burning ache instantly cooled. Eagerly, she spread more of the cream across her arms and over the worst of the burns on her legs where her pants had burned away. She would have liked to remove her pants to apply it to all her burns, but she wasn’t doing that with the two draconians watching her from a distance.

When she finished, she set the jar just outside the stall and crawled back to Ash. Wrapping her arms around him, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder.

“Please wake up, Ash,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know what to do. Please wake up.”

She lay down beside him, limp with exhaustion. Her emotions had been dragged through hell: desperation, terror, fury, hope, fear, and more desperation. With a deep breath, she let go of her daemon glamour and returned to her human shape. She was so tired. She should rest a little.

As she tried to relax, a thought wiggled into her brain and refused to budge. In spite of everything else demanding her attention, she couldn’t set it aside to worry about later.

She’d shaded when she’d fought the draconians. It was the third time she’d shaded since arriving in the Underworld, and all three times she’d shaken off the shading without slipping into that violent bloodlust. She hadn’t attacked anyone she didn’t want to attack, hadn’t raged mindlessly or longed to spill the blood of her enemies. She’d been ruthless and calculating, but not insane. She’d been more like Ash or Lyre when they shaded, rather than a bloodthirsty predator.

She didn’t get it. Why could she suddenly control her shading better? What had changed? She couldn’t think of what was different now then all the other times she’d shaded, and she didn’t think it was as simple as being in the Underworld.

With a shaky sigh, she settled more comfortably beside Ash. She wouldn’t find any answers here and now. The pain of her burns was significantly diminished, enough that she could finally relax. Since she was stuck here for the time being, it wouldn’t hurt to close her eyes and gather her strength. Just a few minutes of rest …

Chapter Eleven

A sharp dart of pain in her hand jarred her awake.

Zwi chirped a soft warning, nipping her hand again. Piper bolted upright, reality crashing back in on her. How long had she been asleep? What had she missed?

Footsteps on stone. She looked up as Hedya, Tiran, and Eyal stopped at the opening of the stall. Dread churned in her gut as her brain scrambled to catch up. Her gaze shifted from Hedya’s grim eyes, her face once again half-concealed by the dark wrap, to Tiran’s dark gray stare.

Tiran was back. He had returned with the draconian who would decide her and Ash’s fates.

She pushed back from them and pressed against Ash. Without thinking, she shifted into her daemon form. Feeling a little stronger, she got her fear under control and rose to her feet.

Hedya held out a length of rope. “Cross your hands on your chest.”

What use was there in fighting? She couldn’t defeat them. She crossed her arms over her chest, hands pressed to her collarbones. Hedya stepped into the stall and wrapped the rope around her wrists, quickly but efficiently binding her arms in place. The rope crisscrossed her back, immobilizing her hands entirely. All she could do was wiggle her fingers.

With a hand on Piper’s elbow, Hedya led her out of the stall. She grabbed Piper’s pack and slung it over her shoulder before pulling Piper down the aisle. Tiran and Eyal lifted Ash up, sharing his weight between them, and carried him out after Piper. Zwi let out a furious chitter, rushing out after the two males and chomping down on a mouthful of Tiran’s pant leg. He stopped, clearly unwilling to kick an injured dragonet.

Piper shrugged off Hedya’s hand and crouched down.

“Come on, Zwi,” she said tiredly.

With one last furious snarl at the draconians, Zwi limped to Piper and climbed painfully onto her shoulders. Piper stood again. Hedya took her elbow a second time and guided her toward the cave entrance. Craning her neck, Piper was relieved to see Tiran and Eyal minding Ash’s bound wing.

The vista beyond the cave was still swallowed in darkness but the long night would be ending soon. The clouds and fog had finally dissipated. As they exited the cave, Periskios’s light was bright enough to make her squint. Its illuminated left side was shrinking from a full orb, and when it reached a half circle of light, the suns would return.

Seven draconians waited for them on the rocky shore, standing in a half-circle. Five men, two women. All wearing wraps over their faces. All with cold, assessing eyes cast in shadows.

Her knees buckled under the onslaught of Nightmare Effect from seven unfamiliar draconians. Hedya pulled her up, half supporting her as they approached the waiting group. Piper panted for air, struggling to think through the haze of panic while she suppressed the urge to shade. Shading would not be helpful.

They stopped before the half-circle of men and women. As Hedya dropped her pack on the ground beside them, the new draconians examined Piper’s scales and dairokkan with inscrutable expressions. Eyal and Tiran carefully laid Ash down on his back beside Piper and stepped away. Ash didn’t stir, as deeply unconscious as before. Zwi half slid, half jumped off Piper’s shoulder, yelping when she hit the ground, and climbed onto her master’s chest, baring her fangs at the nearest daemons.

Of the new draconians, six looked like warriors, dressed in similar clothing and gear to Hedya, Eyal, and Tiran. One of the women, however, carried no weapons at all. She approached Ash and gazed down at him. After a long moment of scrutiny, she spoke.

“You are correct, Hedya,” she said in a cool, smooth-toned voice. “This is not Jesyr. However, this boy is his spitting image.”

The waiting draconians tensed as though waiting for an unseen axe to fall.

“How is that possible?” one of the others asked. “Jesyr died childless.”

“So we assumed,” the woman replied, still staring at Ash. “Or so we had hoped. We never found his body.”

The woman moved away from Ash and stopped in front of Piper. Her teal-blue eyes were harder than steel and fine wrinkles webbed out from the corners.

“Tell me, girl, what you know of this draconian’s lineage.”

Piper lifted her chin. “All I know is his father was captured by Hades and forced to breed with a draconian woman before he was executed.”

“And what was his father’s name?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know. As far as I know, the only name he gave was the one for his son.”

“And that is?”

Piper met the old woman’s steely eyes and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. “Ashtaroth.”

A ripple went through all the draconians—sharp inhales and soft sounds of disbelief. The old woman studied Piper.

“So the boy is most likely the only living offspring of Jesyrtaroth,” she murmured, almost as though she were thinking aloud. “The similarity of features goes beyond the markings of a Taroth. I knew Jesyr well, and this boy could be a double of his younger self.”

“He is a product of Hades,” one of the warriors said, an older one judging by the gravelly quality of his voice. “Even if he is Jesyr’s only son, he was raised as Samael’s pet. You’ve heard the stories, Eliada. The draconians of Hades are monsters raised and trained to kill.”

“Ash isn’t a monster,” Piper snapped.

Eliada raised a hand, quieting the warrior who’d spoken. “Hedya, were you able to determine what ails Ashtaroth?”

“No,” Hedya said, planting a hand on her hip. “But when I examined him, I found something wrong with his magic.”

Eliada’s attention snapped from Ash to Hedya. “His magic?”

“Yes … I don’t know what it was, but as soon as I sensed it, he attacked me with dragon fire that … turned blue.”

One of the warriors growled something nasty about Ash attacking Hedya, but Eliada didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring at Ash with wide eyes. Her gaze shot toward the mountain where the dragon had smashed one of the balconies, then darted to the shore where the pebbles were scorched black. Finally, her eyes turned to Piper, sweeping over her burns.

“What attacked you, girl?” the old woman demanded.

“I don’t remember—”

“What attacked you?”

Piper took a half step back from Eliada’s vehemence before Hedya pulled her back into place.

Eliada turned sharply to Hedya. “Are you sure it was blue dragon fire? Absolutely sure?”

“I—yes,” Hedya stammered, as confused as Piper. “It was definitely blue.”

“I saw it too,” Eyal said. “Black fire that turned to blue.”

The old woman stepped closer to Ash and knelt. She placed a hand on his forehead—had she somehow known he was feverish? Her shoulders slumped.

“By the cursed luck of the Moirai,” she sighed. “So the beast still hunts.”

Piper went rigid. The beast? Did she know about the dragon?

Eliada rose to her feet and gazed down at Ash, a furtive emotion passing through her eyes. Regret? Sadness? She turned and walked back to the waiting warriors before speaking.

“He must die.”

At first Piper thought she’d misheard the soft words, then her blood went cold.

“What?” one of the other warriors exclaimed. “You want to kill him? You want to end the Taroth bloodline right here, by our own hands? He may well be the last.”

“He must die.” Eliada turned, peering down at Ash with steely eyes, all signs of regret gone. “He will likely die before sunrise. If the gods are merciful, he will die. But if he doesn’t … We must end his life now for the safety of all.”

The draconians exchanged startled, uneasy looks.

“A warrior’s death for the last Taroth. He deserves that much.”

Eliada gestured to the old warrior. He gave her a long look, then drew the massive sword sheathed over his back. The quiet ring of steel echoed over the lake.

“No!” Piper yelled, jerking away from Hedya. She stumbled awkwardly with her hands still bound against her chest. “You can’t do this!”

Hedya grabbed Piper, dragging her away from Ash’s prone form.

“No!” she screamed, straining against the woman’s hold. “Please! He’s not your enemy!”

“I hold no malice toward him,” Eliada said without emotion. “It must be done. Your fate we will determine next.”

Eyal and Tiran took Ash by the arms, pulling him up until he was on his knees, hanging listlessly from their grips. His unbound wing dragged on the ground. Zwi let out a terrible animal shriek and lunged at Eyal, but three more dragonets appeared out of nowhere. The little creatures shoved and jostled Zwi away, blocking her from her master. By killing Ash, the draconians were condemning Zwi to death too.

“You can’t kill him!” Piper screamed. “What has he done to deserve this?”

They ignored her. The man with the sword moved toward Ash. Panic surged through Piper, and in a flash, it transformed into vicious fury.

Snarling like an animal, she lunged out of Hedya’s hold again. Hedya grabbed her by the ropes around her torso and hauled her backward. Two of the six remaining draconian warriors broke out of their line and rushed Piper. One of them took her other arm and the other grabbed her chin, his fingers digging into her cheek as magic rushed from his skin across hers—a sleep spell.

At the same time, the draconian with the sword stopped in front of Ash and lifted his weapon.

“A warrior’s oath is to protect his people, and by your death, you fulfil that oath,” the man intoned. “May your spirit soar forever among the stars.”

He touched the blade to his forehead, then extended it for a strike that would sever Ash’s neck in one swing.

Piper called on her magic, pulsing the conflicting powers through her body as the draconian’s spell surged into her. Fiery agony burst through her as her magic devoured the daemon’s spell. Then she flung the power outward, letting it erupt out of her body in every direction.

The blast of magic hurled Hedya and the two male draconians away from her. She bolted for Ash, her eyes on the sword already in motion, flashing toward his neck. Her hands were still bound—she could cast neither spell nor shield—so she did the only thing she could.

Just before the sword reached him, she threw herself into Ash.

The blade hit her left arm first and raked across her back, catching her right arm too. Her weight slammed into Ash, ripping him out of Tiran and Eyal’s grips. Ash fell onto his back, with Piper sprawled awkwardly over his chest. She panted, stunned by the pain. Her dragon scale halter top had protected her back, but the cuts on her upper arms were deep. Hot blood ran down her skin.

“Idiot girl!” the executioner growled. A hand grabbed her hair, yanking her half off of Ash.

Then hands, with skin too hot, closed around her arms just above the elbows.

She looked down in shock. Ash was holding her arms, her blood running over his knuckles. His eyes were open, staring, glassy and sightless—and blacker than pitch.

The pressure on her scalp vanished as the executioner released her. Ash’s nostrils flared as he inhaled and, somehow, his eyes went blacker. He didn’t seem to be fully aware, but something had woken him—the smell of her blood?

He released her upper arms and in a single motion, he sat up and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her protectively against his chest. Gathering his legs under him, he stood, lifting her with him. He staggered backward, his arms suffocatingly tight, before regaining his balance.

The warriors surrounded them, weapons out and tension high. Ash didn’t pay them any heed as he crushed her tight to him.

“What did they do to you?” The words came out in a hoarse, guttural growl no louder than a whisper. The deep rage that vibrated through each word sent a shiver running down her spine.

The air around him crackled with building magic. Even though he was staring at her, his unfocused gaze was a thousand miles away. Power sizzled under his skin, sparking against Piper’s body. She gasped, struggling to breathe in his grip. He was normally so careful with his strength around her that she feared he was only half-conscious.

His eyes rose, black orbs focusing on the other draconians behind her.

“What did you do to her?” he snarled.

His wings flared out, the seaweed ties snapping. He didn’t seem to notice the broken bones or the pain that opening the wing must have caused him. His teeth were bared, rage and power radiating off him.

A few yards away, Eyal’s foot slipped on the gravel—a tiny movement and an abrupt recovery.

Black fire exploded out of Ash. The fiery tornado billowed outward like an expanding shockwave, and electric-blue flames twisted through the ebony fire like bands of northern lights through the night sky. Piper clutched Ash, terrified but safe in the eye of the storm as the explosion rushed outward.

The whirlwind of flames died twenty yards out from Ash but the fire wasn’t entirely gone. Knee-high blue and black flames danced across the ground, swirling in lazy circles around him. The same flames trailed along the last couple feet of his tail and rippled over his wings, dripping onto the ground like burning oil.

Heedless of the fire over and around him, Ash watched the draconians, downed but mostly unharmed by the explosion of power—they must have shielded. Piper hardly noticed them. She stared at Ash, unable to look away.

His eyes were no longer shaded black. Instead, they glowed with bright blue power—no whites, no pupils, just solid, glowing blue. The dark designs that swirled and coiled across his body wherever scale transitioned to skin, so much darker on him than on other draconians, glowed blue with the same power. The bright azure lines ran into his scales, emanating from the cracks between each scale as though his body were filled with blue fire trying to leak out.

Releasing Piper from the grip of one arm, he raised his hand. The draconians flinched as one. Silence pressed on the valley but for the crackle of the flames that danced around him. The draconians didn’t move, too shocked or frightened to act. Eliada, not a warrior like the others, must have been slower with her shield; she looked either stunned or unconscious.

Thirty seconds passed where no one dared to even breathe.

With loud chatters, three dragonets flew out of the darkness and landed on the ground in front of Ash. The flames rippling all around him leaped higher. Blue fire rushed over the dragonet trio’s bodies, billowing outward. The azure flames died, revealing their dragon forms. Blue fire glowed from between their scales in lines down the sides of their necks and along their backs. They snarled at the other draconians.

With Piper still pressed against his chest, Ash stepped over to their pack and slung it over his shoulder. Then he slid onto the back of the middle dragon, pulling Piper up with him. Zwi ran up and grabbed Piper’s leg, climbing up her pants and onto her back, clinging to the ropes still binding her arms against her chest.

The dragon spread its wings and jumped into the air, the other two following with snarling roars. Held tightly in Ash’s arms, Piper pressed her cheek to his shoulder and watched the draconians shrink as the dragons ascended. The figures below finally clambered to their feet but showed no signs of preparing a pursuit. They just stared up at Ash as the three dragons wheeled away into the night.

Piper kept her eyes closed, fighting increasing dizziness as the dragon flew them through the cool night. After only about twenty minutes—not nearly long enough to put a safe distance between them and the draconians—their mount switched to a glide and the swoop in her belly confirmed they were dropping quickly. A minute later, the dragon touched down, trotting a few steps before stopping.

Ash’s arm loosened around her and she opened her eyes. The eerie blue glow in his eyes, in the markings on his skin, and between his scales had faded away. Wherever they were, Periskios’s light couldn’t reach them, and she couldn’t see him in the pitch darkness.

“Ash?” she mumbled, swaying from lightheadedness.

He swung his leg over the dragon and slid to the ground, then helped her down after him. As soon as her feet touched the leafy turf, her legs shook weakly. The ground seemed to rock and shift under her. Zwi climbed down Piper’s back, her small weight almost tipping Piper over.

Ash wrapped his arm around her waist. A tiny light appeared, glowing in the palm of his hand. It lit his face from below, casting harsh shadows over his features. He tossed it into the air, where it floated just above them, illuminating the three dragons waiting near Ash. Beyond them, the black shapes of trees surrounded them; they’d landed in a forest.

He slid his fingers under the rope binding her hands and with a spark of magic, it snapped. He touched the deep cuts on the backs of her upper arms. She flinched at the nauseating pain. Tingling magic flowed into her. Sharp aches shot through her wounds, followed by a wave of heat. Then the spots went numb.

“I closed the wounds,” Ash said, his voice hoarse. “It will scar; I’m sorry. I’m not a good healer.”

She gave him a wavering smile. “As long as I’m not bleeding anymore.”

He slid the pack off his shoulder, dropping it on the ground. She had just a moment’s warning as he swayed, then he went down. She grabbed him but she was almost as feeble as he was and ended up falling beside him.

“Ash,” she gasped, scrambling onto her knees. “Are you okay?”

He lay on his back, one arm across his eyes. His light hovered above them, just enough illumination to make out his features.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know what he did to me.”

“Who?” She swallowed hard, remembering the bizarre blue glow in his eyes. She’d seen the same blue glow emanating from another pair of eyes. “The dragon?”

He nodded. She wasn’t sure if it was just the weak light, but he looked paler than snow. She laid a hand against his forehead, above his arm. His skin was still hot, but not as feverish as before.

She swallowed again. “He said … the dragon said you were resisting.”

“Could you hear him? I wasn’t sure if his voice was just inside my head.”

“I couldn’t hear him until after he’d caught you. I don’t know what he was saying to you.”

He let out a shuddering breath. She gripped his arm, offering wordless support; she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so shaken up. The three strange dragonets, somehow transformed by the blue fire, watched them curiously.

“I don’t remember very well,” he whispered. “He said my magic had called him, that my dragon fire was powerful. Then he said … he said I was the child of dragons and I owed him my magic. He commanded me to submit to his will.”

She remembered Ash shouting “no” at the dragon in their first encounter—his first refusal to submit? “What happened when he pinned you to the ground?”

Ash shivered under her hand. “He … he somehow poured his magic into me and pulled mine away at the same time. The whole time he tried to dominate my mind with his telepathy, to force me to submit and stop resisting him. I don’t know what would have happened if I had. He wanted to control me, but I don’t understand why.”

Piper pressed her lips together as she pushed through another wave of weak dizziness. She’d lost too much blood. It was drying on her arms, making her skin feel cold and tight.

“Well, he picked the wrong draconian,” she said. “You didn’t spend a lifetime fighting Samael to cave in to the first over-sized lizard that demanded your submission.”

His lips curved in a ghost of a smile. He kept his arm over his eyes, hiding them from Piper’s view—or hiding her from his view?

She eased down to lie beside him, flinching as her burns touched the leafy ground. She reached up and took his arm, gently pulling it away from his face. He turned his head and looked at her with exhausted eyes. No, not just exhausted. Fear lurked in his gaze, shadowing his gray irises.

That’s what he hadn’t wanted her to see. He was afraid.

She wrapped her arms around his, holding it against her chest. “So the dragon forced its magic into you?” she asked gently. “Was that all the blue fire?”

“I guess,” he mumbled. “I don’t remember much after the dragon got me on the ground. Just the heat … heat inside me. I thought I would burst into flame.”

“You had a terrible fever. I didn’t want to leave you on the shore … I hope I didn’t hurt your wing more when I moved you. I didn’t know what to do, and all our gear was up the mountain …”

The muscles in his arm bunched with tension. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I would heal your burns, but I’m not—”

“It’s fine,” she soothed. “The draconians gave me some cream for the burns so they aren’t as bad anymore. They can wait until we get back to the others.” She lifted her head, looking around until she spotted Zwi curled up on Ash’s other side. “I’m more concerned about Zwi’s wings.”

His jaw tensed as he stared upward. “It’s bad. Far beyond my healing skills.”

“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered. “I made her go after the dragon with me. If we’d just waited—”

“I told Zwi to wait, but she still would have come to help me with or without you.”

Piper bit her lip. Her eyes darted to the three dragons waiting patiently in the trees. “What about them? Are they the dragonets of the other draconians?”

“No,” he mumbled, his voice going even quieter. “They’re wild dragonets.”

Her eyes narrowed but he kept staring at the sky, stubbornly evading her gaze. “But I thought only bonded dragonets can transform into larger dragons.”

“That’s what I thought too, but …”

“But what?”

He let out a sound of frustration and finally turned to look at her. Fear and uncertainty darkened his eyes and aged his face. “I don’t know, Piper. I don’t get it. I was still half in the fever sleep when I woke up. I could just—somehow I could sense them nearby. And I called them like I would have called Zwi.”

His eyes flicked down toward her arms, where the draconian’s sword had cut her, then back up to her face. “What happened?”

Apprehension slid through her at the memory of Eliada’s bizarre reaction and verdict that he needed to die.

“They tried to execute you. Because of what the dragon did to you, I think.” Her eyes darted toward the sky. Remembering Eliada’s cold determination, she didn’t doubt that the woman would be coming after Ash again. “They might try again. We need to get away from here, but … you and Zwi can’t fly, and Raum won’t come looking for us until the next eclipse at the earliest.”

He closed his eyes, exhaustion written across his face. Then he heaved a sigh and sluggishly sat up. She got up with him, wobbling on her feet as he turned toward the waiting dragons. He reached for the nearest one and rubbed its muzzle. It rumbled in a friendly way.

“They will carry us back to the camp,” he said.

“They—they will?”

He leaned down and opened their pack, digging in it. When he straightened, he held a coil of rope in his hands.

She eyed it warily. “What’s that for?”

He sighed again as he measured out a length. “I don’t know about you, but short of tying myself in place for the ride, I won’t make it the whole way back.”

A shudder ran through her as she realized she had to spend the next ten hours on a flying dragon when she was already exhausted, weak, and dizzy. Grimacing, she held her hands out for the other end of the rope.

Chapter Twelve

“Okay,” Lyre said, raking a hand through his hair. “Start again. From the beginning.”

Piper blew out a breath and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. The others in the tent waited for her to speak.

Ash lay beside her in a magically induced sleep while Shona and Seiya worked on his wing. Seiya supported the broken bone on her lap with a combination of her hands and magic while Shona performed the careful healing. Since the membrane hadn’t torn, it should be a clean, if slow, healing. In a corner of the tent, Mahala sat crossed-legged with Zwi in her lap, one of the dragonet’s wings in her hands and her brow etched with deep lines of concentration. Zwi’s wings hadn’t been as lucky.

On Piper’s other side, Lyre sat stiffly, drumming his fingers on his knee as his gaze snapped from Ash’s broken wing to Zwi to Piper’s burns, which she’d refused to let anyone heal until Ash and Zwi were taken care of. Raum crouched near the tent entrance, his stillness suggesting great tension; she suspected he would be pacing if the tent were large enough.

The flight back to the camp had been a nightmare of cold wind and nauseating exhaustion. Tied in place, she’d managed to sleep a little but it hadn’t been enough to counter the dizziness from her blood loss. They’d stopped several times to switch mounts, and the steadfast dragons had carried them without hesitation or complaint. The sky had lightened with twilight until the first sun eventually broke the horizon to cast warm light across the mountains.

The dragons had dropped them off at the other end of the valley from the camp, too wary of strangers to approach any closer. Ash had thanked each one before they’d transformed back into dragonets and flown away, heading home. The walk through the valley had almost finished her and Ash had been white as a sheet when Kiev had found them staggering through the trees.

Once they were in a tent where healing could begin for Ash and Zwi, Piper had managed a jumbled, emotional rendition of the events, but she wasn’t surprised they wanted to hear it again a little more coherently.

“We found the ancient city,” she began tiredly, keeping her emotions in check this time. “It was totally abandoned. In one of the dwellings, we found the remains of the draconians who’d died there centuries ago, and Ash burned their bones with dragon fire out of respect. I think that’s how the dragon found us.”

Lyre’s fingers stopped drumming and he clenched his hand into a fist as he looked again at her burns.

“It—he—was waiting outside when we came out.” She described the dragon’s approach, his first communication with Ash, and the resulting attack. Her voice trembled when she told them about confronting the dragon while he had Ash pinned under his deadly talons.

“‘Silver child,’” Lyre muttered. “Your scales aren’t silver. They’re greeny-blue.”

“I’m not silver, but the water dragons of the Overworld are. Remember the silver Lady of Seas from the legends? I don’t know how much truth there is to those stories, but I think there’s something there. How would a dragon from the Underworld know about Overworld dragons?”

“So Ash wouldn’t wake after that?” Raum said, pulling her focus back to the incident. “And he was feverish?”

She nodded.

“There are stories about the dragon taking a draconian’s magic,” Shona said, looking up from Ash’s wing, “but nothing about giving magic. I know they’re just legends, but …”

“I don’t think there was anything benevolent about it,” Piper replied darkly. “The dragon wanted to control him … to use him somehow. When he spoke to me, I could sense this great anger in his mind. Definitely not the gentle dragon king from your story.”

“There are other legends,” Shona said slowly. “Kirya told me so many but I only committed my favorites to memory. In many of the stories, it wasn’t one great dragon but a race of them—albeit with very small numbers—and the myths varied in regards to the dragons’ relationships with draconians. In some, they are powerful protectors. In others, they are deadly predators.”

“Do any of them offer any clues about what the dragon wanted with Ash?”

“It sounds to me,” Raum rumbled, “like this dragon intended to make Ash his dragonet.”

Piper inhaled sharply. Dragonets gained magic and certain abilities—like the power to change forms—when they bonded with a draconian, and the draconians gained influence and limited control over the dragonet. Ash had gained magic and abilities from the great dragon, and the dragon wanted to control him …

Her hands clenched. “Why though? What does the dragon get out of it?”

“Does it matter?” Seiya snapped, most of her attention on Ash’s wing in her lap. “We won’t get any answers from analyzing the bit of information we have. We already know what’s most important: that the dragon almost killed Ash. It wants to control him. It’s dangerous to him.”

“It may be dangerous to all of us,” Raum said. “I don’t like what that Eliada woman said about him.”

A chill ran up Piper’s back. We must end his life now for the safety of all. What did that mean? What did Eliada know about the great dragon? She slid her hand down to Ash’s arm, gripping it tightly.

“Who cares what that hag said?” Seiya growled. “They tried to execute him.”

“But we don’t know why,” Raum reminded her. “They seemed to think their reasons—”

“They tried to execute him. No matter how they try to justify it, we can’t trust anything they say. We shouldn’t have anything to do with them.”

“You don’t make that choice for all of us,” Raum replied with a hint of a growl. “Ash chose the limits of his loyalty years ago.”

Seiya looked up from Ash’s wing for the first time, her eyes slicing Raum like black knives.

“It’s long past time you dropped your petty grudge against him,” she said, her words vibrating with controlled fury. “You turned your back on your own family when Talia died. Ash didn’t betray anyone when he tried to escape with me. No one holds it against him but you.”

Raum stared at her stonily as a heavy, awkward quiet filled the tent.

“Seiya, this isn’t the time,” Mahala said. Her soft voice didn’t so much break the silence as whisk it away.

Seiya scowled and returned her focus to Ash’s wing. Piper’s gaze flashed between her and Raum. Raum had pushed Ash hard over the last few weeks, claiming necessity, but maybe there had been an element of penance behind it.

“Judging from Piper’s rendition, I am not certain these draconians bear us ill intent,” Mahala continued. “However, their determination to kill Ash makes them enemies of us all. We will not stand aside and let them slay one of our own. Will they kill us too if we try to protect him?”

“We must retreat.” Raum sounded tired, as though resigning himself to the inevitable. “If Piper is correct, the draconians will come for Ash. We will retreat to a safe location farther from their territory, then attempt to make contact.”

“Contact for what? So we can all be friends?” Seiya’s eyes slashed from Raum to Piper. “If you hadn’t taken the executioner’s blade for him, he would be dead. I will not forgive them.”

“Neither will I,” Piper said.

“Your choice,” Raum said with finality. “I will not condemn our only kin without any attempt to find peace between us. However, the safety of the children is most important. We will break down camp as soon as Ash and Piper are healed and travel back to a previous campsite.”

Raum stood, his head stooped under the canvas ceiling. He gave Piper and Seiya a cold look.

“There is one more reason to seek contact with these draconians. We need to know what they know of the great dragon … and what it means for Ash.”

He pushed the tent flap aside and strode out, calling for Kiev and Sivan—probably intending to do a quick fly around the valley to check for the pursuing draconians.

Even though she hadn’t seen them giving chase, Piper was certain that Eliada would come after them. She couldn’t get the woman’s eyes out of her head, the cold but regretful stare. If the gods are merciful, he will die. Ash hadn’t died; he was alive and regaining his strength. What did it mean that he had survived the fever?

As she tied the tent canvas into a bundle, she tried not to look as dejected as she felt. The draconian women moved silently about the camp, speaking only to coordinate their packing efforts. The weight of disappointment was like a bitter tang in the air.

The first sun had already disappeared behind Periskios and the second would soon be eclipsed too, but its light was enough to illuminate the clearing. Their little camp looked sad and empty as they piled their gear beside the cold coals of the fire. Two wood structures waited for completion in the shadow of the cliff beside the waterfall. Who knew when they would be able to come back and finish them?

Raum, Kiev, and Sivan were scouting, checking for any signs of Eliada and her warriors—or the dragon. Ash was still inside the last remaining tent, resting from the strain of his healing. Zwi was with him, sleeping off her even more intensive healing.

Mahala had done all she could. When Ash had woken after his healing, she’d placed Zwi in his arms and, with a trembling voice and tears standing in her eyes, told him what Piper had feared since discovering the injured dragonet.

Zwi would probably never fly again.

Piper would never forget the way Ash had pulled his dragonet close and buried his face in her mane, his shoulders bowed with inexpressible grief. Then Zwi had begun to keen, her tiny voice rising in fear and denial that required no words. Mahala had taken Piper’s arm and guided her from the tent, leaving the pair alone in their shared pain. Piper had retreated to the edge of the camp for some privacy for her own tears, but Lyre had found her and held her while she cried from the pain and guilt. She shouldn’t have made Zwi help fight the dragon. She should have done something different, something else, something more.

She swallowed hard before the grief could overwhelm her again. The eclipse would begin soon and Raum wanted to be ready to leave as soon as there was enough darkness to hide their movements. She picked up the canvas bundle she’d just rolled. Her muscles felt weak and quivery, and her entire body ached with exhaustion, but at least she was healed now. After doing everything she could for Zwi, Mahala had healed Piper’s burns and completed Ash’s rough healing of the wounds on her arms. The scars were ugly and the skin taut and uncomfortable, but she didn’t think there was any permanent damage to her motor skills.

As she walked over to the pile of gear and deposited her bundle, Ash’s voice murmured quietly inside the tent, deep tones rumbling too softly for her to make out any words. Lyre’s lighter tenor answered, just as quietly. She paused, squashing a prickle of hurt at them excluding her from their conversation, whatever it was about.

Ash said something, and Lyre’s voice rose to an audible level. “But Ash—”

He cut himself off, but not before Piper heard the hoarse catch in his voice, as though their conversation was causing him physical pain. Her heart hammered with sudden nerves. Ash replied to Lyre, words too low for her ears.

“This is your fault.”

The bitter declaration yanked Piper’s attention away from the tent. Jezel stood in front of her, holding several tent poles in one hand.

“This is your fault,” Jezel repeated, her words low but vicious. “You dragged Ash to that city, you made the other draconians hate us, and now we have to leave, and it’s your fault.”

Piper’s throat closed. She swallowed hard but still couldn’t speak. She agreed. How could she deny it?

“Shut up, Jezel.” Raisa appeared beside Piper, glowering furiously. “Just shut up. You don’t know anything. All you’ve done is whine and complain since we left Asphodel.”

“All she’s done is make things worse,” Jezel spat. “She’s just a pathetic haemon who wishes she was a daemon, and she’s so weak she ruins everything for everyone else.”

“Piper does everything she can to help. You don’t do anything for anyone. You’re just as selfish as Yaron was.”

Jezel gasped, paling. With a malevolent glare, she pivoted on one foot and marched off. As Raisa folded her arms, watching her half-sister go, the tent opened and Lyre walked out, his expression as bleak as Piper had ever seen it. He walked away without even glancing at her.

She blinked, pulling her attention from the incubus back to Raisa. “Um. Thank you. Who’s Yaron?”

“My father,” Raisa replied, very matter-of-fact. “He’s the dad of Coby’s baby too. He wasn’t like Ash and Raum; Samael made him go bad. He attacked Jezel once, and Raum almost killed him. He died right after Coby got pregnant.”

She hesitated before asking. “How did he die?”

“Poison. It looked like a Ra poison so Samael figured it was an assassination, but I’ve heard the others say the timing wasn’t quite right.” She shrugged.

“You … You’re not upset about his death?”

“No. Like I said, he went bad. He used to hit me for no reason. He just liked to hurt people.”

Piper pulled in a slow breath. “Do you know who Talia was?”

“Raum’s first daughter.”

“Oh,” Piper whispered, remembering Coby telling her about Raum’s slide into an emotionless, obedient zombie after Samael killed his first child to punish him.

The sun flared brightly and then the light across the valley dimmed as the second sun slid behind Periskios. As Piper looked up at the massive planet, a dark flash dropped from the sky. Kiev plunged toward the camp in a fast dive, flaring his wings at the last moment. He hit the ground and staggered.

“Raum!” he yelled, whirling around. “Is Raum back?”

Piper, Mahala, and Lyre all ran for him.

“He’s not back,” Mahala said. “He went to scout the far end of the valley. What’s wrong?”

Kiev’s gaze shot toward the darkening sky. “They’re here.”

Lyre swore. He spun around and jumped toward the tent. Ash stood in the opening, holding Zwi in one arm.

“Get inside.” Lyre roughly pushed him back in and tugged the flap closed. “And stay there! You need to stay out of sight.”

Ash growled something she couldn’t quite make out, but she wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes scoured the sky in search of wings. The women grabbed the children, herding everyone to the center of the camp. Seiya planted herself in front of Ivria and the two smallest girls. Kiev drew his swords, afraid but determined to protect his family.

They shimmered out of nothingness as they dropped their cloaking spells. Nine draconian warriors with weapons drawn and ready landed in the clearing, wings spread wide. Eliada landed last, just behind the armed warriors.

Enduring a wave of terror, Piper reached behind Kiev and drew one of the daggers sheathed on Seiya’s thigh. Why hadn’t she donned her own weapons? She planted her feet in a defensive stance, meeting Eliada’s eyes from across the clearing. She, Lyre, Kiev, and Seiya were the only ones with enough skill to fight, making four of them against nine experienced warriors.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mahala draw a sword, handling the blade with an ease that spoke of long familiarity. Okay, five against nine.

Even as she inspected the enemy, assessing and calculating, part of her attention was on the tent behind her. Ash needed to stay inside. His skill could easily turn the odds in their favor, but the draconians would no doubt concentrate all their attacks on him until they killed him.

Eliada’s eyes moved across the group, lingering on the children before she stepped forward.

“We do not come to harm you,” she began.

“You’ve come to kill Ash,” Piper retorted, fury lighting inside her at the woman’s lie.

Eliada sliced a hand through the air. “You do not understand. You are all—we are all in great danger as long as he is allowed to live.”

Cold whispered through her. “What are you talking about?”

“He should not have survived the seal. It should have killed him, but since it did not, the kindest thing you can do now is end it for him.”

“You try to disguise murder as mercy!” Seiya yelled. “We won’t let you kill him!”

“The dragon will come for him!” Eliada’s voice rose, urgency breaking through her composure. “He must die before the dragon claims him!”

Before anyone could respond, Raum dove out of the sky, landing in front of his family. Wings arched over his back, massive sword in his hand, his black eyes cut across Eliada and the warriors. He rose, feet set in a fighting stance, sword at the ready. He exuded danger and deadly power, an unspoken challenge vibrating in the air. He was almost—almost—as terrifying as Ash in full, lethal predator mode.

Eliada directed her attention to Raum, recognizing him as the leader of their group and the greatest threat to her mission. With Raum ready to fight, their odds weren’t quite as bad. She forced herself to focus on the enemy, her head spinning with resolve, anxiety, and the exhaustion she hadn’t shook since losing so much blood.

Eliada opened her mouth but the panicked cry of a dragonet broke the silence before she could speak.

Piper spun as Zwi let out another frightened cry from within the tent. Forgetting everything else, Piper darted past the others and rushed into the tent. Ash knelt on a blanket inside, bent forward until his forehead almost touched his knees, his arms clenched around his head like a vice. Zwi crouched beside him, chittering fearfully.

Dropping down beside him, Piper grabbed his arm. Heat radiated from his skin, a fever almost as bad as when she’d first found him unconscious on the rocky shore of the lake.

Ash lurched to his feet, tearing out of Piper’s grip. He staggered forward a step then dropped back to his knees before Piper could catch him, still clutching his head. He bent forward, wings arching up off his back.

“No,” he gasped hoarsely. “Stop it.”

Dread plummeted through her as she realized what was happening. She twisted around. Lyre stood in the tent opening, staring at Ash in shock.

“It’s the dragon, Lyre! The dragon is nearby!”

His face went ashen.

“Ash, fight it.” She grabbed his arm and squeezed hard so he would know she was there. “You can resist him!”

He groaned, his breathing coming fast and frantic. The swirling designs on his arms that marked the transition from scale to skin glowed blue and the air around him heated until she could smell it burning.

Lyre grabbed her and threw them both to the ground just outside the tent as blue and black fire exploded out from Ash. The twisting fireball ballooned outward, ripping the tent apart and rushing over Lyre’s hasty shield. The heat pounded at Piper, stealing the air from her lungs.

The sphere of fire died away, bits of burning canvas still fluttering to the ground. Ash climbed to his feet, arms hanging at his sides, no longer clutching his head. Blue fire ran down his tail and dripped off his wings, pooling on the ground around him. He stood motionless but for the dancing flames, blue light glowing from his markings and from between the scales on his arms, shoulders, and cheekbones. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead, glowing solid azure.

All the draconians, friend and foe alike, gaped at him, unmoving. The sense of danger in the air was as tangible as the smoke rising from the remains of the tent.

At the other end of the clearing, wood snapped loudly. Three trees crashed downwards, the trunks breaking clean in two. From behind them, a massive shadow emerged. Faint light sliced across glossy obsidian scales and viciously curved spines arching off broad shoulders and a narrow muzzle. The dragon’s head extended out of the trees, followed by his massive body as he slunk into the open, wings lifting a few feet away from his sides.

“No,” Piper gasped, the word soundless from terror. She pushed away from Lyre’s protective hold, scrambling to her feet. “Raum! Get everyone into the water, quickly!”

The dragon’s blue eyes were locked on Ash. They began to glow. The buzzing pressure in Piper’s head spiked.

Ash took a slow step toward the beast.

“No!” She lunged toward him but Lyre snatched her, pulling her away from those scorching blue flames.

Ash took another step. In a strange, staggering march, he walked toward the dragon, flames trailing off his wings. With each step closer he took, the dragon’s eyes glowed brighter and blue light emanated from between his scales and down his curved neck and sides.

“Ash!”

He didn’t react to her scream. Another slow, zombie-like step toward the dragon. His arms hung at his sides, wings half-furled. He wasn’t fighting—or if he was, the battle was internal, every ounce of his willpower bent toward resisting the dragon’s telepathic hold.

She threw Lyre’s hands off and ran after him. She barely noticed Raum herding the others toward the waterfall. She barely noticed Lyre running after her. She didn’t notice at all, or care, what Eliada and her warriors were doing. All her attention was on Ash, focused on stopping him.

Fearfully aware of how close the enormous dragon was, she swung around in front of Ash, pressing her hands to his chest. His impossibly hot skin scorched her palms. She pushed him hard.

“Ash, stop! Fight him, Ash! Don’t let him win!”

Ash stared through her, his glowing eyes as distant as the planet above. He didn’t see her. He took another step, forcing her back.

“Ash!” she cried. She spun, pressing her back against him and digging her heels into the ground as she faced the dragon. “Let him go!”

The dragon snarled, the terrible sound ripping out of his throat, but he didn’t shift his attention from Ash—didn’t break his focus. He was concentrating on Ash, on controlling him. She lifted her hands, summoning a twisting orb of her magic. If he needed to concentrate to control Ash, then she would distract him. She hurled the spinning orb at the dragon.

A wall of blue fire leapt into existence in front of the beast. Her pitiful attack hit the flames and burst harmlessly apart. The fiery wall died down, and the dragon took a looming step closer, head swinging lower, eyes on Ash.

Ash took another step, almost pushing Piper off her feet.

“No!” she pleaded. “Ash, stop! Please, stop!”

The dragon opened its jaws. A blue glow lit the back of its throat and she knew what was coming. Fire boiled out of its mouth and blasted toward her and Ash.

For a second time, Lyre grabbed her and threw them both down. His golden dome shield formed around them an instant before the fire hit. The inferno surrounded them, the heat unbearably intense. Lyre’s shield rippled and shuddered, then holes appeared as though torn away by an impossible wind. The shield shattered as the last of the flames rushed past, mostly missing them.

She rolled over and shot to her feet, but froze as she turned to face the dragon.

The beast stood just in front of the tree line, wings spread as blue fire raced along them. Ash stood directly in front of it, his wings spread as well, covered with identical blue flames. The dragon’s blue eyes bored into him. Then the dragon lifted his head and loosed an ear-shattering roar of wrath and triumph.

Her stomach dropped with terror.

“Ash!” she screamed.

The dragon’s head came down and it focused on her for the first time. The buzzing pressure twisted through her skull, almost buckling her knees.

Futile, silver child, the dragon rumbled inside her head. He is mine.

“He doesn’t belong to you!” she cried. Ash’s voice whispered in her memory, murmuring that the only one he wanted to belong to was her.

You doubt? The dragon’s lips lifted from its long, curved fangs in the most vicious, terrifying smile she’d ever seen.

Ash finally moved. He pivoted to face her and Lyre, a slow, mesmerizing grace to his movements. Her eyes scoured his face, but his expression was as blank as a statue’s. Emotionless. Lifeless. His glowing, unblinking eyes were empty of the man she loved.

The blue flames on his body flickered as though agitated by a nonexistent wind. The air grew hot and heavy, electric with power. The blue fire leaped out from him, spinning around him in a slowly expanding whirlwind. In the center, Ash’s hand lifted robotically toward her.

She stared at him, frozen in place, unable to move. Unable to react. He was going to attack her. She could see it. She knew it. But she couldn’t believe it.

“Piper!” Lyre roared.

He grabbed her wrist and shoved something small against her palm. At the same moment, Ash unleashed the fires of hell.

The tiny cold spot in her hand flashed hot. Raging, bloodthirsty power crashed into her body like lightning along every nerve. The Sahar’s power rose through her, awaiting her command. She flung her hands up, casting a silver shield over her and Lyre.

The tidal wave of blue and black flames slammed into her shield with the force of an exploding sun. She gasped, her entire body trembling with the strain of holding the shield. The flames tore across the barrier and silver light burst in every direction as the shield threatened to break apart. With the Sahar clenched in one hand, she held her arms over her head as though physically supporting the barrier and called desperately for more power. It surged into her along with blinding agony. She threw the power into her shield as the inferno ripped away the magic the same way it had ripped through Lyre’s impenetrable dome shield.

When she thought she could no longer hold it, that her shield would collapse, the flames shrank. The fire faded.

Piper fell to her knees, unable to stand as she panted for air. Every nerve burned from the overload of the Sahar’s magic. Across the clearing, Ash stood in front of the dragon, hand still raised toward them, flames still dancing along his wings. He stared unseeingly at her, as lifeless as stone.

A tingle of magic sparked in the air, coming from Lyre. She looked up and felt a violent swoop in her belly. He had dropped glamour. His impossibly beautiful face was calm and smooth, but grim resolve hardened his golden eyes into steel. His pale hair gleamed. At the end of the thin braid that hung down one side of his face, a ruby shone like a drop of blood.

He reached over his shoulder, fingers brushing across the feathered fletching of his arrows. He pulled one free from the quiver, but instead of nocking it on his bow, he spun the shaft in his hand. Pointing the arrowhead down, he dragged the razor point across the palm of the hand in which he held his bow. Blood welled, running down his wrist.

Shocked out of her trance, she realized what he had done: blood magic. He had just activated a spell on the arrow—likely the most powerful spell he had.

The arrow spun in his hand again, and then it was nocked on the bow and he’d drawn the string back to his cheek. His blood clung to the tip of the arrow as it began to glow an eerie red. Her heart leaped with hope—hope that his spell, one so deadly his blood was required to unleash it, would be enough to destroy the dragon and free Ash from his control.

Her heart raced but time slowed. Only seconds had passed since Lyre had dropped his glamour and pulled the arrow. The dragon’s jaws opened in another ferocious snarl as Lyre took aim.

She almost didn’t notice, almost didn’t realize it.

Lyre wasn’t aiming for the dragon.

“No!” she screamed, throwing herself into Lyre’s legs just as he released the arrow.

The glowing bolt streaked past Ash’s left cheek, barely missing him. It flashed under the dragon’s wing and into the trees behind it. Tearing, popping noises erupted as the arrow tore through trees—something no arrow should have been able to do.

A heartbeat of silence.

Back in the trees, the arrow detonated with the force of dynamite. Tree trunks shot into the air like missiles and curved blades of red magic sliced above the treetops.

The dragon roared furiously at the missed attack. Its wings snapped wide open again. Blue fire erupted all over its scales, leaping for the sky. The flames whirled and spun, expanding, growing larger. The dragon vanished in the inferno, then it engulfed Ash too. Black fire laced through the blue, rippling through the azure flames.

She threw a hand over her face to protect it from the heat as the wall of fire leaped higher. The black and blue flames writhed. The earth shuddered beneath her like the beginnings of an earthquake. The trees shook, leaves falling from their branches.

The fire shot out from either side of the engulfed dragon. Then the blue and black flames flashed to a pale green and leaped higher than ever before, shooting above the treetops. Slowly, it faded, and then all that remained was a line of rippling green light, twice her height and undulating gently along the ground.

The dragon and Ash were gone.

Still sitting on the ground, Piper stared, her heart racing. She felt dizzy. She couldn’t breathe right.

He was gone. Ash was gone. How could he be gone?

All that was left was that strange line of shifting light. Power whispered in the air, teasing her senses. Familiar. Ancient. She knew the feeling of that magic.

“That …” she choked, scarcely able to make a sound. “That can’t be …”

Lyre sank to the ground beside her, his bow loose in his hand.

“A ley line,” he whispered.

Chapter Thirteen

A ley line. The undulating line of light was mesmerizing, and on any other occasion, its beauty would have enchanted her. She’d never been shaded at the right time to see a line before; she’d only sensed their presence.

And she’d never had a chance to sense this one before now—because that line hadn’t existed a moment ago.

Coby had joked that the draconian legends were pretentious, claiming that dragons had created the ley lines. Piper had never imagined the legends were true. She would have bet her life that no mortal creature could create a ley line.

She hadn’t bet her life, but if she’d been betting on Ash’s, she’d clearly lost.

He was gone. The dragon had created a ley line, and they’d both gone through it. They could be anywhere in the Underworld, Earth, or even the Overworld. They couldn’t be tracked. They couldn’t be found. Unless Ash broke free of the dragon’s control or the dragon decided to bring him back, there was no magic or power that could locate him.

Trembling, she squeezed both hands against her chest, pressing against the unbearable pain of her shattering heart. Still clenched in one fist, the Sahar was a cool weight against her palm. Tears slid steadily down her cheeks.

Beside her, Lyre pushed wearily to his feet. He crossed the scorched, blackened ground to stand at the edge of the rippling light. Extending a corner of his bow, he poked it into the line, causing the light to flicker energetically for a brief second. He dropped his arm back to his side and turned, golden eyes travelling over the camp behind her. His impossible radiance would have taken her breath away if she’d been able to breathe. But crushed by despair, her lungs barely functioned. Her gaze dropped to the bow in his hand.

“You were going to kill him,” she said hoarsely.

His grip on the bow tightened, tendons standing out on the back of his hand.

“He asked.” The impossible, layered harmonics of his voice flowed over her, but the beauty of the sound couldn’t hide the pain in each word. “I promised.”

“You promised to murder him?” she said, lifting her head to meet his eyes. Bitter accusation rang through her question.

“I promised I wouldn’t let the dragon take him alive,” Lyre replied, anger joining the pain in his voice. “He knew he couldn’t fight the dragon’s hold on him. I promised him a clean, swift death instead of slavery to a beast he couldn’t fight.” His mouth twisted. “I failed.”

Because of you. He didn’t say the words, but she heard them. They were in his eyes, burning through her with something close to loathing.

She dropped her head, squeezing her eyes shut as her heart broke all over again. Ash had been so afraid—terrified of being lost to the dragon—that he’d asked Lyre to save him from that fate. Not her. Lyre. Because Ash had known she would refuse. He’d known that even if he convinced her to agree, there was every chance she would have balked at the last minute. She’d done the same once already. In the Chrysalis facility in Asphodel, she’d stood over him while he was lost in torture-fueled madness and hadn’t been able to free him from the pain in the only way left.

Lyre hadn’t balked. He hadn’t hesitated. Once it was clear Ash was lost, he’d acted. And she’d sabotaged his attack. But in Asphodel, Ash had found a way back from the brink. Maybe he would find his way back this time too. He didn’t have a chance if he was dead.

But if he didn’t find a way, she’d condemned him to a terrible fate.

She climbed to her feet. Her knees were shaking. Exhaustion permeated her inner turmoil; she’d been drastically fatigued even before channeling so much power through the Sahar. Unable to meet Lyre’s eyes again, she turned toward the camp behind her.

Utter destruction. Everything was black—the ground, the rocky walls of the valley, the stones bordering the waterfall. The trees caught in the inferno were charred, crumbling stumps that still glowed faintly. Everything the fire had touched had been razed to the ground. Their pile of supplies was nothing but ashes and twisted remains of cookware. Small fires crackled merrily along the edges of the devastation.

The others were only just climbing out of the pool at the base of the waterfall. Ivria held little Yana tight in her arms, gawking as water dripped off them. The other women stood with the younger girls, steadying one another as they observed the destruction. Raum stood in front of them, sword still in his hand, his dark eyes travelling over the ruins of their camp.

Seiya stood just in front of the others, Mahala holding one of her arms, the other clutching Zwi to her chest. Zala hung off her shoulder. Seiya stared at the ley line with black, horrified eyes, frozen in place. Mahala must have forced Seiya into the water, otherwise she would have been right there fighting for her brother.

Visibly shaking off her shock, Seiya pulled out of Mahala’s grip and ran across the burnt ground, right past Piper. She stopped in front of the new ley line, stretching her free hand out as though to touch the magic. Zwi whimpered.

“How—how—” Seiya stuttered.

Lyre slowly shook his head as he hooked his bow into some sort of holder on his back. He shimmered back into glamour. Raum moved, his boots crunching on the charred ground, loud in the oppressive silence. He headed toward her, Kiev following.

Halfway across the camp, he spun, sword rising. Piper whirled in the direction of his gaze.

Figures stood at the edge of the scorched earth—Eliada and her warriors. They must have retreated into the trees far enough to escape the fire. As they moved cautiously out of the trees, the last faint glow of the sun leaking from behind Periskios faded and darkness fell across them like a heavy blanket. Several of the warriors created small orbs of light, tossing them into the air to illuminate the clearing.

As her eyes locked on Eliada’s, Piper’s despair morphed into fury. She surged into motion, striding straight for the old woman. The warriors tensed but Eliada waved them back, facing Piper.

She stopped almost on the woman’s toes, glaring with her hands clenched at her sides.

“How did you know the dragon was coming for him?” she demanded. “What do you know?”

Eliada pulled her face wrap down, surveying Piper with steely teal eyes.

“Do you understand now why he needed to die?” she said coldly. She pointed her chin at the charred clearing. “That was but a taste of the power the dragon now commands through Ashtaroth.”

Piper ground her teeth together, barely controlling her anger.

“The great dragons seek out Taroths to bind their magic together. The sealing of their magic is normally deadly to the draconian; the great dragon’s magic is too fierce for a draconian’s body to endure. With the seal upon them, death is a gift.”

“But if the draconian survives?” Piper asked tersely.

“The dragon’s power multiplies beyond imagining. The Taroths have feared it for generations, passing the warning from father to son for as long as memory stretches.”

“So what will happen to Ash? He just stays as the dragon’s helpless puppet until he dies?”

The old woman inclined her head. “I told you it was a mercy to kill him.”

She waited for the woman to tell her more, but Eliada remained silent. “That’s it? That’s all you know?”

“Knowledge of the great dragons was passed from Taroth to Taroth as their birthright and secret to guard—much of which was lost with the bloodline. I only know what Jesyr told me.”

Piper’s hands clenched and the Sahar pressed against her right palm. She needed more information. How was she supposed to figure out how to save Ash if she didn’t know what the dragon wanted or where it might have gone? The only person she could possibly think of who might know something about ancient Taroth secrets was Natania … but why would Nyrtaroth have discussed forbidden knowledge like that with his haemon lover?

Her vision blurred. The world spun and rocked under her feet. She blinked rapidly, catching her balance.

The charred Underworld forest was gone. She stood in front of a heavy wooden worktable in a large room. The wood-paneled walls were mostly hidden by tall, deep bookshelves. Hundreds of crates, baskets, and unrecognizable contraptions overflowed from the shelves with no rhyme or reason.

Before she could panic about where she was, her frantic gaze fell on the woman sitting at the table, her legs folded at the knee and hands resting neatly on the tabletop. She smiled as she brushed her golden hair off her shoulders.

“It has been so long, Piper,” Natania purred.

Piper looked around again, her heart climbing into her throat. “I’m not sleeping. I’m not unconscious. How the hell are you messing with my mind while I’m wide awake?”

Natania’s eyes widened innocently. “You needed to speak with me. Do you not want to speak with me?”

“This shouldn’t be possible!” Panic simmered in her gut. “You shouldn’t be able to do this. What is my body doing? Did I just collapse in front of everyone?”

“Of course not,” Natania replied calmly. “Scant seconds have passed, and your body will continue to stand as long as necessary. Really, Piper. Do you not realize the mind moves so much faster than reality?”

Piper pursed her lips. She did sometimes have long, involved dreams that seemed to last hours even when only snoozing for a few minutes. She supposed it made sense that time passed more slowly inside her mind—or rather, inside Natania’s mind.

Natania ran her hands over the tabletop, the wooden surface half buried in thin, unbleached papers and metal gadgets, as well as a sprinkling of grape-sized rubies and sapphires that would have made any jeweler drool.

“My dark moon spent much of his time in this room. He preferred the hours of darkness. Some nights I would stay up until the sun rose, doing nothing more than watching him work. His genius was rivalled only by Maahes—and, perhaps, by your sweet incubus.”

“Lyre?”

“Mm, yes, Lyre.” Natania breathed his name as if it were a delicious delicacy. “Such a mystery. That spell on his arrow, bound by blood. A most lovely weapon of war. Who, I wonder, trained him? A master weaver, surely. Years of study went into just that one arrow. Yes, your sweet incubus is far more than he seems.”

Piper pulled out the chair across from Natania and dropped into it. “I didn’t want to talk to you about Lyre. You know what happened to Ash. Did Nyrtaroth ever talk about the great dragons?”

Natania rose to her feet. Her silver gown swirled around her legs as she sauntered to the head of the table, trailing her fingers along it.

“My moon spent countless hours at this table, many of those long nights with my sun at his side, while they perfected their weaving for the Sahar—prior to adding the ‘final ingredient,’ of course.” Natania’s mouth twisted on the last words, bitterness lacing her voice like poison.

Piper roughly pushed her bangs out of her face. Natania knew everything in her head, including how desperately she wanted information about the dragon. So of course the woman would avoid the topic as long as possible.

“His determination to complete it,” Natania said, “drove him like a stallion before the whip. He would not rest until it was complete. Do you know why?”

“To stop Hades,” she said flatly, wishing she could avoid Natania’s word games—but the woman was holding all the cards. “He wanted a weapon that Hades wouldn’t dare challenge.”

“No,” Natania said softly, gliding to a bookshelf and tidying a stack of thick leather books. “Maahes sought to advance his vendetta against Hades, and Nyr was pleased to encourage such a venture, but his true motivation lay elsewhere.”

Piper frowned, curious despite herself. “Where then?”

“He confessed to me, one night not long before …” Natania compressed her lips until they paled. “Perhaps he felt guilty for what they already planned to do to me, and he wished me to know that he was not driven purely by his hunger for power.”

Her eyes rose to Piper, silver glimmering in the blue depths.

“My moon was fearless, an unflinching warrior against any enemy. But there was one foe he feared—truly feared.” She lifted her chin, raising one eyebrow. “A foe he could not fight, a foe who could destroy him: a dragon.”

Piper snapped straight in her seat; so Natania wasn’t just rambling. Nyrtaroth had feared the great dragons too?

Natania picked up a strange metal dial, brushing away a fine layer of dust to reveal its shining surface. “I laughed when he told me. ‘A dragon?’ I scoffed, thinking of the larger form of his dragonet. But the creature he described sent a shiver down my spine. A great ebony beast larger than anything I had ever seen, with massive wings to blot out the very sky. A beast, he told me, that had taken his grandfather from him when he was a small child. His grandfather had died hours later, consumed by the fire of the dragon within him, and my moon had shed tears of relief—relief that the dragon would not have his soul.”

She replaced the dial and faced Piper. “The great dragon would take no more of his family, he told me, once he had completed his limitless weapon.”

Piper sucked in a breath. “Nyrtaroth wanted to create the Sahar to defend against the great dragons? Did Maahes know that?”

“No. My moon bid me never to speak of it.”

Piper shook her head, blown away. Lifting her eyes to Natania, she focused again. “What happens to a draconian if he survives like Ash?”

“He is lost. I know nothing more, only that Nyr preferred death for his grandfather as the better fate.”

Piper bit down hard on her bottom lip as tears formed in her eyes. “So there’s no hope for Ash?”

“Well,” Natania murmured with a slight shrug. She settled gracefully in her chair across from Piper. “My moon created the Sahar to defeat a dragon. And you now wield it.”

“I can’t fight the great dragon’s power. I could barely shield against one blast.”

“The Sahar is limitless, but your body is not. A more powerful daemon could wield enough of my power to challenge a dragon.”

Piper stiffened in her seat. “No way. You know perfectly well what the Sahar—what you—do to daemons who try to use it. I can’t let anyone else have access to its magic.”

“Just because you cannot control your bloodlust does not mean other daemons are similarly weak.”

Piper flinched at the reminder of her uncontrollable savagery while shaded—though it had been surprisingly absent from her most recent experiences.

“Ash has the best control of any daemon I’ve met but even he couldn’t hold it together while channeling power from the Sahar. I’ll find another way.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “This is all pointless anyway, because there’s no way to find Ash.”

The spark of petulant anger in Natania’s eyes cleared. “Oh, I imagine he will find you again eventually.”

Piper pressed her hands to the tabletop, stifling a surge of wary hope. “What do you mean?”

“Or, I should say, the dragon will find you. You defied his power. He will return to destroy you.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know well how the mind of a powerful, prideful male works.”

Piper grunted, unimpressed. “I don’t think the dragon will take the chance that Lyre or I might manage to kill Ash. The dragon might be invulnerable, but Ash isn’t.” She stood. “Send me back. I need to finish my conversation with Eliada.”

Natania leaned back in her seat, a dangerous gleam in her eyes as she smiled sweetly. “As you command.”

Piper’s vision blurred.

“Piper?”

A hand waved in front of her face and she looked over to discover Lyre beside her. Eliada still stood in front of her, her brow furrowed above her teal eyes. Nothing else had changed while she was spaced out.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Uh, what—what were you saying?”

Eliada’s expression softened just slightly. “You did not understand the fate that awaited Ashtaroth or why his death would have been a kindness. I cannot fault you for protecting him. If the gods smile upon us, perhaps the dragon will never return and we will not have to face the full wrath of the beast.”

The old woman’s eyes moved from Piper to the cluster of women and children behind Raum.

“I hope you can understand that we had hoped to spare Ashtaroth and protect all lives from the dragon. We hold no hatred for him—or any of you.” She glanced again at the children. “We can offer you aid for the time being. Your supplies have been destroyed and you will need food and shelter.”

Piper backed away and Raum moved forward to take her place, Mahala and Shona following him. Seiya stood a few feet away, gazing lifelessly at nothing, looking exactly how Piper felt. Exhausted and broken inside, she retreated as Raum and Eliada spoke. She didn’t care what they said or what arrangements they made. She didn’t care about any of it.

Lyre followed her away from the others, hovering close to her side.

“What was that space out?” he whispered. “You zoned out completely for a minute there.”

“I’ll explain later,” she mumbled. Lyre didn’t know about her dreams with Natania, and she would need to outline that first. She was too tired to even begin explaining it all.

“Do you still have the Sahar?” he asked, his voice dropping even further.

Piper’s hand clenched around the cool stone. “Yes.”

His eyes narrowed to golden slits. He held out a hand. “Give it to me.”

She slid her fist behind her back, moving it away from him. “It’s better if I have it at the ready. The dragon could come back any time.”

He didn’t lower his hand. “It’s not safe for you to use it. You shouldn’t even be holding it.”

“I controlled it just fine this time.”

“And the time before that, you went mad and killed a lot of people.”

She flinched, taking half a step back from his acid tone and cutting words.

“I gave it to you because we were all going to die anyway,” he continued harshly. “That’s no longer the case. Give it to me.”

She squeezed the stone, staring at his hard eyes.

Seiya appeared beside them, fury rolling off her. She snapped her wings open and closed while shooting a vicious glare over her shoulder at Raum, who was still talking with Eliada. Zwi, hanging off Seiya’s shoulder opposite Zala, whined quietly, her golden eyes dull.

“How can he even be talking to them after they tried to kill Ash?” Seiya said venomously. “How can he even consider trusting them?” She focused on Piper. “What now? You’re not giving up on him, are you?”

Rubbing her temple with two fingers, Piper puzzled out that Seiya was talking about giving up on Ash, not Raum. She wished futilely that Seiya would talk a little slower and be clear about which male they were discussing.

“Of course not,” she replied tiredly. “As long as he’s alive, I’m not giving up.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Piper rubbed her temple a little more forcefully. Since when did Seiya look to her for directions?

“I’m going to the Overworld. The draconian legends seem to reference the water dragons, so I want to see if the ryujin know anything about great dragons.”

A spark of hope lit Seiya’s eyes. “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll come with you.”

Piper hesitated. “Seiya … I think you should stay here.” She lowered her voice and spoke quickly before Seiya could get angry. “Someone needs to stay here with Zwi in case the dragon brings Ash close enough for her to sense him. On top of that, I’m not sure if Eliada is still hiding information or what the other draconians might know. If Raum is taking the others with Eliada back to wherever they live, you might be able to find out more.”

Seiya frowned, her jaw flexing. Her shoulders slumped. “I guess you’re right.”

“Lyre, can you make one of those distress signals for her? So she can call us back if Zwi senses Ash?”

“Already have one.” He stuck a hand in his pocket and withdrew a gray gemstone. “It’s a two-way signal and I have the matching stone. We’ll be able to summon you when we come back from the Overworld. It won’t work between worlds though.”

Seiya nodded toward the brand new ley line behind Piper. “I can use that to jump through to the Overworld if I need to signal you.”

“Then we’ll see you when we get back from meeting with the ryujin.”

They walked over to the new ley line. Despite her exhaustion, she hurried her steps. She wanted to get going before Eliada and the other warriors started wondering about her impressive display of power while defending against Ash’s attack. The possibility that she had wielded the Sahar might not occur to them, but she didn’t want to chance it.

With the rippling light casting strange green shadows across them, Piper turned back to Seiya. She hesitated, then reached out. Surprise flashed across the girl’s face but she didn’t hesitate to return the hug.

“I won’t give up,” Piper promised.

They separated, and Seiya gave her a small smile. “I know you won’t.”

Piper stroked Zwi’s mane. “You keep Seiya out of trouble now, okay, Zwi?”

Zwi chirped, the sound much smaller and sadder than usual.

“Are you leaving, Piper?”

She jumped, whirling to find Kiev behind her. He smiled at her jitteriness. For a second, she wondered how he knew, then realized her deliberate walk to the ley line had been as obvious as holding up a sign.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m going to see what I can find out about great dragons.”

He held out his arms. “Good luck.”

She hugged him tight. “Watch your back with these draconians,” she muttered in his ear.

As he stepped back, Piper was shocked to see Coby, Mahala, and Ivria behind him. Shona, Denna, Raisa, and even little Yana waited nearby.

“You weren’t planning to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” Coby asked tartly.

“Of—of course not,” Piper stammered.

Coby reached for a hug, and the next thing Piper knew, she was being passed from one pair of arms to another to give everyone a farewell embrace. Lyre said his goodbyes as well, giving his own share of hugs to the women.

Raum appeared in the midst of the group, surprising Piper. He and Lyre clasped forearms before he turned to Piper.

“So you’re going with Eliada?” she asked.

He nodded. “To their outpost first, then we’ll see. They have a settlement of some kind in the nearby mountains.”

A settlement. That suggested more than just a handful of draconians living in hiding.

“Take care of yourself,” he rumbled.

“I will. And you take care of the others.”

He nodded again.

Together, she and Lyre walked to the ley line. The ancient power washed over her like a warm breeze. She could feel the others watching her, waiting for them to vanish into the line. Even with the prospect of a new, brighter future waiting for them—a chance, however slim, that they could join an existing draconian community—they were waiting to see her and Lyre off. Tears pricked her eyes. If not for the dragon, Ash would have been there too, cautiously excited for this new opportunity, and she wouldn’t be leaving at all.

She blinked away the tears and focused on the line.

“You know the spot?” she asked Lyre.

“Yep.” His brow wrinkled. “Are you up for this?”

She wondered how exhausted she looked. Extremely, she would bet. “I can handle it.”

She closed her eyes. As she summoned the last of her magic and stepped forward into the line, a part of her was terrified to leave the Underworld—to leave Ash behind. Another part of her couldn’t be more relieved to depart this cursed land of darkness.

Chapter Fourteen

Taking a deep breath, Piper held the air in her lungs, letting the essence of the Overworld soak into her body from the inside out. The breeze tasted sweet and complex, layered with a thousand touches of all the plants, animals, and daemons that lived here. After so long in the bitter air of the Underworld, the Overworld was almost too rich.

She blinked, adjusting to the change in color scheme: from dark stone and red foliage to the overwhelming overlay of blue—blue-streaked mountains, blue-tinted forests, ocean-like blue rivers. Despite her exhaustion and aching heart, a small smile stretched her lips. It felt good to be back.

Beside her, Lyre rolled his shoulders, his discomfort at odds with her newfound ease. The Overworld wasn’t his home, but it was hers.

The thought surprised her. Wasn’t Earth her home? Her eyes travelled across the mountain peaks to the gloriously blue sky, lit by the light of two suns. The heat caressed her face, luxuriously pleasant after so much time in extended darkness. In a way she couldn’t explain, the very planet welcomed her presence.

She walked forward a few steps and leaned over the edge of the cliff. A hundred feet below, the river rushed past. She pointed.

“The river will carry us directly to the ryujin,” she said.

Lyre looked from her to the canyon and back again. He didn’t step closer. “You want to jump?”

She shrugged. “It would be fastest. I did it before just fine. Barely hurt at all.”

His eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Are you serious?”

“Um. Yes?”

“Are you even thinking straight at this point?” he asked, concern mingling with amusement in his voice. “I am not jumping off the cliff, even if it only ‘barely’ hurts.”

She glanced back at the hundred-foot drop. It was really high. “I guess we can find a lower spot …”

He shook his head. “You look like the walking dead, Piper. Maybe we should rest for a bit first.”

“We can rest in the ryujin city. They’ll have food. And blankets. It’s not that far.”

Sighing in resignation, he slid his arm through hers, and together they started along the path. It sloped gradually downward, following the edge of the mountain. Eventually, the path would end where another mountain rose, blocking the way forward, the same spot where the river disappeared into a cave system beneath the mountains. And in those caves, the ryujin’s hidden city awaited.

The last time she’d walked this path, Ash had followed behind her while Miysis led the way. The thought of Ash crushed the shattered pieces of her heart all over again. She shoved the pain away, refusing to think about it. She couldn’t handle it, not right now. Not until she’d gotten some sleep. How long since she’d slept? She’d napped for a few hours after Hedya had found her and Ash in the abandoned draconian city, but since then, she’d argued with the elders, lost a ton of blood, escaped with Ash, made the long flight back to the camp, been healed, packed the camp, then battled the dragon with the Sahar. Just thinking about it all made her want to cry. She was running on pure stubbornness, ignoring the achy shakiness in her legs with each step. She could rest soon. Soon …

Since she refused to think about Ash, she forced her thoughts onto something else. Was Miysis here in the Overworld too, somewhere in the Ra territory? She hadn’t seen him since she’d almost killed him on the cliff’s edge just a hundred yards or so back the way they’d come, after he’d had his men attempt to kill Ash. Even though she’d never totally trusted the Ra prince, she’d always liked him. His smooth charm and easy confidence had won her over early on, and she’d come to respect him soon after. Not anymore though. She would never forgive him. But part of her grieved the loss of their odd friendship.

“So,” Lyre drawled, breaking into her thoughts, “you were going to tell me about your weird space out while you were talking to Eliada.”

She tensed, her hand unconsciously moving to her pocket where she’d tucked the Sahar. Together, they walked off the path to avoid an overhanging tree, the long tendrils of the blue pod swaying innocently among its branches. She wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

“Right,” she mumbled as they returned to the path. She glanced toward the river, but the canyon was still too high to jump. “Well, do you remember how I was able to communicate with Natania, the soul in the Sahar, the last time we were here?”

“Yes, of course. She tipped you off about unlocking your daemon glamour using the Void.”

“Well, after that, I started … dreaming about her.”

“Dreaming?”

“Yeah, but not actual dreams. While I was sleeping, I could talk to her the same way I did the first time.”

He frowned. “How often did this happen?”

“Just a few times, and not since you and Ash took the Stone away. When I was talking to Eliada, though, I thought that maybe Natania would know something about what had happened to Ash”—she flinched when she said his name, holding her despair at bay—“and all of the sudden, it was like I was dreaming again. We talked for a few minutes, then I … zoned back in.”

Lyre walked silently for a moment. “So you’re saying that this soul in the Sahar knows what you’re thinking, since she responded to your thought about speaking with her, and she can affect your mind while you’re sleeping and while you’re fully conscious?”

Piper nodded.

“And you don’t find this concerning at all?”

“Of course I do,” she said indignantly, not liking the hint of sarcasm in his incredulous tone. “It worries me a lot that she can mess with my head like that, but causing me to space out in the middle of a conversation is hardly life threatening.”

Lyre stopped and faced her. “You definitely aren’t thinking straight about this at all, Piper. What if next time she causes you to space out in the middle of a fight? What if she pulls your mind into one of these ‘dreams’ and won’t let you go?”

Piper folded her arms. “You’re making too big a deal of it. She won’t get me killed because she wants me to live. Same with trapping my mind forever—my body would die, wouldn’t it? If I die, no one can tap the Stone and she’ll be trapped alone. She doesn’t want that.”

“Do you hear yourself? You’re allowing her all this power over you because you think she wouldn’t want to be alone if you died?”

Piper dropped her arms, shaking her head angrily and surging back into motion. “I’m not just ‘allowing’ this. It’s out of necessity. Natania knows a lot of things. For example, did you know that Nyrtaroth created the Sahar specifically to fight the great dragons?”

“What?” Lyre hurried to catch up to her. “Natania told you this?”

“Yes. Nyrtaroth was afraid of the dragons. I guess one of them tried to bond with his grandfather, but his grandfather died.”

“Did Natania know anything else about the dragons?”

“Not that she told me,” she admitted. “But maybe I can get more out of her next time.”

“No.” Lyre grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop on the path, and spun her to face him. “There won’t be a next time.”

“Huh?”

That steely glint was back in his eyes, the same unbreakable determination as when he’d drawn an arrow, intending to put it through his best friend’s heart.

“You’re done with the Sahar,” he said, his voice as hard as his eyes. “You’re so twisted up with this Natania specter that you don’t see how dangerous she is. Give me the Sahar.”

“I’m not—”

“Why are you arguing with me? There are no dragons here for you to fight. Give it to me.”

She leaned away from him, trying to shrug away his hand. “I need to talk to Natania again—”

“No, you don’t. She already told you what she knew about the dragons.”

“She never tells me everything. She might know—”

“She’s stringing you along! Open your eyes. She wants you to keep hold of the Stone so she can maintain access to your mind.”

She hesitated, biting her lip. Natania was always playing games with her, but as long as Piper was careful when she tapped the power in the Stone, there wasn’t much Natania could do aside from make her space out at random points … was there? She wouldn’t lose control again like she had at the Gaian facility; no, she wouldn’t let that happen. Those had been extenuating circumstances, after all.

Lyre squeezed her arm gently. “Trust me, Piper. You can’t see it, but the Sahar is too dangerous for you.”

More protests bubbled up in her throat, but as she looked into his concerned golden eyes, she couldn’t voice them. Lyre had never steered her wrong before. If he thought something was wrong, she should trust him. The panic tightening around her chest at the thought of giving up the Sahar was a warning in itself. It shouldn’t be so hard to hand it over.

“You’re right,” she whispered. “You’re—”

Something slammed into her with concussive force.

She felt herself flung through the air—but her body hadn’t moved, hadn’t reacted at all to the crushing blow. Lyre was still holding her arm, waiting for her to finish her sentence, but she could hardly feel his touch. It was almost like she was floating, not quite attached to her body anymore—like that bizarre strike had shoved her mind instead of her body.

“You’re right,” she repeated.

The words came out of her mouth, but she hadn’t intended to speak, nor had she ever purred like a satisfied cat before.

Her hand rose of its own accord and her finger brushed sensually over Lyre’s lower lip. Shock splashed almost comically across his face, and equal shock rushed through Piper. What the hell was her hand doing? She hadn’t decided to do that!

“You’re so very right.” Her voice uttered the words, overlaid with that purring satisfaction. “Such a clever incubus. So cautious. You have always been too wise to fool, haven’t you?”

No. No no no. Piper recognized the cadence of the speech, even if the voice was wrong. It was her voice—but Natania’s words.

Bending all her willpower into it, Piper commanded herself to step back. Nothing happened. Her body didn’t obey her at all, like it wasn’t even hers anymore. This was wrong—all wrong. Had Natania pulled her into another vision?

Lyre let her go and stepped back. His eyes flashed over her face, confusion clear in his eyes. Of its own accord, Piper’s hand slid into her pocket, fingers curling around the Sahar. She lifted it toward her face, rolling it between her finger and thumb. Little darts of white power shot off the shining surface.

“I can’t give this to you, Lyre, my love,” Natania cooed through Piper. “Not after you have so kindly returned it.”

His gaze flashed from the Stone to Piper’s face and back again. “Piper, what …”

“You were wrong about one thing. It is not Piper’s mind I wanted access to. My mind is perfectly functional. It was a body that I lacked.”

Lyre’s mouth fell open in speechless horror.

“In another life, I imagine we could have enjoyed each other very much,” Natania said, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper that Piper couldn’t have imitated even if she’d wanted to. “But sadly, I must kill you instead.”

Panic rushed through Piper and she mentally flailed for control, but she may as well have been trying to grasp air. There was nothing to grab, nothing to fight. Natania had cut her mind loose from her body.

Lyre backed up another step, taking a second too long to recover from his shock. Natania closed her fist around the Sahar and power surged through her—through Piper’s—body. Lyre flung his hands up, golden light flashing, and silver power exploded out from the Sahar.

The blast hit Lyre at point-blank range and hurled him down the rocky path. He crashed to a stop a dozen yards down the slope, motionless long enough that Piper almost lost it with terror. He finally moved, pushing himself up on his hands and knees.

“Ah, you blunted a great deal of my power,” Natania crooned, sauntering down the path toward him. “Impressive for an incubus. But I already knew you were talented. Piper can’t see it; she sees a shield like any other, not that delightful, swirling weave that absorbs as much power as it deflects.”

Lyre winced as he rose to his feet. A cut ran over the bridge of his nose and across his left cheekbone, leaking blood down his face. Relief rushed through Piper but faded too quickly, dispersing like smoke in the wind. It was hard to hold on to her thoughts and emotions.

“You must be Natania.” He turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood. “I can’t say I’m pleased that my suspicions about you were right.”

Natania smiled with Piper’s lips as she stopped a few yards away from him. “Do not think yourself too clever, my love. You suspected nothing the last time we met.”

“The last time?”

“You may have torn the Sahar from me once, but you will not manage it a second time.”

“Wait, you—you mean at the Gaian facility? You were controlling Piper when she fought—”

“Yes,” Natania purred. “Did you really think her that skilled? You and Ashtaroth would have defeated her in mere moments.”

Lyre shook his head mutely, his mouth flattened into a thin line. Blood dripped off his jaw.

“Do you not see? I know her whole mind, every thought, desire, and fear. I know her better than she knows herself, and I can tell you that she is not as strong as you believe her to be.” Natania let out a fluttery sigh. “Lyre, my love, I do think Piper chose poorly. Ashtaroth is nothing more than a loyal dog: a powerful, obedient guardian. He lacks the cunning wit of my Nyr. But you …” She hummed a note of clear appreciation.

“Piper made the right choice.” A note of bitterness touched his words. “Incubi are lovers, but no woman’s true love.”

Natania’s smile sharpened. “Who broke your heart, dearest Lyre?”

His answering smile was just as cold. “I break hearts, not the other way around.”

“You’ve broken many, haven’t you?” she crooned. “I could have broken yours, I’m sure, had our paths overlapped.”

“You think so? I very much doubt it.”

“Such confidence,” Natania said tartly. “You have no concept of who I am.”

“Who you were,” Lyre corrected, wiping his hand across the trickling blood on his face, smearing it over one cheek. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re still female.”

Natania’s eyes narrowed, then she threw her head back and loosed a chiming peal of laughter. “You think you can defeat me with aphrodesia?”

Lyre’s eyes darkened to black. “I already have.”

Natania took a quick step back, her hand clenching around the Sahar as power leaped into her. Lyre’s hand snapped down the front of his shirt where he kept his chain of spelled gems. He yanked it out, blood-coated fingers already clenched around a gem. Gold light flashed.

The world went black. The mountains, the cliff, the path all vanished. Natania staggered backward, clutching the Sahar as power built within her, straining to be unleashed—but it had no target. The darkness, lit with swirls of tiny white stars, curled and coiled in a sparkling, eddying mist. The shapeless ebony swirled, all that was solid gone, even the ground beneath her feet.

Strange shapes rose and fell in the darkness. Natania whirled around, searching for a solid shape to attack, the Sahar tight in her grip.

“This is no incubus power!” she shrieked. The strange darkness absorbed her words, muffling it. “This kind of illusion isn’t possible! I know the rules of magic!”

She spun again—and Lyre was there, right in front of her, almost touching her.

His glamour was gone. His eyes were ebony magnets, utterly alluring. The glittering stars swirled in his eyes. In the black nothingness, he almost glowed, a heavenly halo of undeniable beauty. The pull of his aura was irresistible, attraction as powerful as gravity.

Natania stared into those eyes, still holding the Sahar in the air, the power accumulated in her raging beneath her skin.

“Your magic may have rules,” he said, the sounds layered together like the most melodic instrument ever heard, too beautiful for mortal ears, “but I can weave anything I can imagine.”

His voice spun around her like soft, warm chains. His eyes held her prisoner. Tingling heat flowed off him, drifting over her skin like the feathery touch of gentle fingers. Then his actual hand brushed softly over her cheek as his eyes pulled her in deeper.

His head tipped down and his mouth closed over hers.

His magic poured into her through his lips and fingers as heat and pleasure surged through her, impossible and overwhelming. The Sahar’s power slid away, dissipating as burning heat and need consumed her mind. Her will vanished as his control spread through every fiber of her being, his essence filling her, her world and awareness narrowing to the feel of his mouth on hers, his fingers on her cheek, his heat rushing into her, obliterating all else.

“Sleep,” he whispered, his lips brushing against hers.

Her eyes closed, his will to be obeyed. She slid quietly into slumber, conquered by the pleasure of his touch and the excruciating longing for more.

Lost somewhere in the emptiness of her own mind, Piper slipped away too, vanishing into the nothingness.

Chapter Fifteen

Piper sleepily rolled over, nuzzling her face into her pillow. So comfy. She hadn’t been this comfortable in … weeks? Months? It seemed like forever. The pillow under her cheek was silky soft and warm blankets were a comforting weight on top of her. She inhaled deeply as she gradually shook off her drowsiness. The air smelled of incense and stone. Familiar, but not the smell of her bedroom.

She cracked her eyes open. A few feet away, faint blue light lit a stone wall. Detailed waves had been carved into it, the smooth lines flowing along the natural curves of the stone.

This wasn’t her bedroom. Her thoughts scattered, confusion bubbling inside her, before it all came together in her head. Right. Her home was a pile of rubble, destroyed weeks ago. Her father and uncle were hiding in Brinford, her mother was dead, and Ash was lost to the great dragon, who knew where.

She pressed her face back into the pillow, sucking in a shuddering breath. This room was familiar, at least. She’d spent five days in the ryujin city the last time she’d been in the Overworld, sleeping in this room each night. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know that the carving of waves ran around the entire circular room, that fist-sized crystals were embedded in the ceiling and had been spelled to glow softly, and that heavy fabric curtains would be drawn across the doorway a few feet beyond her toes.

Pain vibrated through her, a cutting grief she couldn’t contain. Waking up thinking she was at home … only to remember that her home was long gone. Only to remember her mother’s death, their relationship ended when it had only just begun to heal. Weeks in the Underworld, feeling out of place and lost, and then Ash …

She bit down on a mouthful of the pillow to stifle the howl of anguish rising in her throat. Ash, gone. His empty, glowing blue stare. His lifeless face, devoid of emotion—devoid of soul. The dragon had stolen it from him, and then the beast had taken him away from her, where she couldn’t save him. It was her fault. She never should have led him to that damn abandoned city.

In the privacy of the room, she wept into the pillow, her shoulders shaking and her chest heaving. She cried until she had no more tears, then pushed herself into a cross-legged sitting position. Sniffing back the last few tears, she pressed a hand to her aching stomach. She was so hungry. Her stomach was cramping like she hadn’t eaten in days. How long had she been asleep? She tried to remember arriving in the city, but it was a total blank. She remembered walking down the trail along the canyon, talking to Lyre. Then … nothing. But she must have led Lyre to the city, right? He couldn’t have gotten in without her.

Pushing off the blankets, she rose to her feet, surprised by the weakness in her legs. Oh man, she was hungry. Absolutely famished. And thirsty too. She must have slept an entire day while recovering from her exhaustion. Was Lyre still sleeping too? He hadn’t been as tired as her.

Wobbling to the curtain, she pushed it aside and stepped out into a wide hall lined with doorways—other guest rooms. She hobbled down the hall, brushing her hands over her clothes. Her dark draconian garments had been replaced with a new silvery halter top, armguards, and fitted pants of the same material. Crisscrossing leather ties ran up the side of each leg, and the ends, decorated with stone beads, swung at her hips, clicking softly. The stone floor was cold under her bare feet but she hadn’t seen her boots in her room.

She stepped out of the corridor and into the main cavern. A slow-moving branch of the river flowed through the center of the expanse of flat stone. High above, stalagmites hung from the uneven ceiling, veined with clear and colored stone. Sunlight from the unseen sky refracted through the veins, spilling rainbows of light across the space. Doorways, pathways, bridges, and corridors wove and curved all along the cavern walls, leading to other parts of the underground city.

Across the flat plateau, a cluster of ryujin was gathered. They knelt on the stone, unconcerned by the hard rock under their scaled knees. Their waist-length hair in various shades of green swayed as their heads moved. Scattered nearby, a half dozen water dragons lounged by the water’s edge, their silvery scales shimmering like mother of pearl. In the center of the little circle of ryujin, a pale blond head stood out in stark contrast.

As Piper started across the plateau, Lyre lifted his hands, something unseen cupped in them. Golden light sparked in his palms, then burst outward like a tiny explosion of fireworks. Sparkles of amber light swirled up above their heads in random patterns, then coalesced into golden sparrows made up of a thousand tiny lights. The sparrows swooped and darted among the ryujin as delighted laughter erupted from his audience—very feminine laughter. Of course.

Lyre glanced up at her, grinning as she stopped just beyond the circle. His fluttering golden sparrows faded away.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he said cheerfully.

The ryujin rose gracefully to their feet in eerie unison. Each young lady offered Piper a gentle hug and soft greeting before slipping away. With each embrace, Piper could feel the warmth and welcome emanating from them. She knew almost nothing about the ryujins’ telepathy, but it amazed her how she could sense their emotions like that.

She watched them leave, their steps flowing like water. Sunlight shimmered over their blue and green scales and pale skin, and their dairokkan drifted behind them, along with long tails that ended in horizontal fins.

Lyre rose to his feet and brushed off his pants. He was wearing the male version of her outfit—and he looked good. Her eyes drifted down him, taking in the fitted sleeveless shirt, elbow-high armguards, and similar pants. He, she saw, had kept his footwear, a sturdy pair of leather boots.

She pulled her eyes back to his face and noticed a pink line of healing skin that ran from the bridge of his nose across one cheekbone. She frowned. “What happened to your face?”

He tapped his cheek just below the cut. “Just a scratch, but Atsumi is healing it in stages to be safe. She said it would be a shame to scar a face as pretty as mine.”

Piper snorted in amusement but couldn’t shift her frown. “What happened though? I don’t remember …”

His smile faded. “I wondered how much you would remember.”

Nervousness made her empty stomach churn. “Lyre, just tell me. You’re freaking me out.”

“You should be freaked out,” he murmured.

He stepped over to the edge of the water and sat on the stone, gesturing for her to sit beside him. She sank down, clenching her hands in her lap. Her sense of dread increased. Why couldn’t she remember the journey to the city?

“You remember coming through the ley line, right?” he began. When she nodded, he asked, “Do you remember telling me about Natania? And me telling you to give me the Sahar because it was too dangerous?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Um. A little? You were really worried about Natania being able to mess with my head.”

“Yes,” he said grimly. “Do you remember anything after that?”

After struggling to pull up any kind of memory, she shook her head.

“Well, to make a long story short, at that point I found myself talking to Natania and not you.”

Her stomach churned twice as hard. “W-what?”

“She took over your body.” His golden eyes bored into hers. “You were completely gone. She as good as told me that she’d been plotting to do it. As she put it, she had a perfectly good mind of her own, but no body.”

Piper stared at him, her mouth hanging open. It was stupid to feel betrayed—it wasn’t like she’d ever trusted Natania—but she’d still come to feel a sort of kinship with the woman and even empathized with her suffering.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Well, Natania and I had an interesting conversation. She also tried to kill me.” He gestured at his cheek. “But she likes to talk too much and gave me a chance to use aphrodesia on her.”

“I know she likes to talk, but why aphrodesia?” A horrifying thought popped into her head. “Wait, you didn’t—not with—”

He snorted, waving one hand as though casting aside the suggestion. “Not that way.”

Right, of course. Out of glamour, Lyre was so magnificent and alluring that he could overwhelm a woman’s willpower and make her a slave to his desires. It was a dangerous power that she’d only briefly glimpsed before.

He let out a long breath. “It was close. If she’d used the full power of the Sahar from the start, I wouldn’t have had a chance to—well, anyway, I managed to subdue her, so it worked out.”

She squinted at him, pretty sure he was glossing over something. She just didn’t know what. Knowing him, he was probably hiding how close he’d come to getting killed.

She swallowed hard and touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I should have given the Sahar back right away.”

“No,” he said, smiling wanly. “It’s best it happened the way it did. It needed to happen here.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at the blue water swirling past them, his face suddenly haggard. “I took the Sahar away and tried to wake you up, but … you were still gone. I don’t know what she did to you, but it was like I was holding an empty shell, not you. Hinote couldn’t even explain it. It took them two weeks to put you back together again.”

“Two weeks?”

“Natania was planning this—planning it for a long time. After Ash and I got the Sahar away from you at the Gaian facility, she must have realized she needed a more permanent way to control you.”

“A permanent way to—She controlled me?”

His warm hand closed around hers.

“I don’t know where her interference or control started, but you aren’t solely responsible for what happened at that facility,” he told her, his voice gentle with compassion. “I do know that you didn’t attack me and Ash. That was entirely Natania. She told me herself.”

“I—I didn’t …” A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. She rubbed her free hand over her mouth. “It’s all my fault. I should have realized—”

“How were you supposed to guess she could do such a thing?” He squeezed her hand. “We fought you—her—and didn’t realize it ourselves. Don’t shoulder the blame for her crimes, Piper.”

She concentrated on breathing for a minute. “So Hinote was able to put me back together again?”

“With the help of about a dozen other ryujin healers. If they didn’t have telepathic abilities … I don’t think anyone could have saved you.”

Shivering, she thought of everything Natania had said or implied in their conversations. She huffed a bitter laugh. “She’s been playing me all along, hasn’t she? She must have started making plans after our first conversation. She originally talked about keeping me with her forever for company, but then changed her mind with no explanation. I noticed after that that it was much easier to use the Sahar. I bet she was making it easy for me so I would keep using the Stone while she figured out how to take my body for herself. She wants a second shot at life.”

“As soon as I gave the Sahar back to you, she decided she wouldn’t allow you to let it go again, not after losing her chance at the Gaian facility.”

“She’s been setting me up since—” Her eyes went out of focus as she remembered something else: Natania commenting on how Piper couldn’t control her daemon blood. She’d wondered why shading was different since she’d gone to the Underworld—less crazed and bloodthirsty—but only one thing had changed: she’d no longer had the Sahar.

“I think she was messing with me when I shaded too,” she whispered. “All that violence and bloodlust … it was coming from her. Why didn’t I realize it? She wanted to keep me as weak and dependent on the Sahar as possible. Every time I almost killed someone I didn’t mean to while shaded—she was doing that to me.”

The bloodlust had felt like another person inside her, driving her to violence, and she’d attributed the feeling to the alienness of her daemon blood. But it had been Natania all along; it was the only explanation that fit her newfound control over shading.

Disgust rose like bile in her throat and she swallowed it down, lifting her eyes to Lyre again. “I can never touch the Sahar again, can I?”

“I don’t think you should be anywhere near it.”

Slipping her fingers from his hold, she pressed her hands against her face.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” she said bitterly. “We have the only weapon that can possibly save Ash from the dragon, and the only person who can use it—me—can’t ever touch it again.”

Tears burned her eyes and she dug in the heels of her hands. “We’ll never be able to save Ash, will we? Even if we could find him, we don’t stand a chance against the dragon.”

Lyre sighed and she suspected he was regretting his failure to kill Ash before the dragon took him away—a failure her interference had caused.

She dropped her hands into her lap, staring at them. “The Sahar is an evil creation. What were Nyrtaroth and Maahes thinking? Binding a living soul into a piece of rock so they could have unlimited power … It’s revolting. I don’t think Natania was a malicious person before, but being stuck in that stone for five centuries has twisted her into a monster.”

“I looked at it while they were healing you.” He traced a small ridge of rock with one finger, watching the spot without seeing it. “I mean, I looked at it before to see what Maahes and Nyrtaroth had woven, but this time I wanted to see what it would take to break the weavings.”

She looked over at him. “And?”

“I don’t think it’s possible.” He lifted his somber golden eyes to hers. “They were genius weavers. The Sahar is full of rage and hatred, right? All that emotion comes from Natania’s soul, and emotion is fuel for magic. All the weavings are tied into that source, making it a self-perpetuating cycle of emotion fueling magic fueling the spells. And because their source is unlimited, the weavings themselves are indestructible. Even the physical stone is tied in, so it’s just as unbreakable.”

Piper swallowed back her revulsion. “So they made it so there would never be an end to Natania’s imprisonment?”

He nodded, looking as thoroughly disgusted as she felt. “They built the weavings so they would never weaken with age or fade. The weavings feed off of her, binding her for eternity.”

Her fingernails cut into her palms. “Nyrtaroth and Maahes had wanted their lodestone to be fueled by her love for them, not by eternal hatred.”

“That didn’t work out well for them,” Lyre said, his tone half dry, half bitter.

“Do you think they knew?” she asked, thinking back to her vision of the two ancient rulers. “Did they know what they were condemning Natania to?”

“Maybe, or maybe not. Sometimes inventors get too focused on whether they can create something instead of whether they should.” He pushed to his feet and extended a hand to her. “Let’s go talk to Hinote. He’s been researching the great dragons for the last few days. Plus, I bet you’d like something to eat, huh?”

Her stomach gave a loud rumble. She grimaced as she accepted his hand and let him pull her up. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life.”

His trademark half-smile of suggestive wickedness curved his lips. “I’m always hungry.”

She rolled her eyes and almost turned away but stopped herself. His smile faded into puzzlement as she stared at him. Then she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder. His arms closed around her, enveloping her in the spicy cherry scent of incubus.

“Thank you for sticking with me through all this crap,” she mumbled into his shoulder, her voice quavering with unshed tears.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, his tone so gentle she almost cried again.

She stepped out of Lyre’s arms, sniffling and trying to hide it.

“Let’s go see Hinote,” she said in an effort to recover some dignity.

With a chuckle at her terrible attempt to sound composed, he took her hand and led her away from the water.

The first thing Piper did when she walked into the room was rush straight to Hinote for a hug. He embraced her gently before stepping back. With his hands on her shoulders, he gazed into her eyes. His eyes, dark and solid with no discernible pupils or sclera, looked right through her.

“You healed well.”

His slow, soft voice sounded inflectionless, but she’d already learned to pick up on the subtle hints of emotion. The ryujin weren’t outwardly expressive; they shared their emotions on a much deeper, more intimate level than tone and facial expression.

“I owe you big for—” She broke off at the stern look he gave her. “No debts among family?”

“Absolutely not. I will not hear of owing.”

“Arguing with Hinote is futile,” Lyre advised her. “He’s almost as stubborn as Ash.”

The ryujin smiled briefly and Piper realized Lyre probably knew Hinote at least as well as she did—or maybe even better. She’d only spent five days here—five conscious days—on her last visit, but Lyre had been hanging out with the ryujin for two weeks on his own.

“I have lunch,” Hinote said without preamble.

He led the way to a low table surrounded by cushions, the centerpiece of the room. She wasn’t sure if this was his home or office or some other space, but it was another room she’d visited on her last stay. Nooks, filled with bound scrolls and heavy parchment sheets, had been carved into the walls, but she could spare little attention for the rest of the space, not when a wide platter sat on the table, laden with wooden bowls of food.

She dropped onto the cushions, folding her legs, and waited impatiently for Lyre and Hinote to get comfortable. As soon as they were settled, she picked up a small, carved wooden plate—almost more of a mini cutting board than dinnerware—and loaded up on a selection of cut fruits, steamed vegetables, and fish. Some fish was cooked, some raw, all of it deliciously seasoned. She’d learned last time that the ryujin—or at least Hinote in particular—were culinary masterminds. There were no breads, noodles, or grains in their cooking, but she couldn’t miss them. Everything was too tasty.

For several minutes, she concentrated on eating, loading her little plate several times as was ryujin etiquette—small plates, small servings, lots of going back for more. Eventually, Hinote passed her a delicately carved cup filled with crystalline water. She swallowed her last mouthful—grilled white fish wrapped in crisped, salty seaweed—and accepted it, quickly downing the whole thing.

“Amazing, as always, Hinote,” she declared, setting her plate and cup onto the edge of the platter. “I missed your cooking.”

“My table is always open, child.”

She smiled, a little of the lonely, broken ache in her chest easing.

“Lyre told me of your encounter with the great black dragon of the Underworld, and of Ash’s fate.”

He didn’t offer any words of comfort or sorrow, but she could feel his sympathy emanating with each word. She swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in her throat. “Did he tell you about the dragon king legend?”

“He did,” Lyre said, smirking as he popped a piece of orange fruit in his mouth. “Every word.”

“While you healed,” Hinote said, “I searched our archives and histories and collected what information I could. Those who had time to answer my request also sent records from their libraries.”

He rose to his feet and picked up the mostly devoured platter. Lyre sighed wistfully as Hinote carried it away and deposited it in a nook beside the curtained doorway. He pulled a woven basket from another nook and brought it to the table. It was overflowing with large, heavy scrolls. Selecting a scroll from the top, he carefully uncoiled it and spread the thick parchment over the table, revealing its contents.

A beautiful painting covered the entire expanse of parchment, drawn with the graceful strokes of a paintbrush. A silver dragon arched above curling ocean waves, looking as though it had just leaped from the water, with its majestic fins spraying a mist through the sky. And above the silver dragon, its wings sweeping through swirling clouds, flew a black dragon—a very familiar dragon.

Lyre leaned over the scroll beside her, his eyes wide. He clearly hadn’t seen this yet either.

“The great dragons are not bound to a single world.” Hinote passed one end of the scroll to Lyre to hold so it wouldn’t roll back up and used a finger to trace the lines of the water dragon without touching the paint. “We do not know if they chose their homelands because they felt a kinship with the magic of that world or if the magic of the worlds they chose absorbed their essence instead.

“Here in the Overworld, we call our great dragon Shinryu. Whether there are one or many, we cannot be certain. Though it has been many long millennia since Shinryu has stirred herself from the depths, her presence can always be felt in our waters.” He lifted his eyes from the painting to Piper. “You have felt the touch of her power. She once answered your call for aid.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. “The elemental power in the water?” she whispered in disbelief.

“Some say the dragons are the mother and father of all daemons, that we were created by their magic. The truth of this is unknown, but I know they are guardians of their lands and the magic of their world.”

Piper stared at the painting. “So Shinryu is a guardian? But then why is the black dragon evil?”

“I do not believe he is.”

He rolled the scroll up and carefully replaced it in the basket before choosing a second one. He opened it, revealing another painting. In this one, a silvery water dragon reared out of the water, surrounded by blue and green magic that swirled like an impossible blend of fire and water. A ryujin stood before the dragon, also enveloped in the colorful magic.

“As the legends tell, Shinryu was once all-powerful, a goddess of the seas, before she chose to sacrifice most of her magic to create us … and the other daemons of our world if you ascribe to that belief. She no longer needed her god-like power and came to slumber beneath the waters while we acted as caretakers of this world for her.

“Our ancient histories tell of dark days when enemies beyond our abilities threatened us. In those times of need, Shinryu rose from the depths to seek a ryujin with whom she could join her magic, so as to reclaim a fraction of her former power. Together, they defended us and our lands.”

“Did she kill a bunch of ryujin when she tried to bind their magic?” Piper asked, the question coming out more harshly than she’d intended.

“It would not surprise me if some did perish,” Hinote murmured. “You have felt the whisper of her power in these waters; her magic is great and our bodies are weak. Were Shinryu to appear today, any ryujin would be honored to be chosen, even if we should die.”

“Honored?” she spat, her fury breaking free. “How could that be an honor? You didn’t see what that dragon did to Ash. It obliterated his soul. It turned him into an empty power husk, a lifeless tool!”

Hinote’s dark eyes were gentle. “I can speak only for the ryujin and Shinryu. If she asked you to risk your life to help her, would you?”

She went still, remembering the tender, metaphysical embrace of the ancient presence in the river, ready to come to her aid. Her shoulders wilted. “What’s the matter with the black dragon then? Why is he like that?”

“Shinryu is considered the mother dragon—a guardian, but also a nurturer. The black dragon would be a patriarch—a warrior guardian. Perhaps he does not possess the nurturing nature of Shinryu; our earliest art often depicts the black dragons more aggressively.”

She crossed her arms, scowling at the painting as she muttered, “That’s kind of sexist.”

“Shinryu is still very fierce, Piper,” Hinote said, amused.

She exhaled. “The dragon was drawn by Ash’s magic. There’s obviously some kind of connection there, but if the great dragons are supposed to be guardians, why have the Taroths been terrified of them for hundreds of years?”

Hinote rolled up the scroll, his silence its own answer. They could guess that the Taroths had been so afraid because the dragon had killed so many of them, but that didn’t answer any of their questions about why the beast wanted to control Ash, or for what purpose.

“Well, we know a bit more about the dragons,” she said. “But we’re no closer to saving Ash. Do you know if a dragon can unbind a daemon?”

“I do not know if that is possible; what we know of Shinryu beyond her presence in our lands is ancient memory and written histories. The last recorded instance of Shinryu allying with a ryujin was over three millennia past.”

Her eyes widened briefly. “That’s a long time ago.”

He replaced the scroll in the basket. “Our tales do not speak of any desire to control or dominate the will of the daemon, as you described with Ash. However, telepathy is our birthright and a great skill. I would not claim to be more capable than Shinryu, but perhaps we are naturally better equipped to hold against her powerful mind.”

“Draconians have some limited ability,” Lyre put in. “They can communicate telepathically with their dragonets.”

Hinote nodded. “He could also communicate to a small degree with the koryu, which certainly surprised us.”

“Koryu are the water dragons you’ve seen around the city,” Piper told Lyre in response to his confused expression, then looked back to Hinote. “I didn’t know Ash was able to communicate with the koryu.”

“In a limited fashion. He experimented some while his healing was still ongoing. He could not communicate with us in the same way.” Hinote sighed. “I do not think he has the capacity to regain his autonomy by his own abilities, not from a great dragon.”

“If we can’t break the bond, is there a way we can break the dragon’s telepathic hold on him instead? At least then he could fight back.”

Hinote folded his hands on the table, his dark eyes appraising her gravely. “I will not mince words, Piper. I do not believe there is any power or magic you or I or any daemon possesses that could free Ash from a great dragon who does not wish to release him.”

Her shoulders sagged, despair thickening like a miasma in her lungs.

“There is only one being who could possibly aid you.”

Her eyes darted back to his and her heart stuttered. “You mean Shinryu?”

“If you ask her for guidance, she may assist you. I will not lie, child; it is unlikely. She has not stirred for thousands of years beyond sharing touches of her power with us.”

Her heartrate kicked up to a hopeful sprint. “But I could ask.”

“She may not answer, but you can always ask.”

Piper jumped up from her seat. “I have to try. I—”

Hinote gestured for her to sit again. Clamping down on her urgent tension, she reluctantly sank back down.

“Before you ask Shinryu for aid, you must cleanse your body and soul. You will bathe in the springs beneath the city, rest to regain your strength, and meditate to calm your mind and heart. When you seek her out, it must be as your strongest, purest self.”

Desperate hope and the poisonous fear of failure spun through her. “I understand. Can we begin now?”

He smiled at her impatience. “Yes. Let us begin.”

Chapter Sixteen

Piper splashed water on her face, gasping at the burst of cold over her skin. Reaching blindly for a towel, she patted her skin dry and opened her eyes. Her face peered back at her in the polished surface of the vein of crystal above the basin.

Even to herself, her eyes looked haunted and huge in her face. The tear-drop scales on her forehead shimmered blue, teal, and aquamarine, bringing out the color in her green eyes. The angles in her face were sharp, her skin as pale as porcelain from the lack of sun. She’d lost weight during her two weeks of healing and several solid meals since hadn’t done much to counter it.

Picking up a beaded tie, she twisted her auburn hair into a bun and tied it firmly in place. She didn’t want any hair in her face for whatever would happen today. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Maybe the most important thing that would ever happen to her.

Rising to her feet, she turned her back on the mirror and strode out of the baths room and into the curving corridor. In the air all around, she could sense the quiet anticipation; the entire community of ryujin was waiting to discover what would happen today, though none of them would disturb her communion with Shinryu.

Hinote had spent the previous day leading her through the traditional ryujin cleansing ritual, including a long, soaking bath in the springs beneath the city, several hours of meditation, and a special meal. Hinote had made her redo her meditation three times until he was satisfied with her state of tranquility. Then he’d sent her to bed to sleep and gather her strength.

This morning, she could feel a prickling nervousness in the pit of her stomach, but she wasn’t the jittery, emotional mess she’d been twenty-four hours ago. She probably wouldn’t get any calmer than this, so she just had to hope that Shinryu would understand her apprehension.

Over two weeks had passed since the dragon had taken Ash. She knew he was still alive because Seiya hadn’t come through the ley line to summon Piper and Lyre with the distress signal. They would know if Ash died … because Zwi would die shortly afterward. So he must be alive, somewhere, but the thought of what he might be going through terrified her.

Two weeks might just be the beginning of his enslavement if Shinryu wasn’t willing to help her—or wasn’t able to help in any way. If the great dragon couldn’t or wouldn’t help … Piper had no other ideas. If Hinote was right, there were no other options left to choose from. It was Shinryu or nothing.

Breathing deeply to calm her nerves, she stopped in front of the curtain to Hinote’s office and tapped a finger against the heavy material. Hinote’s unspoken welcome brushed over her mind. She pushed the curtain aside and walked in.

He sat at the same low table, a scroll spread out in front of him. She knelt on the cushions across from him and glanced down at the scroll—the painting of the silver and black dragons that he’d first shown her and Lyre. Two cups and a pitcher of fruit juice sat beside the scroll, almost as if he’d known she would stop by before going to the river.

He wordlessly poured two cups and handed her one. She took a sip, letting the sweet fluid flow over her tongue.

“If I fail,” she whispered, staring in her cup, “if Shinryu doesn’t help, then there’s nothing left to do for Ash. He’s doomed and I’ll have completely failed him.”

“The mind is most powerful in the moment. Focus on the now and the next, not the distant future of maybe and if. Even those of the strongest faith can falter when the eyes focus too far in the distance.”

She forced her jaw to unclench and took another sip. Her stomach churned and twisted.

Hinote set his cup down with a quiet click. “Though it can sometimes be a weakness, love is the most powerful drive there is, rivaled only by hatred. In our legends, Shinryu has always been a being of love and compassion; if you possess any quality she will respond to, it is the strength of your love.”

“I don’t know what it says about me that my greatest strength is love.”

“Love is not a power to be scoffed at, child. It can carry you when you have nothing left. You have inherited your great capacity for love from your grandfather, and today is not the first day it has given you the strength to fight onward, I’m sure.”

Looking up, she slowly lowered her cup. “Why did Vejovis leave the ryujin lands?”

Hinote’s shoulders shifted in a sigh. “He chose exile.”

“He chose it?”

“Even as a youth, Yuushi’s compassion was great.” He used Vejovis’s original name, not the name he was known by in daemon legends. “A travelling daemon from another territory, a young woman, was injured near our borders. Though it is against our laws—harsh but necessary protections for our people—he healed her instead of allowing nature to take its course. He had never met a daemon of another caste. He was fascinated by her—and she by him.

“They continued to meet, growing close … falling in love. To his credit, she was a sweet and brave young lady of pure heart, very much worthy of love. But his love overcame all wisdom and he shared too much with her about his people and his home.

“She heralded from a territory that has long sought to annex our lands. Her family was high-ranking among her caste and they eventually discovered her relationship with him. Their greed was greater than their loyalty to family, and when she refused to tell them what she knew, they turned terrible brutality on their daughter until she revealed all.”

Piper pressed her hand to her mouth, too horrified to respond.

Hinote’s sorrow saturated the air around him. “They struck swiftly, and for the first time in our history, successfully attacked one of our hidden cities—Yuushi’s home. Many died. We defeated them, but the toll was great.

“Yuushi was inconsolable. He took all the deaths upon his conscience and could not bear to feel the grief and anguish of the families who had lost loved ones. Our shared telepathy, our greatest source of comfort and support, became his greatest torture. He left. He travelled far from his home to escape the pain he had caused and eventually left this world entirely to seek solace in anonymity, where not even Shinryu could speak to his mind.”

Blinking, she held back tears. Hinote’s sadness was a tangible weight in the air. When he’d spoken of the attack on the city, she could almost hear the screams and feel the terror of the innocents living there. When he’d spoken of the anguish of the survivors, she could hear the hundreds of weeping voices echoing in her mind.

“Many years later, he returned to our lands. We welcomed him, opening our hearts to him, but he was distant. He had travelled far and seen much but he still could not escape the burden of his guilt. He could not bear to be part of the shared mind again. Though he continued to visit, he would not rejoin the community.”

She pressed her hands against her knees, swallowing hard. Vejovis had been a strange man, but compassion had been his most defining characteristic. She’d never imagined his history was so full of suffering. The stories told of Vejovis were of a healer who’d vowed to help anyone in need, regardless of their caste, affiliations, or crimes; his political neutrality was legendary. Through his endless mission to save as many lives as possible, he’d still been trying to make up for those who’d died hundreds of years ago … because he’d loved a girl too much.

Love was both a great strength and a great weakness. She would try to remember that.

She rose to her feet and Hinote joined her. She hugged him tight, then stepped back and inhaled slowly.

“Thank you for everything, Hinote.” She grinned at his disapproving frown of her gratitude. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck is for those with nothing else. I wish you strength and courage.”

She gave him one more hug. Then she left with fast steps, not wanting to delay any longer. Fear trickled through her but she suppressed it, holding on to the serenity she’d gained through yesterday’s meditation—though it was probably a fruitless effort. She hurried through the corridors and over an arching bridge. Beyond, the central cavern of the city opened up, sunlight sparkling down through the veins of crystal.

Sitting by the water, almost exactly where she’d found him yesterday, Lyre fiddled with something small in his hands as he contemplated the current. This time he was alone. The ryujin had made themselves scarce to give her privacy for her communion with Shinryu.

She stopped beside Lyre. He looked up, offering a faint smile. His normally golden tanned skin had lightened after weeks in the dark Underworld and then another two weeks in the underground city, and his hair looked as pale as moonlight. Crouching beside him, she stared fearfully at the swirling current as her dread quadrupled in an instant. What if Shinryu said no? What if the great dragon didn’t even respond?

“I was doing good until just now,” she admitted in a small voice. “All the sudden, it feels like I never meditated at all.”

He looked at the object in his hand—a small green gem. After a brief hesitation, he held it out to her.

“What is it?”

“The spell for Seiya. You should try it.”

Try it? Raising her eyebrows, she extended her hand. With a spark of magic to activate it, he dropped it into her palm.

The cavern and river vanished. Even Lyre disappeared. She was alone, crouched on the edge of a gurgling stream that splashed down tiered rocks. Broad trees, their branches heavy with the red and gold leaves of fall, arched overhead, lit by the light of an unseen setting sun. Fireflies danced above the rippling water and the soft ferns that surrounded the rocky banks.

A breeze whispered through the trees, ruffling her bangs and sending a swirl of dislodged autumn leaves fluttering past her. She could actually feel the breeze on her skin. Holding the spelled gem in one hand, she stretched out the other toward the stream. Her fingers found the smooth stone of the floor in the ryujin cavern but at the same time, she could feel the cold water rushing over her skin.

Filled with awe, she sat cross-legged and watched the dancing fireflies until her fear and dread calmed, replaced with a tranquil, unyielding determination.

The illusion blurred then vanished. Lyre appeared in front of her as he lifted the gem out of her palm.

“How was it?” he asked, looking a little nervous to hear her assessment of his skills.

“It was absolutely incredible.”

He smiled and tucked the gem into his pocket. “I thought an escape to somewhere beautiful might lift Seiya’s spirits.”

“It lifted mine,” she said with a smile. “I feel much better. Was that a real place?”

“Yes, I modeled it after somewhere I used to visit a long time ago.”

She hesitated, watching him. Though his expression revealed only a thoughtful sort of distance, she was certain she could see a touch of bittersweet sadness in his eyes. Wherever it was, the autumn stream was a place linked strongly to sorrow for him. He must have chosen it because it was beautiful, despite his less than happy reaction to it personally.

“Where did you learn to make spells like that?” she asked without thinking.

“Here and there,” he said casually, that hint of bittersweet sadness vanishing. “Are you ready for this?”

Her eyes narrowed. That quick, thorough evasion, just like the last time she’d asked. He’d shut down his emotions so fast she was surprised she hadn’t heard his mental doors slamming closed.

Smoothing her expression, she nodded. “I’m as ready as I can be.”

His past was his and none of her business. She needed to stop asking; he would tell her when he was ready, or he wouldn’t tell her at all. She understood wanting to keep the past buried and forgotten for good.

Pushing aside all thoughts of his mysteries and everything else, she used a breathing exercise Hinote had taught her to clear her mind. Closing her eyes, she focused on the coming task. Ash. She needed to save him. She needed to convince Shinryu to help her. A part of her wanted to continue delaying, because once she began, that was it. She either succeeded in convincing Shinryu to help, or she failed Ash for the final time.

She rose to her feet and approached the edge of the river. Jumping up, Lyre grabbed her hand and squeezed it, a quick offering of support before he released her and stepped back. Alone, she stopped at the edge. The rainbows from the sunlight refracting into the cave sparkled and danced across the rippling surface.

With one last deep breath, she dove into the river.

Cold rushed over her body as she sank into the blue water. Her dairokkan flowed out behind her, sending a thousand messages to her brain about the current, the rocky bottom, the fish and water plants, even a koryu drifting along the bottom a few hundred yards away.

Shinryu’s ancient presence wrapped around her. The embrace of power, gentle and wise, caressed her mind. Before when she had begged for help to save Ash—when he had fallen into the river with three dagger wounds to the chest—the river’s response had been instant and willing.

She concentrated hard on her need, pushing her thoughts and emotions outside herself so they would be loud and clear to Shinryu. She showed the ancient being what she’d seen of the black dragon and what he had done to Ash. Her tears mixed with the river as she thought of how much she loved him, how she wasn’t sure she could live without him, how afraid he’d been of the great dragon. How she had to save him but didn’t know how.

Please help me. Please save him.

She thought the words as hard as she could, concentrating on her love for him and her need to help him.

Shinryu’s presence swirled around her, listening. But this time, there was no instant response to her request, no immediate rush of power to aid her. Instead, Shinryu contemplated her. Desperate, Piper thought of what else she could say—think—to convince the ancient being. Unbidden, Ash’s words to her in the dark Underworld forest came back to her: The only one I want to belong to is you.

Shinryu’s swirling presence stilled. The power grew quiet, almost seeming to withdraw.

Panicked denial erupted in Piper, almost overwhelming her.

This way.

She jerked underwater. She didn’t hear the words so much as she felt them in her bones.

A presence behind her. Spinning around, she came face to face with a koryu. The dairokkan above its head undulated as the teardrop scales on its forehead glowed. It was the one she’d sensed upstream a few minutes ago.

This water dragon wasn’t Shinryu; it was just a regular koryu. Shinryu’s power had gone silent. She had offered no answers, no promise to help. Was that it? Was Shinryu refusing to help her?

The scales on the koryu’s forehead glowed a little brighter and it swam beside Piper, pointing its nose downstream.

This way.

She hesitated, calling again to Shinryu. No response. With nothing else to try, she wrapped her arms around the koryu’s neck.

With a snap of its powerful finned tail, it shot into motion. It swam like a torpedo, the rocky riverbanks rushing by in the dark waters. She clung on with arms and legs, pressing herself against the dragon’s back to minimize drag. Darkness closed over them as they left the brightly lit cavern behind. The water grew more turbulent, and she sensed them rejoining the main river.

The koryu sped through the waters, faster than the racing current. Jagged rocks flashed by—the same rocks that had broken her body when she’d been carried downstream through the caves after falling into the river.

In no time at all, blinding sunlight cut through the water and the koryu broke the surface, lifting her into the warm air. She gasped in a grateful breath but had no time to enjoy it. They dove again, and she tightened her hold on the dragon, knowing what was coming. Just ahead, the river plunged over Two Dragon Falls. She clutched her mount’s neck with all her strength as they closed in on the falls. With a whip of its tail, the koryu propelled them off the edge.

They shot out of the water into the air, plummeting. The dragon spread its legs and fins, catching the wind to slow their fall. They dropped alongside the roaring water, and as the basin at the bottom rushed up to meet them, the koryu folded in its limbs and fins. They plunged into the water.

The river widened and slowed at the bottom of the waterfall, but the koryu didn’t slow its pace. Tail weaving side to side, it propelled them downriver, never slowing, rarely breaching the surface for a gulp of air. Her arms ached from the strain of holding on but she didn’t let go. Something was driving the water dragon hard—something calling it urgently.

She missed most of the scenery, unable to see the passing mountains while underwater, but she knew they’d travelled miles. An hour passed, then another, the koryu never slowing. Just as she wondered how much farther the river could possibly flow, a salty tang developed in her mouth. She stretched her senses out.

Ahead, the river met a great expanse of open water—a sea. The river emptied into a sea. This had to be the end of the ryujin territory. Where the hell was the koryu taking her?

As the dragon rushed headlong into the estuary, she tugged on its neck, hoping it would stop. They couldn’t go swimming in the sea. They weren’t fish. Neither she nor the koryu could swim forever.

The koryu shook its head in annoyance at her tugging and shot for the surface. Piper gasped for air, glancing around with wide eyes. On either side, the mountains ended in steep, rocky cliffs. The river widened as it joined the sea, the current growing rougher. The water dragon swam along the surface, slowing but not stopping. She stared ahead at the unbroken line of blue horizon where the sea met the sky. She’d never seen an ocean before.

Sea waves crashed violently into the cliff walls with great roars of sound. The koryu swam hard into the incoming tide and the first wave rolled toward them—six feet tall with a frothing tip. She grabbed on tight as the dragon dove under the wave. They swam beneath the rolling waves before surfacing for a quick breath, then dove again. The current was strong, the tides pulling at them. She hung on for dear life, frightened of the water for the first time since discovering her ryujin form.

She was so focused on hanging on that she didn’t sense the island until they were almost on top of it. The koryu broke the surface and there it was: a hump of rock edged in a sandy beach, a quarter mile wide and even narrower.

The water dragon swam into the shallow water of the beach. Sheltered from the incoming tide by the other side of the tiny island, the waters were relatively calm. She was still gawking when the koryu stopped, planting its clawed feet in the sandy bottom to hold against the push and pull of the waves.

She held on, shivering as the sea wind whipped over her wet skin. What now? The koryu turned its head and looked at her with one blue eye. The message was clear.

Swallowing hard, she reluctantly pried her hands free and slid off the dragon’s back into chest-high water. The waves pulled at her, trying to drag her away from the island. The koryu turned and dove, vanishing beneath the surface with a flick of its tail.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, knowing it was already too late. Ducking under the surface, she swam toward the beach. Where else was there to go? She could probably swim back to the river on her own, but the koryu had brought her here for a reason … hadn’t it?

When it became too shallow for swimming, she clambered to her feet and trudged onto the beach, stopping with the water still lapping around her ankles.

As she anxiously considered the barren rock littered with bits of driftwood, a power very different from Shinryu’s whispered along her senses. She blinked rapidly, calling on a touch of shaded calm. Her vision blurred for a second—and then she could see it. A rippling line of green light twice her height undulated over the ground, running the length of the island. A ley line.

The koryu had brought her to a ley line? But there was a much closer one—the one she always came through to visit the ryujin. Why had it brought her all the way out here?

The back of her neck prickled. She spun around.

The sea had begun to churn. The waves twisted and roiled as though the tide were pulling them in every direction. The water frothed wildly as a dark shadow grew beneath the surface. The water surged upward as something rose from beneath it.

An immense, silver-scaled head burst out of the water, followed by a curving neck. The massive water dragon rose out of the sea, sliding through the churning waves toward the beach.

Unable to so much as breathe, Piper dropped to her knees in the sand, staring. The great dragon lifted out of the water as it stepped into the shallows, its long, heavy tail trailing behind it. Ancient power thickened the air, tingling in her lungs as she finally managed to draw a breath.

Shinryu had answered her call.

Chapter Seventeen

The great silver dragon flowed onto the beach, every movement as smooth and graceful as a rolling wave. She glided past Piper and onto the rocky base of the island. The sea wind gusted, blowing droplets of water across Piper’s face from the dragon’s body.

Shinryu looked similar to a koryu, just much larger. She even had the same undulating dairokkan rising off the top of her head and three teardrop scales on her forehead. Attempting to pull her thoughts together, Piper watched the dragon pass her, stunned by the sight of the majestic creature.

Little flickers of blue and green light rippled over Shinryu’s body. The flames—or was it glowing water freed from gravity?—leaped higher as the creature approached the ley line. The line responded to her approach, the dancing light flashing fast and bright. The swirling light over the dragon’s scales burst outward and the ley line rippled energetically in response. The magic spun around Shinryu, enveloping her body entirely as it reached the ley line. The two lights blurred and blended together as both powers leaped skyward, twisting and spiraling toward the sky.

With a burst of power, the light disappeared. The ley line resumed its sedate, gentle rippling. Shinryu turned and stepped away from the line, gliding off the rock and into the sand.

As the dragon passed her, her immense head turned on her long, curving neck and a giant blue eye examined Piper. The scales on her forehead glowed softly as she brought her head within an arm’s length away. Her pale, wide-eyed face reflected in the dragon’s huge eyes, the same color as the sea.

A touch of power caressed her mind, an offering of hope.

The great silver creature swung her head back toward the ocean and flowed into motion. The waves stilled as Shinryu slipped into the sea, gliding through the water until it rose around her shoulders. Then the dragon turned to face the island, before becoming as still as the sea around her, the only movement that of her dairokkan undulating gracefully.

Piper took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. Shinryu stood still and silent, her head and the dorsal fin on her back all that protruded from the glass-like surface of the water. The dragon was waiting … for what? Piper turned, staring at the line; it looked exactly the same as it had before. Was she supposed to do something now? Shinryu hadn’t given her any instructions. She pushed to her feet and took a few steps into the water, splashing in up to her knees as she peered at Shinryu, wondering if she dared ask what they were waiting for.

The power of the ley line gave an odd little stutter.

Piper spun around. The line was rippling in agitation, streaks of blue rushing through the green light. The blue spread, flames leaping out of the light. A wave of heat burst from the line and she threw her hands over her face, stumbling backward into deeper water as the air scorched her skin like the hottest desert wind.

The line exploded with blue fire, obliterating the green light. A black shape filled the heart of the flames—and then the great black dragon burst out of the line, wings spread wide as he loosed an enraged, ear-splitting roar.

Piper gaped. The black dragon—he was here. Shinryu must have called him somehow, using the ley line.

Her eyes flashed over the dragon, and she almost screamed in despair when she didn’t see Ash. How could the dragon have come without Ash? They were bonded now, weren’t they?

Movement at the base of the dragon’s neck caught her attention, and her eyes went wide all over again. Ash was there, standing on the dragon’s back, just behind its thick, snake-like neck. She hadn’t seen him at first because he blended in; he almost looked like part of the beast.

The dragon had clearly taken Lyre’s attack on Ash seriously. Ash’s regular draconian clothes and gear had been augmented with gleaming, obsidian armor—curved pieces over his chest, shoulders, and arms, covering his thighs and shins, even thin lines of armor over the outer ribs of his wings. A fitted piece of dragon-scale armor covered the lower half of his face, replacing the typical draconian face wrap.

Fear pierced her relief; if Ash had been frightening in his regular gear, he now looked like a demon warlord from the depths of hell.

The black dragon’s head turned, glowing blue eyes glancing across Piper to Shinryu. His lips pulled back from his fangs, baring them in a lizard-like expression of utter fury. He was clearly not happy with Shinryu for calling him to the Overworld.

You summoned me to aid my enemies? His telepathic voice was an enraged roar so loud in Piper’s head that her knees almost buckled. You interfere where you have no right. Return to your apathy in the depths, as you have always preferred.

Shinryu’s power swirled through the sea as she stared calmly back at the furious black beast.

You have forgotten, Tenryu. Her voice flowed through Piper, as sweet and gentle as a pure mountain stream. A life you may claim, but a mind and soul?

Tenryu’s rage cut through the air like an invisible sword. He would not submit.

You allowed them to forget you. You taught them to fear you.

Snapping his head side to side, he bellowed angrily, jaws gaping wide. They forsook us. They betrayed us.

This child you hold prisoner did neither.

He resisted!

The glass-like sea began to churn.

You have forgotten, Tenryu, Shinryu repeated in a sorrowful sigh.

Tenryu opened his mouth to bare all his curved fangs. Do you challenge me, sister?

If I must, she whispered.

The churning sea behind Shinryu rose, lifting higher and higher into a massive tidal wave. Tenryu spread his wings and let out a furious, defiant roar. Like an attack dog let off its chain, the tidal wave roared forward, passing right over Shinryu without affecting her as it hurtled toward the island.

The wave hit Piper first, sucking her inside it. With a kick of her feet, she shot up inside the wave, suspended within it as it slammed down on Tenryu. In that moment, both the dragon and Ash were underwater with her and Shinryu.

Piper swept past Tenryu’s head and grabbed hold of Ash as the power of the water tore him from the dragon’s back.

The breaking wave crashed down onto the island, dropping Ash and Piper onto the rocks. Behind them, a second wave came roaring in, colliding with Tenryu. He flailed his wings as he struggled to keep his head above the water.

She barely noticed. Her eyes—her entire being—were focused on Ash. She clutched his head, staring desperately at his face. Instead of solid, unbroken blue, the whites and pupils of his eyes had returned. His gray irises were veined with electric blue, but otherwise, his eyes looked like him again.

And he was looking at her. He was seeing her.

“Ash?” she gasped, half choking on a sob.

If he answered, she never heard it.

Tenryu’s enraged bellow shattered the air. She jerked her head up as his massive, taloned foot swept toward her.

It struck her in the side, hurling her off Ash. She tumbled over the rocks, rolling out of control until she came to a sprawling stop in the sand. The earth shook as the dragon charged after her. She shoved onto her hands and knees, unable to draw a breath with her bruised lungs, and flung herself toward the waves rolling up the sand.

The sea rose again. It surged up the beach, sweeping Piper into its cool embrace, and crashed down on top of Tenryu. Screaming in rage, the dragon snapped his wings wide. Blue and black fire erupted over his scaled body, burning even under the water. The liquid boiled, bubbles racing for the surface. The flames grew, swirling faster and faster around the dragon as steam rose from the sea in great swaths of white. The fire burst outward, burning away the water until the dragon stood within a whirlwind inferno that evaporated the water as fast as it flowed in.

The incoming wave faltered, then fell apart, water dropping onto the rocks and rushing back out toward the sea. Piper was sucked partway out with it before she grabbed onto a submerged rock and pulled herself up, waist-deep in the sea. Shinryu stood partially submerged, gazing at Tenryu as flames roared over his scales. Green and blue light flickered just beneath her silver scales. Tiny ripples of light danced across her body as she lifted her head high.

And then the goddess of the seas flowed into motion, gliding toward the beach as the ocean gathered behind her.

Tenryu froze in place, his hesitation obvious even to Piper. He roared and spun away from Shinryu’s approach. He lunged up the beach toward Ash, who’d rolled onto his hands and knees and was shaking his head back and forth groggily. The dragon snatched Ash in his jaws and leaped toward the ley line.

“No!” Piper screamed.

Shinryu called on the sea. A tidal wave hit Piper’s back, absorbing her into it, and crashed down on the island, burying the entire thing in six feet of water. As the water receded back into the sea, Piper swam frantically closer. She shoved upright and ran through the shallows for the beach but she already knew it was too late.

The island was empty. Tenryu had taken Ash through the ley line.

“No,” she moaned, falling to her knees.

Shinryu stood with her two front feet buried in the wet sand, her back legs in the water as it flowed off the island and back out to sea. The dragon’s sadness and regret saturated the air.

Piper pressed her hands to her face, sobs rising in her chest. She was such a fool. Even though Ash had been temporarily free of the dragon’s control while Tenryu was distracted, it hadn’t done a damn bit of good. Instead of clutching him like a lovesick idiot, she should have been brave enough to run a dagger through his heart to put him out of his misery.

Do not forsake love, child, Shinryu whispered inside her mind. Hold hope still. My brother may yet remember.

Piper lifted her tear-streaked face from her hands. “Remember what?”

Shinryu turned toward the sea. The water went still once again as she slipped into it, gliding away from the island. Her elegant dorsal fin cut through the glassy surface before vanishing beneath it. Waves surged back into motion, rolling toward the island with the natural tide. A whisper of sympathy and compassion touched Piper before it too faded. Shinryu’s presence disappeared from her senses, sinking into the depths of the sea.

She’d failed. How could she have failed Ash so badly? He’d been freed from the dragon only to be snatched away again. If she could have managed to get him in the water, Shinryu would have protected him. But she hadn’t done a damn thing that was useful. And now Tenryu had Ash back in the Underworld or wherever they’d gone, where the dragon could once again enslave Ash to his will.

“I’m sorry,” she wept, her voice almost soundless. “I’m so sorry, Ash.”

She dug her fingers into the sand as gentle waves washed over her legs. Alone on the beach, surrounded by nothing but the empty sea, she curled into a ball on the sand and cried until she ran out of tears.

Keeping her aching eyes closed and her mind shut tight to the presence of the ryujin community, she lay on her bed and did her best not to think.

After a short time alone on the island, the koryu had returned along with three ryujin. The young men had followed her in the hopes of seeing the great Shinryu with their own eyes. It was a good thing they had, because Tenryu’s hit had inflicted a lot of damage she hadn’t noticed at the time. Her dragon scale clothing had protected her from his claws, but the force of the blow had broken her arm and cracked some ribs.

The ryujin youths had healed her before helping her make the long journey back to the hidden city. At first, she struggled to be grateful that they’d been there to heal her. Not only had they witnessed her complete failure to save Ash, but they also weren’t quite able to hide their exhilaration at witnessing Shinryu’s power and seeing a great dragon from another world. Though they were sympathetic, they didn’t share in her despair.

As the trip upstream had gone on, though, she became very thankful for their help. Even with the koryu carrying her most of the way, it had taken quadruple the time as the trip out to the island, and the overland detour around Two Dragon Falls had been hellish. The sun had been setting by the time they’d arrived at the ryujin city.

Hinote and Lyre had been waiting for her. She guessed one look at her face had told them all they needed to know, and Hinote had whisked her away from the ryujin youths to the privacy of her room. She’d eventually mustered up the strength to tell them the entire story.

That had been three days ago. Soon, she and Lyre would set out for the ley line along the cliff. They would return to the Underworld and meet with Seiya—a conversation Piper wasn’t looking forward to. After that, she didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t feel any need to stay in the Underworld without Ash. She didn’t want anything to do with Eliada and the other draconians, whether they welcomed her or not. Raum didn’t need her help protecting his family. No one needed her. Without the Sahar, she was useless.

“Piper?” The soft voice came from outside the curtain to her room.

She reluctantly sat up. “Come in.”

Hinote pushed the curtain aside and walked in, his long tail swishing behind him, fins folded neatly like closed fans.

“Lyre has gathered most of the gear for your journey.” He crouched beside her. “Are you ready?”

She nodded but didn’t move, the blankets still tangled over her legs. It was time to leave, but the bitterness of losing Ash all over again was like a massive weight holding her in place. She dropped her eyes to her lap, despair squeezing her chest.

“What did Shinryu mean when she said Tenryu had forgotten?” she asked brokenly. “Why did she think him remembering could save Ash?”

“I cannot say,” he murmured. “The great dragons are ancient beings with a deep history. Who knows what she might have referred to?” He rose to his full height. “Freshen up, child, and join us by the river. Many are gathering to bid you farewell.”

After he left, she sat on the bed, fighting the urge to lie down and sleep again. Sleep was the only real escape from the guilt of her failure and the agony of her loss. It was worse than if she’d lost a limb; it felt as if she’d lost her soul, that it had burned away in the heat of Tenryu’s blue fire.

Dragging herself to her feet, she stumbled out of her room and down the corridor toward the baths room. It played again in her head, the black dragon grabbing Ash in his jaws and jumping toward the ley line. Was there anything she could have done to stop Tenryu? Or had it been hopeless from the start?

Putting it out of her mind as best she could, she focused on making herself presentable. Even though she’d failed to save Ash, the ryujin were in awe that the great Shinryu had risen from the sea to aid her; the three youths who’d brought her back had already spread the story to every ryujin in the city and beyond. Piper didn’t want them to see her wallowing in depression after receiving such an honor from their revered deity.

She would put on a brave face until she was gone from the Overworld. Then she would decide how much fight she actually had left in her broken heart and burnt soul.

Chapter Eighteen

The air in the Underworld had never tasted so bitter. Piper kicked dejectedly at the charred ground of their former camp, wrinkling her nose at the stink of wet charcoal that tainted the air. The recent rain had left everything damp and fresh, with the exception of the burnt swath of forest. It was late in the long night, with the full face of Periskios waning toward half. In another few hours, the sky would gradually begin to lighten with the extended twilight that preceded the suns’ return.

Lyre leaned against a tree near the edge of the camp, twisting his chain of spelled gems in his hands. He’d been quiet since she’d returned from the island in the sea—mourning the loss of his best friend, dealing with the weight of his guilt for failing to fulfill his promise. Perhaps even trying to hide his resentment toward her. He’d used his signal spell to summon Seiya as soon as they’d arrived, but they still had to wait while she flew from the draconian outpost … wherever that was. Piper was dreading her arrival. How would Seiya react to the news that her brother had been within her grasp only for her to lose him again? She would be furious and devastated.

What would come after that? Maybe it was time to go home. It felt like half a lifetime since she’d been on Earth. What was happening there? Over seven weeks had passed, by her best estimate, since she and her mother had faced Maasehet and Samael in the Gaian command center. Had war broken out between the Ra and Hades families on Earth? How had the Gaians reacted to losing their leaders? Had they disbanded or retaliated?

And what of her family? Had Quinn and Calder made any progress on alerting other Consuls to the Ras’ control of the Consulates?

So many questions without answers. She stared at the ground, knowing she could only find the answers on Earth. She had to go back. But a question hung over her, dragging at her limbs like dead weight:

Did she care enough to go back and get those answers?

If she didn’t care anymore, she shouldn’t go back. She would just get in the way of the people who actually cared about Earth’s fate. Her passion from before, her need to stop the daemon war from claiming her home world, was like a strange, hollow memory that belonged to another person. Had she really cared so much about the fate of strangers?

She lifted her head, her gaze going out of focus. Of course she had. She’d always cared about the fate of strangers. Every daemon who’d come to her Consulate had been a stranger, but she’d still wanted to be a Consul more than anything. She’d always wanted to be a peacekeeper, to keep people safe.

Nothing had changed—nothing except losing Ash. The emptiness from his loss consumed her entirely, devouring any passion she’d felt for anything else. But Ash wasn’t the start and end of her being. He’d changed her so much, helped her grow, and the person she’d become wouldn’t give up because she had to go on alone. Ash wouldn’t have given up. He would have soldiered on the way he always did.

Sighing, she resumed her slow wander of the camp, thoughts spinning. Her fingers fiddled with the top of a small dagger hilt poking out of her armguard. Hinote’s parting gift had been two small daggers made of shimmering, silver-blue dragon scale: harder than steel, magic resistant, and capable of cutting through many spells and weavings. They were probably priceless and she couldn’t stop herself from checking every few minutes that they were still in place, afraid she would somehow lose them.

She meandered in another circle. Even with her eyes on the ground, she didn’t immediately notice the odd patterns disturbing the damp ashes and muddy ground. Her pacing stalled and she crouched, leaning closer. They were tracks—bird tracks. Giant bird tracks with three long toes and deep impressions from curved talons. They had to be roc tracks. The giant raptors must have come down from the sky to check out the damage. She was glad she hadn’t been around for that.

As she rose again, she realized that their pile of burnt gear, abandoned weeks ago, had also been disturbed. Something had rooted through it, scattering half-melted cookware and twisted swords out of the pile. She kicked at a heat-warped dagger, inexplicably annoyed that the rocs had messed with their stuff. Stupid birds. Well, they’d wasted their time. There hadn’t been anything edible left to scavenge.

With nothing else to do, she used the toe of her boot to nudge the dagger back into the pile, then scooted a blackened pot back to where it belonged. She kicked it a little too hard and a mini-avalanche of soot and burnt debris slid down the side of the mound, with a clanking pot lid hitting the ground last. Grumbling, she reached down to toss the pot onto the top of the pile.

A glint of silver caught her eye and she froze halfway down. There shouldn’t be anything shiny in the heap of gear; everything had been burned black by the intense heat of Ash’s attack. Leaning to the side, she saw the glint again—something small in the center of the pile, revealed by the fallen debris.

An uneasy feeling slid through her and she put a foot on the pile, leaning close. A thin steel disc, a little smaller than the palm of her hand, sat inside a pot, untouched by ash or soot. She stared at it, her unease growing. The inside of the pot was scorched black, but the disc was as clean and shiny as though someone had just polished it.

“Lyre …” She trailed off. Why did the disc look familiar? Maybe it was just a piece of their gear. “Lyre, come take a look at this.”

His footsteps crunched over the charred ground as he approached.

“Look at this disc,” she said, reaching down to pick it up as he joined her. “Have you seen—”

His hand flashed out, grabbing her wrist and yanking it away from the pot. “Don’t touch it!”

She staggered backward, almost thrown off balance by the force of him grabbing her. She opened her mouth angrily but her complaint died when she noticed how pale he’d gone. He studied the disc, barely breathing.

And she suddenly realized why the disc looked familiar: it had the same basic dimensions as the spelled disc she’d found on the Hades agent among the Fairview Gaians. The spy’s disc had been woven with blood magic to transmit secret messages between Hades reapers, including the agent’s instructions direct from Samael.

Her heart pounded in her throat. “Is it … is it spelled?”

Releasing her wrist, he braced his hands on one knee and leaned in close, his eyes darkening to black.

“It’s spelled,” he said tersely. “I can’t tell exactly what spells and I don’t dare touch it, but …” He straightened and turned his black eyes on her. “I think it’s a scouting beacon.”

“A scouting beacon?” she repeated in a near whisper.

“A military spell,” he said, his tone as bleak as his dark eyes. “Placed by Hades scouts to mark a location … for the rest of the troops.”

She shook her head slowly, then faster and faster. “No. No, it can’t be that. You can’t be sure. You didn’t even touch it.”

“It’s definitely giving off some kind of magical signature.” His eyes flicked back to the disc. “It’s a simple spell, a lot like the twin distress signals I made for me and Seiya. With these, a master spell leads its bearer to the various beacons, which are otherwise almost impossible to detect. I’m certain that’s what this is. They all look the same.”

“They all look the same?” she echoed, unable to help the suspicious note in her voice. “How many of these things have you seen?”

He glanced at her and said nothing.

Her hands clenched and she shoved Lyre’s mysteries aside to deal with later. “It can’t be a Hades beacon spell because there’s no way a Hades scout would be out here. You can’t even get here without wings. A reaper could never …”

She trailed off as her eyes turned toward the roc tracks on the ground. As if in a dream, she remembered that nightmarish day when she, Ash, and Seiya had fled through the Hades forests after she’d broken the draconian siblings free from Asphodel. Hades soldiers had attacked them from the sky, riding on the backs of huge saddled birds.

The memories of their escape were a blur of panic and exhaustion that she rarely thought about. Even when that flock of rocs had attacked her at the hot springs, she hadn’t connected the wild predators with the tamed mounts of the Hades soldiers.

She pointed at the disc, her hand shaking. “Someone was here after we left. They placed the beacon. They … somehow they followed us here.” Her horrified eyes lifted to Lyre’s. “Raum said there’s a draconian settlement nearby.”

“If they find it …”

“Hades will wipe them out,” she whispered. She spun in a fast circle. “They left the beacon so they could find this place again, right? So they could come back with soldiers—an army to attack the draconians. But it takes time to move an army … Could they even move an entire army through these mountains? It would take a long time. It took us weeks to fly, so it would take them—”

“But Piper,” Lyre interrupted, his voice flat, almost dead, “they don’t need to bring an army over the mountains. Not anymore.”

She stared at him. Then she turned and gaped, horrified, at the rippling ley line at the far end of the clearing. Tenryu had created a ley line right in the middle of the otherwise inaccessible mountains, eliminating weeks or even months of difficult travel to reach this place.

She broke into a sprint, charging up to the ley line. Casting a light that hovered above her head, she bent at the waist to scour the ground. Lyre ran to the other end of the line, creating his own light to search under. She zigzagged all around the line, but the ground was smooth, untouched by tracks of any kind other than hers and Lyre’s, deeply imprinted in the soot where they’d walked out of the line a couple hours ago. Relief slid through her.

“There are no tracks at all,” she said. “They haven’t come through yet. We have time to warn the draconians.”

Lyre stopped searching but he didn’t look relieved. “There are no tracks at all,” he repeated. “None.”

She blinked at him.

“Where are our tracks from when we went into the line?” He gestured, the movement jerky with anxiety. He strode a few feet away from the line. “Everyone came over to say goodbye. Where are their footprints?”

She looked at the ground. “They—they could have washed away in the rain.”

“But not the roc tracks by the gear?”

A shudder ran through her, panicky fear and desperate denial.

“I think they wiped it clean,” he said, his hands flexing at his sides as though he longed to have his bow in his grip. “Just in case, they erased signs of their passage so no one could guess their numbers.”

“Oh god.” She clamped her arms around herself to stop her shaking. “Seiya is coming, isn’t she? They haven’t—They aren’t—”

“She’s coming. I can sense her getting closer each hour.” He spun on one heel and started to pace. “Armies are slow, and it would take a decent-sized army to attack a large group of draconians. Draconians are more powerful than reapers, but I don’t know how many draconians we’re talking about. Samael will probably overestimate the force he needs, to ensure an easy victory.”

He spun and strode in the opposite direction. “We’ve been gone for a little over two weeks—that’s about six cycles here. The scouts had to be at least a few days behind us or Ash and Raum would have noticed them. Eliada was taking Seiya and the others to an outpost first, right? Seiya is still miles away, so the outpost isn’t that close, and we don’t know how far the settlement is from there. The army is travelling by foot through rough terrain with no roads or paths. They’ll be moving slowly.”

He stopped and faced her, raking a hand through his pale hair. “This is all guesswork, but we might still have time to warn the draconians. The army has to be close, but … we might have time.”

Her hands tightened over her upper arms with bruising force as she hugged herself harder. “How did this happen? How did they follow us?”

“One of the draconians must be carrying something that’s spelled with a beacon. There’s no other explanation.” He gestured at the pile of burnt gear. “It’s nothing here, otherwise the trail would have ended at this spot. The scouts would have had no way to follow the others to the outpost. They wouldn’t have brought an army, and all our tracks would still be around the ley line.”

“Do you think one of the draconians is a traitor?” The question hurt to ask.

Lyre stilled. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

Piper nodded, her thoughts unintentionally turning to Jezel’s angry bitterness and Sivan’s distant coldness. But they were children. Would they betray their kin?

“Someone must have a beacon on them without knowing it,” she said, a little too loud and firm. “None of them would betray their loved ones to Samael.”

He grunted a wordless agreement, though she knew he didn’t entirely believe it either. His eyes lifted to the dark sky. She too looked toward the horizon, wishing with all her might that she would see wings in the sky. But it was too soon; Seiya wouldn’t be arriving for hours yet.

There was nothing she and Lyre could do but wait.

Piper stood in front of the ley line, hands clenched at her sides as she stared at the dark blue sky. Silhouetted against the twilight horizon, dark figures drew sluggishly closer, wings beating almost in unison. One was most certainly Seiya, but she couldn’t begin to guess as to the five others.

Lyre stood beside her, equally tense. While they’d been waiting, they’d ranged into the forest and eventually found the tracks of the soldiers, almost a mile out, heading in the general direction of the draconian outpost. They’d travelled in rows of four so there was no way to determine how many had passed through the forest.

Dread simmered in her gut as she willed Seiya and the others to arrive faster. She bounced her weight from foot to foot as the approaching draconians grew near enough to make out. Along with Kiev and Mahala, three familiar draconians had accompanied Seiya: Hedya, Tiran, and Eyal.

Seiya’s wings spread wide and she swept toward them. Dropping to the ground a few feet away, she hurried up to Piper and Lyre, hope written across her face. Piper endured a crippling wave of terror from the combined Nightmare Effect of six draconians and made an effort to keep on her feet as her knees turned to butter. Some of her immunity had worn off over the last two weeks.

“Lyre, Piper,” Seiya gasped, fighting to catch her breath. “I was starting to think you’d never come back.”

“Did you find out anything about the dragon and Ash?” Kiev demanded, landing beside Seiya while Mahala landed on Seiya’s other side.

Piper shook her head, the hope in their eyes like knives in her heart. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I found out more about the great dragon but … there’s nothing we can do for Ash.”

Kiev’s shoulders sagged and Seiya pressed a hand over her face, struggling to keep her composure in place. Piper wanted to comfort them but there were more urgent concerns to address first. She turned to Hedya and the two men, who’d touched down a few yards away.

“Lyre and I found a Hades scouting beacon,” she told them, “and signs of a large force travelling through the forest.”

Hedya went rigid. “Show me.”

“The beacon is over here,” Lyre said, leading the way to the pile of gear where the untouched disc still sat. Hedya, Tiran, and Eyal followed him. Kiev and Mahala went after them and a moment later, Seiya pulled herself together. She and Piper joined the others as Lyre explained the beacon and the tracks they’d found.

“They followed you,” Hedya accused, her glare sweeping over all of them. “You led them right to us!”

“I don’t understand,” Kiev said, his voice hushed with trepidation. “How did they find our camp? Ash and Raum were so careful to make sure we weren’t being followed.”

“Someone in our group must be carrying a tracking spell,” Lyre said grimly. “It’s the only explanation.”

“Traitors to your own caste!” Hedya snapped. “You—”

“None of us would betray anyone to Samael!” Seiya shot back furiously. “Not on purpose.”

“Purposeful or not, you may have caused the end of your caste.”

“What?” Piper gasped. “The end of the caste? I know your settlement is at risk, but—”

Hedya interrupted, speaking through clenched teeth. “It’s not just a settlement. It’s a city of all the draconians who are left.”

The blood drained out of Piper’s head, leaving her dizzy.

“If they find the city, they will destroy us all.” Hedya turned to Tiran and Eyal. “We leave immediately and fly for home. Leave anything that will slow you down.”

Tiran and Eyal pulled their packs off their backs and opened them, dumping supplies and spare gear in the mud.

“Wait,” Piper said quickly, gathering her wits. “You only took our group to your outpost, so this army won’t know—”

“The outpost is less than a hundred miles from the city, and Eliada did invite your friends into the city.” Hedya spat something that sounded like a curse.

“They took away all our belongings before letting us in the city,” Seiya said tersely. “Even our weapons, just in case they were spelled.”

Seiya tugged at the hem of her shirt and Piper belatedly realized her clothes and gear were different—similar fitted, black leather, but not quite the same. She wore two short swords on each hip, but the hilts were wrapped in unfamiliar red leather instead of the black-handled ones she’d had before.

“They wouldn’t have brought an army here just to attack an outpost,” Hedya said icily. She turned back to Tiran and Eyal. “Are you ready?”

“Hold on,” Kiev said sharply. “Are you just going straight back to the city? What about finding this army?”

“We must warn the community so they can evacuate. Finding the army comes second to that.”

“We can help look for the army,” Kiev said.

Hedya glanced at Eyal and Tiran, clearly not keen on trusting their help.

Eyal swung his pack back over his shoulder. “Tiran is the fastest. Let him carry the warning. The rest of us will search for the invaders. There are dozens of passes between here and the city that we should check. The more eyes we have, the better.”

Hedya exhaled forcefully. “Fine. Tiran, go. As fast as your wings can carry you.”

“I will not stop,” Tiran promised, pulling a water flask from his pack and leaving everything else on the ground. He clipped the flask to his belt. “Be safe.”

She nodded. He spread his wings and leaped into the sky. Just behind him, a dragonet jumped out of the trees and flew after him, tiny wings blurring with speed. They soared above the forest, vanishing into the darkness.

“We will travel fast too,” Hedya said, her grim stare still on the dark sky. “If you can’t keep up, we’ll leave you behind. We must find that army before they find the city, or we will lose everything.”

Chapter Nineteen

Piper clung to Teva’s mane as he soared through another mountain pass. She ignored the aching fatigue in her muscles and the chill that ran deep into her bones from so many unbroken hours in the cold wind. Teva soared on outstretched wings, fighting his own exhaustion.

They’d split into two groups: Piper and Kiev with Eyal, and Seiya, Mahala, and Lyre with Hedya. With Eyal’s guidance, they’d split again as various routes presented themselves. The plan had been to check all the remotely viable paths that the army could take. If they found some sign of the invaders’ presence, they could narrow down their search area.

Their plan hadn’t worked very well. They’d been travelling for hours, separating and meeting up again as various passes converged. Piper and Teva had just flown over a long stretch of valleys but there had been no sign of trespassers in the untouched wilderness. Twilight had eventually lightened until the suns had broken the horizon. They were slowly rising into the sky as Periskios’s lit side shrank from half to crescent.

Only adrenaline and anxiety kept her going. How had this happened? The question kept repeating in her head, circling like a hungry vulture waiting to prey on her doubts and guilt. Raum and the others had been so careful. Now Hades had followed them here and had a chance to wipe out the draconian caste once and for all.

Teva let out a quiet rumble as he locked his wings, gliding out of the rocky pass and over yet another valley.

“Piper!”

Kiev swooped out of a narrow crag of rock between two mountain peaks, plunging down toward them. He flared his wings and coasted just above her.

“Kiev!” She craned her neck to look up at him. “Did you find anything?”

“No,” he replied between huffs for air. “Eyal didn’t either. We’re passed the outpost now—it’s a few miles west. Hedya will have checked it and warned the draconians there.”

Her stomach churned. “So the army is somewhere between here and the city?”

“Yeah, and Eyal said there are only two passes on this side of the city that the army could use to access it. Hedya and the others are checking the western one, and Eyal is already heading for the eastern one. He sent me to bring you that way.”

He tilted his wings and banked back the way he’d come. Teva heaved a sigh and followed with laborious beats of his wings.

“Kiev,” Piper called over the wind. “If the army is this close, how will the draconians evacuate their entire city in time?”

He glanced back and, even with a dozen yards between them, she could see the fear on his face.

“I don’t know.”

They found Eyal on the side of a sunny cliff, perched on a tiny ledge while he caught his breath and gathered his strength for the final stretch. His dragonet clung to his shoulder, looking unbearably weary with its drooping wings and chin tucked beside its master’s neck. A narrow valley with a fast-flowing river running through the center zigzagged out of sight, deep in shadows despite the suns overhead.

“I don’t see any sign of them,” the draconian said as Kiev and Teva, with Piper on his back, landed on the ledge beside him. “The western valley is wider and less rocky. It’s the likeliest choice but we’ll fly up another mile just to be sure, then cut across to meet up with Hedya.”

“How far is the city?”

“Ten miles—just a few valleys to the southwest,” Eyal said tersely. “Let’s hope Hedya found them somewhere miles back. If they’re this close to the city …”

His exhaustion burned away as urgency lit his eyes and he snapped his wings open. With a flick of his tail, he leaped off the cliff, his dragonet still riding his shoulder. Kiev followed immediately, and she flexed her fingers in Teva’s mane as the dragon hopped out into space with a single powerful bound, catching the wind with his outspread wings.

They soared above the valley, squinting at the ground for any signs of movement or tracks. The red leaves of the trees fluttered in the wind, making it difficult to distinguish other movements. A mile of valley sped by beneath them, then Eyal banked hard toward the west. His wings pumped fast as he fought for altitude, aiming for a dip between two towering peaks. Kiev followed, clearly straining to keep up as the air thinned and grew cold. The wind battered them as they flew over the mountain. Beyond, impassible rocky terrain filled the space between the summit they’d crossed and the next, towering even higher.

Eyal angled toward the south side of the mountain and they laboriously flew around the massive peak and into a narrow pass. The wind howled. Both draconians struggled to keep their flight straight and Teva grunted with each beat of his wings. Then they were out and the mountains sloped down into a wide, forested valley. The draconians glided, catching their breath as they surveyed the valley.

A high-pitched chitter erupted above them and a dragonet zoomed out of nowhere, scales black with camouflage. It chattered urgently. Eyal took one look at it and dove, plummeting toward the forested slope. After a brief, surprised hesitation, Kiev dove after him, and Teva and Piper followed.

For an instant, she thought Eyal would crash into the trees. But he leveled out as he reached the uppermost leaves, dipping down until he was speeding between the crowns of the trees. Kiev followed behind and Teva trailed after them, small branches whipping against his larger wings.

The unfamiliar dragonet led the way, flying faster than she thought the little creature should be able to. They flashed down the length of the valley as it grew narrower. The dragonet slowed, then landed among an outcropping of rocks. Beyond them, the forest ended, barren rocks taking over for several hundred yards before the valley narrowed to a steep-sided pass.

Teva landed beside Eyal and Kiev, his sides heaving. Piper patted his neck as she stretched her aching legs and back.

“What is it?” Kiev asked. “Who’s the dragonet?”

Eyal’s dragonet, still perched on his shoulder, chittered at the new one. It answered with a series of fast chirps and grunts, flaring its wings for emphasis.

“Hedya’s dragonet,” Eyal said, his voice strangely flat. “Sent to intercept us so we wouldn’t be seen.”

A chill ran through Piper. “Seen by who?”

“The army. They’re in the forest.”

She jerked around, staring into the wall of dark trunks and fluttering red leaves. “They’re in there?”

“The others are waiting for us at the pass. We need to use cloaking spells to cross the open stretch.”

Kiev nodded and his body shimmered oddly. He didn’t vanish like some sort of invisibility spell, but as soon as she looked away from him, he faded from her peripheral vision.

“I, uh …” She blushed. “I don’t know how to do a cloaking spell.”

“I can do it for you and Teva,” Kiev said, reappearing as his voice brought her attention back to him. He stepped over and laid a hand on Piper’s arm. Magic rushed over her, making her skin tingle. He did the same to Teva.

Eyal shimmered too, fading in and out of her vision. He turned to face the open stretch of rocky ground. “As fast as we can.”

He took flight one more time, Hedya’s dragonet in the lead. Teva and Kiev followed, with Piper clinging on uselessly as she had the whole time. Her heart pounded as they shot across the exposed ground. How close was the army? Were they watching? Had they been seen through the cloaking spells?

They reached the pass. It was far rockier than it had appeared from a distance, littered with boulders the size of small houses. Hedya’s dragonet swooped over a large, wide boulder and dropped down behind it. Eyal and Kiev vanished into the same spot, and Teva half dove, half fell into the gap, landing with a heavy thump. Piper jumped off him so he could transform. She stumbled away as black fire engulfed him, shrinking down as he returned to his smaller shape. She had to brace her hands on her knees to keep upright while her weak, numb legs regained some strength.

Hedya ran out from between two boulders, her black wrap tight over her lower face. Her eyes were popping, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Behind her, Seiya and Mahala followed, both haggard with exhaustion.

“You’re here,” Hedya said tersely, holding out a flask. “Were you seen?”

Eyal took the flask and untwisted the cap. “I don’t think so. If they saw us, they didn’t react in any way. Where are they? We couldn’t see them.”

Hedya gestured for him to follow, leading them back the way she’d come. Eyal tipped his head back and poured water into his mouth, then passed the flask to Kiev. Scooping Teva up and lifting the dragonet onto his shoulder, Kiev guzzled some water as they followed Hedya through the maze of boulders.

They squeezed through a narrow gap and came out into a sheltered, trench-like opening between lines of boulders. The space was filled with heavily armed, black-clad draconians. Piper staggered, grabbing a rock for support as terror crashed through her, turning her bones to water. Seiya backtracked to her, grabbing her elbow and boosting her up.

“Who are …” Piper gasped.

“Warriors from the city.” Seiya helped Piper away from the boulder. “They came to guard the passes after Tiran delivered his warning, but they didn’t know the army was this close until Hedya found signs of their passage at the other end of the valley.”

“Are they evacuating the city?” Piper asked breathlessly as the terror waned.

“Yes.” Seiya pressed her lips together. “But they only just began. There are a lot of children too young to fly, and they need supplies or they won’t survive long even out of the city. It’s taking too long. They needed hours, not minutes.”

“Minutes?” she squeaked.

Seiya led her to a rocky wall, behind which the draconian warriors had gathered. Lyre stood off to one side, peering intently at the valley with a distant gaze and black eyes as though entranced by something only he could see. Seiya pointed at the edge of the forest a few hundred yards away.

“They’re in the trees,” she said. “Waiting … organizing … We’re not sure. We don’t know why they haven’t advanced.”

“We certainly aren’t in any position to stop them,” Hedya said bitterly. “It’s not our defenses holding them back.”

“Getting through this pass will be a challenge for a large force,” a draconian warrior rumbled. “It will slow them down. As soon as they advance, we’ll position ourselves on the cliff walls and rain hell down on them.”

“It won’t be enough,” another barked. “They’ll be prepared for that tactic.”

“We can’t stop them,” the first replied. “Our goal is to buy enough time for the evacuation.”

“How many are there?” Piper asked.

“We’re not sure,” Hedya answered. “But we have only a few hundred warriors and most of them are needed for the evacuation. More are coming to help us, but …”

Only a few hundred warriors? Piper looked over her shoulder where the unseen draconian settlement was. She suspected “city” was a serious exaggeration when it came to the size of the community. Based on the number of warriors, there was maybe a few thousand draconians total—a fraction of the population that had lived in these mountains five hundred years ago. If they couldn’t delay the Hades army, their population would be numbered in the dozens instead.

“At least they’re taking their sweet time,” Eyal said, absently patting his dragonet on his shoulder. “Why aren’t they advancing? What are they waiting for?”

Hedya gripped the hilt of the sword at her hip. “Maybe they—”

Without warning, Lyre jumped onto the wide boulder acting as a barrier between them and the unseen army in the forest.

“Lyre!” Seiya hissed. “Get down before they see—”

His body shimmered as he dropped his glamour. His hand snapped back over his shoulder and he selected an arrow, pulling it free from the quiver. Piper’s mouth hung open, his stunning brilliance erasing all thoughts from her brain. Hedya gaped too, utterly mesmerized.

“What are you doing?” Eyal half-shouted.

Lyre nocked the arrow and pulled it back to his cheek. “They’re already coming.”

His voice shimmered in the air, the impossibly beautiful tones subtly layered in a harmony so entrancing Piper didn’t immediately absorb his words. They were already coming? But the rocky expanse between them and the forest was empty and she couldn’t see anything moving in the trees.

He tilted the bow up, aiming high, and released the arrow. It shot into the air in a high arch, crossing almost half the distance between their location and the edge of the forest before the arrow zoomed toward the ground. A dozen feet from the rocky turf, gold flashed in a blaze of light like a bolt of lightning.

Piper flinched, dark spots dancing across her vision. She squinted at the valley—and her lungs seized.

The rocky stretch of ground was no longer empty. Lines of black-uniformed soldiers filled half the treeless expanse, the blades of their long-handled scythes gleaming in the sunlight. Hundreds of blades. Hundreds of Hades soldiers. This was triple—maybe even quadruple—the force she’d once faced a few miles from her Consulate. Snapshots of that desperate battle flashed through her mind—the screams of dying Ra soldiers, the blood, the smell of burnt flesh, the red flashes of teleporting reapers. Samael’s cold eyes and chilling smile.

A scant hundred and fifty yards separated the draconians from the army. Too close. They weren’t ready. Panic jumped in her throat and she felt the onset of shading. She pushed it down. Not yet. But she would need that vicious instinct soon.

“H-how?” Hedya stuttered as Lyre jumped back down, behind the cover of the boulders. “What … ?”

“An illusion,” Lyre growled. Even the rough sound came out as a magnificent purr in his otherworldly voice. “A shield-like illusion that hid their movements so they could advance without our knowledge.”

“How did you know? How did you break the spell?” Eyal’s brow furrowed, cutting deep creases in his forehead as he stared at Lyre. “Who are you?”

“Get ready!” a warrior ordered. “They’re preparing to move!”

A ripple ran through the army as it recovered from the surprise of Lyre blowing their cover. The ranks parted, opening an empty channel through the middle, leading all the way back into the trees where an unknown number of the enemy were still hidden.

Something moved in the shadows. With a thunderous crack in the otherwise silent valley, a tree keeled over, smashing to the ground. Behind it, an enormous shape surged out of the forest. Scaly red tentacles as thick as a man’s body slapped the ground, writhing like a mass of snakes as the monster dragged itself out of the trees.

A choronzon. They had a choronzon.

The giant beast undulated over the ground through the path in the center of the army, heading toward the draconians. It was the size of a dump truck, twice as large as the one she’d seen so many months ago. As it moved out of the trees, another shadow behind it turned into a second choronzon, its tentacles whipping in every direction with uncontrolled fury. Two?

“Shit,” Lyre muttered. He pulled another arrow.

“I don’t suppose you have any more of those super exploding arrows, do you?” Piper asked weakly.

“Only one,” he said. “And I’ll need to be much closer to use it—too close for them to destroy the arrow in the air.”

“One isn’t enough. There are two choronzons.”

“Three,” he corrected.

She looked back to see a third monster sliding out of the trees. Another ripple ran through the army as the first choronzon reached the front line. The soldiers lifted their scythes and a roar of sound rose from them, swelling as hundreds of voices joined the war cry. Fear swept down her spine, more chilling than any draconian’s Nightmare Effect.

And then the forward line of troops charged.

A draconian warrior began barking orders. The wave of approaching bodies surged toward them, dozens upon dozens of soldiers that would soon number in the hundreds. They would overwhelm the draconians in minutes. The choronzons would rip apart anyone who escaped the first attack. And then the army would flow through the pass and into the city beyond. It would be a slaughter.

Terror gripped her, shaded calm pulling at the edges of her mind. She shimmered into her daemon form as she spun and grabbed Lyre’s arm.

“The Sahar,” she gasped.

His eyes, as black as hers undoubtedly were, widened with shock. “No.”

“Lyre, they’ll butcher the draconians! No one here can stop an army. The Sahar is our only chance.”

“With the Sahar, you will be our butcher, not them.”

She struggled to concentrate. Despite everything else, his voice was making her knees go weak and scrambling her thoughts. Seiya rushed over, her head snapping from them to the army and back, her brow scrunched with confusion and fear.

“I can control it,” Piper said.

“No, you can’t!” he yelled, the force of his anger, compounded by the magic in his voice, shoving her back a step. “You didn’t see what that bitch did to you, what it took for the ryujin to put you back together again. She destroyed your mind, and you won’t survive it a second time!”

“I know what she’s planning now,” she yelled back. “I can hold her off long enough to attack the army. I know I can!”

“What then? She takes over your body and kills the rest of us?”

“Then save that last exploding arrow for me.”

He froze in place. Seiya’s mouth fell open. Behind them, the draconians scrambled to get in position as the gap between them and the charging army vanished too fast.

“You want me to kill you?”

“If Natania takes me over, yes,” she said tersely. “What other options do we have, Lyre? That army will destroy the draconians. We can’t let them. We have to stop them.”

He hesitated, hanging on indecision.

With a flash of red light, a reaper teleported onto the rock behind Lyre. Seiya sprang, her swords instantly in her hands. The blades cut deep, blood spraying. She kicked the body off the rock and it tumbled out of sight.

“Lyre!” Piper shouted. “Give it to me before it’s too late!”

His head whipped to the side as he took in the army. The front choronzon surged ahead of the soldiers, tentacles curling over the first of the boulders in the pass. A dozen reapers vanished in flashes of red as they teleported. The draconians shouted as the reapers appeared among them, scythes spinning through the air. Magic erupted all around as the draconians defended and the first casualties fell beneath the curved blades and red magic of the reapers.

Lyre swore and yanked her down beside a boulder. Seiya jumped in front of them, guarding them as Lyre dug in his pocket. He pulled out a walnut-sized amethyst and slapped it into Piper’s palm.

“The Sahar is inside. Once you break the outer stone, Natania will be able to possess you.”

She clutched the purple gemstone as familiar warm magic tingled against her skin. “The ryujin made this?”

“Yes, to protect you from Natania,” he snapped. He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging in. “Are you sure about this?”

Panic swam through her. “I can hold on long enough to make a difference. I have to.”

He jerked his head in a nod, his eyes black and his beautiful face so cold he hardly looked like the incubus she knew.

Red light flashed all around as more reapers teleported into their midst. A draconian screamed as a thick red tentacle wrapped around him, crushing his wings and snapping his ribs. The choronzon pulled itself onto the large boulder they were sheltered behind, tentacles snapping in every direction.

Lyre jumped up, an arrow in his hand and nocked on the bowstring in an instant. He fired almost point blank into the creature’s bulbous, octopus-like head. The tiny arrow was no more than a glowing gold speck on the massive beast—and then it exploded, blasting a gory hole in the creature’s skull. It bellowed and writhed violently, somehow still alive with its innards dribbling out the hole.

Lyre pulled another arrow and fired it, somehow hitting the same spot even as the beast flailed. It screamed and flung a tentacle toward him. Seiya jumped in front of him, casting a shield between them and the tentacle. The force of the blow shattered her shield and they were both thrown to the ground. The second arrow detonated, sending a spray of greenish blood shooting in every direction. The choronzon went limp, sliding off the rock and back down the slope.

A wave of Hades soldiers surged over the rocks, charging the draconians. The army had reached them. The second choronzon let out a furious, bloodthirsty howl as it reached the boulders of the pass.

It was now or never. She clutched the amethyst, mentally barricading her mind as best as she could. Please, please let her hold out against Natania. She took a deep breath and called on her magic to break the protective gem casing.

Over the sound of the choronzon’s cry, an earth-shattering roar erupted from somewhere unseen, silencing every other sound.

She froze in place, the muscles in her body locking down. She knew that roar.

Chapter Twenty

Every living thing on the battlefield hesitated in a single moment of shared surprise and confusion. Even the choronzons went still. Heads tilted up, eyes lifting from their enemies to the bright sky. Piper looked up with them.

A huge black shadow swept over the western summits. The great dragon screamed his war cry again, his wings trailing lines of blue fire like glowing banners.

Tenryu swooped past the draconians and over the valley. With jaws gaping wide, he unleashed a blast of fire into the middle of the army. Flames engulfed dozens of soldiers and their screams shattered the shocked paralysis of the rest of the troops. A hundred reapers hurled blasts of red magic at Tenryu as he swept back into the sky. The attacks sloughed harmlessly off his scales.

The dragon turned in the air and dove as blue fire erupted over his body. He plummeted out of the sky and struck the third choronzon with earth-shaking force. Fire exploded outward in a swirl of blue and black. The dragon’s wings lifted out of the flames and he launched back into the sky. The fire died, revealing the burning remains of the crushed choronzon.

The draconians let out cries of triumph and attacked the nearest reapers with renewed ferocity. With the Sahar in its amethyst casing still clutched in her hand, she scrambled on top of a boulder, staring desperately at Tenryu. She squinted as he wheeled around in the sky and dove again, unleashing another lethal blast of fire into the Hades army.

There, a tiny figure on the dragon’s back between his shoulders, his own wings lit with blue flame. It was Ash!

“Piper!”

A hand grabbed her leg and yanked her off the rock as a blast of magic flew past her head. She fell onto the ground beside Lyre. A reaper spun toward them. Lyre whipped his bow across the daemon’s face then jammed the arrow in his other hand into the daemon’s eye socket. He ripped the arrow out, nocked it, and shot it into another reaper’s throat.

“Defend yourself, damn it!” he snarled as he pulled another arrow.

She jumped up and shoved the Sahar down the front of her halter top. The only weapons she had were the tiny ryujin daggers—totally inappropriate for a war. Why the hell didn’t she have any other weapons?

A surge of motion from the forest captured her attention. With the thunder of beating wings, a flock of giant birds flew out of the trees, reapers mounted on their backs. They surged into the sky, heading straight for Tenryu and Ash.

“Oh no,” Piper gasped.

Over fifty rocs sped toward the slower dragon. As Tenryu beat his wings, climbing higher into the sky, Ash leaped from his back. Folding his wings, he plummeted downward at impossible speed. He plunged into the midst of the rocs and snapped his wings open. Blue and black fire burst out of him, engulfing dozens of the birds in an instant.

Tenryu dove too, sweeping into the disoriented flock. He smashed right through them, bowling them out of the sky with his body, wings, and tail, heedless of the attacks their riders were throwing. Ash darted back to the dragon, retaking his spot as Tenryu tore through the remaining rocs.

With a red flash, a reaper appeared directly in front of Piper, blocking her view of the sky. His scythe swung toward her.

Mahala sprang off a nearby boulder, landing on the reaper’s shoulders. She rammed her sword into him, yanked it out, and spun on agile feet to clash blades with another reaper. With a quick parry, she sliced his thigh with the tip of her sword. He vanished in a blink.

Spinning on one heel, Mahala turned to Piper. She pulled a short katana from its sheath on her hip and handed it over.

“Ash is here,” she said, sounding as calm as if they were discussing the weather in a sunny meadow full of butterflies. “The dragon is attacking the Hades army.”

Piper nodded weakly.

“What does it mean?” Mahala asked. “Should we still fear the dragon?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.” She raised her sword. “Let’s rid the valley of this scum, and then we will find out if we have a new ally or another enemy.”

Piper clenched her jaw. Ash was not their enemy.

Lifting her blade, she let her shaded instincts take over. Vicious calm spread through her, clearing her mind of everything but the enemies before her and the blood she was about to spill. She sprang into the fray, sword flashing. Fast as a reaper and protected by her dragon-scale clothing, she charged recklessly among the soldiers, dealing any wound she could inflict. Lyre followed her, his arrows picking off the reapers who teleported in behind her.

All around her, the draconian warriors poured down the pass, some flying ahead and landing among the enemy. The reapers were scattering under Tenryu’s onslaught and the draconians charged into them, driving them back into the valley toward the great dragon’s deadly fire.

Together with Mahala fighting on one side and Seiya and Kiev on the other, Piper pushed out of the pass and onto the flat, rocky ground after the warriors. Her sword bit into a reaper’s flesh, disabling his weapon arm. She flicked the blade up, cutting his throat. Another appeared in front of her. Another enemy to defeat. They seemed endless, more and more swarming over the valley as she and the draconians fought on. Her blade cut again and again until her arm ached and burned with fatigue.

And then, finally, there were no more enemies before her. She looked up.

Tenryu swooped over the battlefield, unleashing lethal blue infernos wherever the last of the reapers gathered. The forest was burning, great columns of black smoke boiling into the sky. The soldiers were fleeing but there was nowhere to go except into the forest fire. Those who could teleport far enough to outpace the spreading flames had already done so.

The dragon made another pass over the exposed soldiers, blasting them into blackened bodies. Piper looked around but there was no one left to fight. The last choronzon was dead, its corpse still burning. The army was destroyed. They had done it—all thanks to Tenryu.

She lowered her sword, the others standing around her, Lyre still holding an arrow in his bow. The last few draconian warriors who’d stayed to guard the pass glided down and landed behind them. Together, they watched the dragon sweep over the destruction again, but this time he found no fleeing soldiers to destroy. With a triumphant roar, he angled toward them. The waiting group tensed as Tenryu glided in, flaring his wings to land fifty yards away.

It was too easy to forget how massive the dragon was; her brain could barely comprehend it. Tenryu had tried to kill her more than once and she’d seen too many demonstrations of his power already. If he decided to kill them …

The dragon let out a loud, angry snort, smoke puffing out of his nostrils.

Then Ash slid off the dragon’s back onto the ground. Blue flames flickered over his wings and glowed from the cracks in his scales on his arms and shoulders. He still wore the strange black armor, a fitted piece covering the lower half of his face. Without so much as a glance at Tenryu, he strode toward them.

Piper’s heart swelled in her throat. No numb stiffness stilted his movements. He walked like a man in command of himself. Could it be? Was he free from Tenryu’s control?

Her sword fell out of her hand, clanging on the rocky ground. She threw herself forward, breaking into a mad sprint. The ground flashed by underfoot, unnoticed. All she could do was stare at his eyes, filling her vision even with fifty yards between them—eyes that didn’t glow blue with mind-destroying power. His irises had more of an electric blue tint to them now, but she could see him in them, could see his soul again.

She didn’t slow down. Lifting her arms, she flung herself into him.

His arms closed around her, holding her tight, and the torn and shattered pieces of her heart instantly mended. Scars from the pain she’d suffered would forever mar her heart, but it was whole again. She clutched his neck as hard as she could and fought the sobs rising in her chest.

After a moment that lasted an eternity, she unclamped her arms and leaned back. He met her anxious gaze as the last of the blue fire faded from his wings and the flecks of azure in his eyes disappeared. Familiar gray irises looked down at her.

“You’re back,” she whispered, forcing the words past the lump in her throat.

He reached up and detached one side of the armor on his face. Pulling it off, he pushed it out of the way to hang off one shoulder. She stared hungrily at his face, drinking in the sight of him. She’d thought she’d lost him … She’d thought he’d been lost forever and that it had been her fault.

Without thinking, she grabbed his face and crushed her mouth against his in a desperate kiss.

Someone behind her wolf-whistled and she jerked back, so fast Ash hadn’t even had a chance to return her kiss. Blushing hotly, she dropped her hands as though he’d burned her and turned around.

Lyre, the most likely source of the whistle, grinned. Seiya stood beside him, clearly torn between relief that her brother was back and disapproval of the kiss. Mahala simply smiled, while Kiev looked determinedly at his feet, a blush visible above his face wrap. Piper resisted the urge to melt into the ground. Aside from their first kiss in the Styx ring—which had been extremely public—she and Ash had kept their developing relationship as private as possible. So much for that.

Two dozen yards behind them, Hedya and Eyal stood at the front of the group of draconians. For a bunch of tough-as-shit warriors, they looked distinctly intimidated by Ash and Tenryu.

Lyre stepped forward, still grinning. He was back in glamour, looking as harmless as usual. He clapped Ash on the shoulder, giving him a once-over.

“Glad to see you’re back. That was great timing. And … nice outfit?”

Ash smiled faintly. “Glad to be back.”

Piper shivered at the sound of his voice, so longed for while he’d been gone. “So are you … okay now?”

“Yes.” He glanced up at the dragon. “Tenryu and I worked things out. He’s actually not that bad.”

Tenryu growled, the sound vibrating from his massive chest—but it sounded almost … grumpy? He stretched out his neck, lowering his head to Piper’s level. If he’d opened his jaws, she could have fit her head and torso into his mouth with little trouble. She resisted the urge to step back; she wouldn’t let the oversized lizard intimidate her. Okay, actually, she was plenty intimidated, but she wouldn’t show it.

Buzzing pressure brushed over her mind.

You are a troublesome creature, silver child, he rumbled, but I am grateful for your tenacity.

She stared with wide eyes. Ash frowned at the dragon.

“That wasn’t much of an apology,” he said disapprovingly.

She shot him an alarmed look and gave her head a small, insistent shake; she really didn’t need a better apology, not if it meant antagonizing a beast that could squash her like a mouse.

It seemed Ash could hear the dragon’s telepathic voice as clearly as she could. Judging by the blank confusion on the others’ faces, however, they couldn’t hear a thing.

Tenryu snorted, the gust of air from his nostrils blowing her hair back from her face. Folding his wings, he lay down. Burnt remains of the battlefield crunched noisily under him as his weight settled on the ground.

Ash started to say something else but broke off, glancing at the horizon. A cluster of flying shapes came into view—a group of draconians heading toward them. As they drew nearer, Piper recognized Eliada, plus another dozen unfamiliar, older draconians. They landed beside Hedya and Eyal, leaving that same two dozen yards between them and Ash—or perhaps they just wanted to keep their distance from Tenryu.

Eliada spoke briefly to Hedya, then came forward cautiously. The others followed a couple steps behind. She stopped a few long strides away, her teal eyes moving across the dragon before settling on Ash.

“Ashtaroth,” she said, her tone as wary as her approach had been. “It seems we owe the safety of our families to you.”

He said nothing, staring stonily at her. Piper considered saying something in Eliada’s defense, then decided against it. Let the old woman win him over herself—if she could.

“It would also seem that our histories have left dangerous gaps in our knowledge.” Her eyes darted to Tenryu. “We did not know it was possible for you to control the great dragon.”

A low growl rumbled from Tenryu.

“I’m not controlling him,” Ash said coldly. His eyes flicked over the nearest draconians and back to the old woman. “Nor can I stop him if he decides to kill you, so I suggest you set aside your assumptions.”

Eliada pressed her lips together, her gaze darting toward Tenryu.

“Now that Hades knows the location of your city,” Ash said, “what do you plan to do?”

“Obviously, we have no choice but to abandon the city.”

“So you’ll run and hide again?” he asked, his voice sharpening. “The soldiers and scouts who escaped tonight will return to Hades, and Samael will send another army to destroy you. He will flood these mountains with men until he finds your next hiding spot. Now that he knows you’re here, he will not rest until every last draconian is destroyed. Will you hide forever? Will you retreat from the open skies into caves and holes for the rest of your lives, praying they won’t find you?”

Eliada looked at him with bleak eyes.

“We just destroyed two companies of his army,” he continued. “Samael is focused on his war with Ra on Earth. His armies are split, weakened. For possibly the first time, Asphodel is vulnerable to an attack.”

“Attack Asphodel?” Eliada gasped.

His eyes flashed over the other draconians. “I won’t be a slave to Hades any longer. Will you? We have been prisoners of fear for too long. Finally, we have the chance to free ourselves from Hades’ shadow once and for all.”

“You’re mad!” An older draconian pushed out of the cluster of warriors. “You might have the horns of a Taroth, but you are not Jesyr. We will not follow you to our deaths.”

Ash didn’t react to the name of his father. “Death will find you anyway if all you do is cower in your mountains. But if we strike now—”

The draconian waved a dismissive hand at Ash. “Just because you fly on the back of a great dragon does not mean you are fit to lead us into war. A warrior we would follow, but not a baby sparrow under a dragon’s wing.”

Ash studied the draconian. He somehow looked so much older than his actual age, as though he had endured an entire lifetime while he’d been gone with Tenryu. Reaching up, he grasped the hilt of his sword, pulling the blade free with a loud rasp of steel. The murmuring voices in the back of the group instantly died.

“If you think I am unworthy, test my skills then.”

In answer, the older draconian drew his sword, the blade coated in drying reaper blood.

With his free hand, Ash pulled his armored faceguard over his shoulder and clipped it into place. Piper’s heart rate kicked up and she wasn’t sure how the draconian warrior could look so confident facing Ash, not when Ash looked utterly terrifying in his gleaming black armor and with that huge, curved sword.

The two draconians advanced on each other as Eliada backed quickly away. Ash and the older warrior paced in a slow circle, sizing the other up, swords held at the ready.

Without warning, the warrior lunged. Ash’s sword spun in his hands—but he didn’t attack. He didn’t even defend. Instead, he jammed the point of his sword in the ground, abandoning it as he slid away from the charging warrior.

The other draconian came up short, spinning around and scarcely getting his sword up as Ash darted toward him. One of the fastest displays of swordplay she’d ever witnessed played out, the warrior spinning and slashing with his sword, Ash gliding around each strike. The blade couldn’t touch him. She’d seen before how fast Ash could move in battle, how he intuitively anticipated coming attacks, but his skill had never been so clear before; usually he was armed and crashing through his enemy’s defenses too quickly.

An instant later, Ash was somehow inside the warrior’s guard. She didn’t catch what he did, it was so fast, but the draconian’s sword went flying and then he was on the ground. Ash held his sword arm, bent painfully backward, with his boot pressed hard into the warrior’s shoulder blade, positioned to break the joint while simultaneously pinning him to the ground.

Silence pressed down on the valley, broken only by the pained pants of the downed warrior. Ash released him before walking calmly to his sword and pulling it from the ground. He turned to face the draconians, his stare an unspoken challenge to everyone present.

No one responded to that challenge.

The defeated warrior clambered to his feet and collected his sword. He sheathed it, then turned to Ash and inclined his torso—a bow of respect. Ash nodded an acknowledgement and the warrior rejoined the watching group.

A soft buzzing pressure brushed across Piper’s mind.

They have forgotten respect, Tenryu murmured, sounding overly pleased at Ash’s display of skill. But soon they will learn again what it is to be ruled by a Taroth.

She twitched at his voice in her head, trying not to outwardly react since no one else could hear it.

Ash doesn’t want to rule anyone. She thought the words forcefully, not sure if Tenryu would hear them.

To rule is his birthright. His blood demands it.

She pressed her lips together. Ash didn’t want to be a leader; he’d told her so himself. Tenryu was just projecting his own expectations.

Ash’s fierce gray eyes scorched the draconians. “Samael’s sole power over us now is fear, but only if we allow it.” He turned to Eliada. “We are calling you to fight for the freedom of our people, for our right to exist. It is your choice if you will fight or flee. Will you fight?”

She looked from him to Tenryu and back. “I cannot make that decision alone.”

“Then gather your leaders so they can decide. I will return before the next sun to hear your choice.” His eyes cut right through her. “This is the end game. There is no going back to your peaceful obscurity. It is time for the draconians to reclaim our skies … or relinquish them forever.”

He turned away, returning to Piper and the others. A jerk of his head indicated they should follow him as he strode back to Tenryu’s side. Piper stopped in the great beast’s shadow. Lyre, Seiya, Kiev, and Mahala drew close as Ash gazed up at Tenryu.

Piper stared at him, speechless in the wake of his words to the draconians. Beneath his reticent nature, he was fully capable of taking control in most situations, but she’d never seen him so—so commanding. He had called them to go to war at his side, and though he hadn’t precisely said it, he intended to lead the attack.

Maybe Tenryu was right. Maybe Ash was destined to rule them.

Ash turned back to face them. “I want to do one more pass over the valley for any straggling soldiers, and then I need to talk to Raum and the others.”

“We can meet you in the city,” Seiya said. “Zwi can guide you to us. She’ll be anxious to see you.”

“I’ll meet you there once I’m done.”

Seiya looked rather sternly at the rest of them, then gruffly grabbed her brother in a brief, tight hug and murmured something in his ear. When she released him, she gave them all the same look—as though daring them to comment on her sentimental act—before spreading her wings and jumping into the sky. Kiev gave Ash a wan grin, maybe still recovering from the battle or maybe still frightened by Tenryu’s looming presence, then followed after Seiya.

Lyre clapped Ash lightly on the shoulder. “We’ll see you in a bit. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

A haunted look passed through Ash’s eyes, but he nodded calmly.

Lyre stepped back and glanced around. “Ah, Seiya and Kiev maybe should have waited. Piper and I can’t fly.”

Mahala slid over to his side and smiled. “Would you like a ride?”

“Why yes, thank you.”

She looked at Piper. “And you?”

Piper turned to Ash automatically. She didn’t want to be separated from him. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight ever again.

“Piper can come with me,” Ash said, reading her mind in that uncanny way of his.

Mahala wrapped her arms around Lyre’s waist from behind. As she spread her wings, Lyre winked boldly at Piper as a corner of his mouth turned up in that sexy, suggestive smile of his. Her mouth fell open. He grinned as Mahala took off, her daemon strength more than capable of lifting his weight. Piper gaped after them. Had his little smile been suggesting what she thought it had? Lyre and Mahala? Really?

Ash extended a hand to her, breaking into her train of thought. She forgot about everything else as she met his eyes. She had missed him so much. Losing him had hurt so much. Placing her hand in his, she swallowed her heart back down as it climbed up her throat.

He wrapped an arm around her waist. Holding her close, he snapped his wings out and down, propelling them up onto Tenryu’s back. The dragon’s scales felt like uneven rock under her feet. As they crouched just behind Tenryu’s neck, she saw the dark rope wrapped around two of the spines on his back with open loops for handles.

Ash gripped a handle with one hand, holding her tight with the other, as the dragon grunted and pushed to his feet. The draconians, still gathered a little ways away, flinched in unison as the great dragon rose to his full height. Clinging to Ash, she stared down at the ground. It was so far away.

Tenryu spread his wings. With a huff of effort, he took two running steps and sprang into the sky. The air boomed beneath his wings as he beat them, lifting them higher. As the draconians and the battlefield shrunk beneath them, she clutched Ash, her arms wrapped tightly around him.

He was back. She finally had him back and she couldn’t be happier that he was alive and well—for now. But how long would that last if he planned to lead a draconian attack on Samael’s fortress estate?

Chapter Twenty-One

Standing beside Ash, Piper watched Tenryu disappear behind the northern ridge of mountains. The massive beast had decided to hunt before they returned to the draconian city; the draconians might not appreciate him snacking on their livestock.

They’d already scouted the length of the valley and then some. Tenryu had effortlessly picked off a handful of soldiers, but any other surviving reapers had disappeared. She wasn’t sure how far they could teleport, but they’d managed to clear the valley at least. It was unfortunate that some had escaped, but on the plus side, it would take them a long time to travel back to the ley line. They had a short reprieve before Samael received a full report about the failure of the attack on the draconian settlement.

Fear trickled through her. What would Samael do when he heard about Ash and Tenryu? Their combined power was too dangerous for the Hades warlord to ignore.

She looked up at Ash, her heart swelling. She was so relieved to have him back that it was its own kind of pain, but she also felt a distance between them. Something about him had changed but she didn’t understand what.

The second sun still peeked out from behind the shadow of Periskios but it would soon vanish. The golden light streaked through the tall, spindly trees that surrounded them and glittered on the fast-flowing creek that burbled past them and into the forest, but it was already beginning to dim; soon the eclipse would plunge the mountains into darkness. Tenryu had dropped them in a random bit of valley miles from the draconian city. Aside from the sound of the water, it was absolutely silent.

The diminishing light touched Ash’s face, highlighting his hollow cheeks and the circles under his gray eyes. Those eyes turned from the sky down to her and he smiled tiredly.

“You look so serious.” He lightly touched a finger to the corner of her mouth and she realized she was frowning. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

“I am happy.” She took a deep breath to steady her voice. “Having you back … I feel like I’ve come back to life.”

His smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

She pressed her hand to a piece of the black armor over his chest, sliding her fingers over the smooth, cool dragon scale. “What happened after Tenryu took you away?”

He sighed, the air sliding from his lungs as though even that small movement exhausted him. With a hand on her waist, he guided her over to the creek and began to remove his armor. He detached the face piece and neck guard, then dropped the entire chest plate on the ground. He sat on the leafy turf and she lowered herself beside him. It felt so wonderful to sit. She’d almost forgotten how exhausted she was, but the weight of her fatigue was returning quickly. She held on to her daemon form, afraid that if she shifted back to human, she would promptly pass out.

Reaching out, she took Ash’s hand in both of hers. His skin was strangely warm, almost like he still had a touch of fever. He stared at the sunlight sparkling on the flowing water of the creek.

“I don’t remember that much,” he said, his deep voice quiet. He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. “We went … places. Places I’ve never seen before. Other worlds, I think. The whole time … his mind is so powerful and vast. I was lost in it, in this sea of his rage.”

She tightened her hands over his.

“The first thing I remember clearly is you.” His gaze lifted from the water to her, gray eyes softening. “You, right in front of me, saying my name.”

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you away from him then.”

“I’m glad you didn’t, actually.” He wrapped his other hand over hers as he looked back at the water. “The other dragon—Shinryu—her challenge shook him … changed him. I don’t think they’d ever fought before. All that rage he had kind of … broke, and when it was just the two of us again, he was different. I wasn’t overwhelmed by all his fury, and he was …” He shrugged a little. “We somehow started to talk and …”

Again he trailed off and she said hesitantly, “And you …worked things out?”

With a nod, he turned his focus back to her. “I think he hated me, at first. He hated that he needed me. He was so angry and he’d been so alone for a long time.”

He gently pulled his hands free from hers and scrubbed them over his face.

“I guess it started thousands of years ago. Tenryu wasn’t all that clear on the story; I think the history is too painful for him, or maybe he doesn’t remember it that well anymore. Millennia ago, the great dragons and the draconians lived together in harmony, with an especially close relationship between the dragons and the Taroth family, but something happened. I don’t know if it was one incident or a gradual erosion of their union, but the draconians began to turn against the dragons.

“Something happened, and the dragons withdrew from this world. Some went to other worlds. Some went to sleep beneath the earth, slowly fading away until they died. For the draconians, the absent great dragons soon faded into myth and legend.

“Tenryu went to sleep too, but he didn’t rest as deeply as his kin did. Eventually, about a thousand years ago, he felt a disturbance in the planet’s magic, something that woke him up for the first time in a long time.”

“A disturbance in the planet’s magic?” she repeated, her brow furrowing.

“A sickness, almost. He is very attuned to the ley lines and he sensed that something was wrong. He searched for the source and eventually determined that it was coming from the Hades territory. The Hades family has been experimenting with magic for a long time, in ways that other daemons never dared. Whatever they were doing, they were messing with the planet’s inherent magic.”

She remembered her nightmarish excursion through the Chrysalis building in Asphodel—the main source of Hades’ magical experimentations. She could clearly picture a massive, dark room full of catwalks, the bottom filled with humming equipment and strange machines.

“Tenryu might be large,” Ash continued, “but alone, he has limited magic and he couldn’t attack Asphodel himself. He looked for other dragons to help him but he couldn’t find them—they were all dead or gone from this world. He was the only one. So he turned to the draconians, but they had changed in the centuries since the dragons had abandoned them.

“The first Taroth he tried to bond with died. The second died. The third died. The draconians saw him as a menace and drove him away. He left this world entirely, but eventually, he was drawn back. He tried again, and again the Taroths died. Their leaders were dying and to them he became a predator, a monster. He wanted to help, to protect this world, but they were attacking him on sight. Too much time had passed since the dragons and draconians had been allies, and he could only see them as weak animals ignorant of the suffering magic of their world.”

“So that’s what Shinryu meant when she told him he’d forgotten,” she mused. “He’d forgotten that the draconians had once been his allies?”

“After so much animosity between them, Tenryu considered the Taroths little more than a tool to unlocking his magic. He continued trying to bond with Taroths, but they kept dying. There weren’t that many left by this point. Then, while he was away from the Underworld, Hades attacked the draconians and wiped out the Taroths. By the time Tenryu came back, there was nothing left. He gave up.”

She studied his profile, the somber frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “But then you showed up.”

“And he initiated the bond and I survived it.”

“Why though? Why you when every Taroth for a thousand years died?”

He pulled a face. “Tenryu says I survived because I don’t know how to give up.” He gave his head a small, exasperated shake. “He also said the Taroths have been weakening for centuries, not in bloodline but in nature. Without the dragons, they grew selfish and arrogant … but his opinion is pretty heavily slanted, so who knows.”

In the sky above, sunlight flared one last time before vanishing behind Periskios. Darkness fell over the mountains, unbroken and absolute. Before she had a chance, Ash created a tiny light in his palm and lifted it to hover in the air above them.

Absently tapping the front of her shirt where the Sahar was still tucked away, she tilted her head thoughtfully. “Tenryu might not be that far off. Nyrtaroth was so afraid that a great dragon would try to bond with him that he made the Sahar to defend himself.”

Ash blinked. “He made the Sahar to use against Tenryu?”

“Yeah, it appears he was misleading Maahes the entire time about why he was interested in making an all-powerful weapon.” She reached out and took his hand again, needing that connection with him. “So that’s why you’re planning to attack Asphodel? So Tenryu can stop whatever Chrysalis is doing?”

“Assuming the source is Chrysalis—that would be my guess too—but I need to ask …” He trailed off for a moment before resuming. “Tenryu wants to destroy Asphodel to stop whatever they’re doing that’s threatening the Underworld’s magic. I want to destroy Asphodel for the reasons I gave the draconians. I don’t know how to describe to them how far we’ve fallen since the dragons left us thousands of years ago. I … want to see if we can be like that again, like the draconians that Tenryu remembers.”

Tenryu’s rumbling voice rolled through her memory: To rule is his birthright. His blood demands it.

“What are you saying?”

“Couldn’t you see how weak and afraid they were?” he asked with a grimace. “Raum and I are better fighters than any of them, and we shouldn’t be. Why wouldn’t they be just as skilled and powerful as us, or even more skilled since most of them are older than us? But they’ve done nothing but hide for centuries, growing weaker and weaker. I don’t want to see my people fade to nothing. I want us to be strong again.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to be a leader. You didn’t even want to be a Taroth.”

“I—I didn’t. I don’t.” He raked his free hand through his hair. “But Tenryu has given me a lot of perspective.”

He reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap. She curled up, leaning against his chest as she tilted her head back to watch his face. He stared at the creek, brow furrowed and eyes distant.

“He remembers what the draconians used to be like. Not just before Hades tried to wipe us out, but long before that. A thousand years ago, Hades would never have attacked us; we would have wiped them out. They knew it and they were afraid of us. I think that fear is still there, deeply ingrained in them, and that’s why Samael is so determined to destroy us for good.”

He lifted one arm, turning his forearm so the tiny light glowing above them gleamed across the obsidian armguard. “This armor is thousands of years old, worn by ancient Taroths when they still knew the dragons. Back then, it was rare for a Taroth to die from the bond. They and the dragons were allies, brothers almost.”

As she watched him, that hint of age touched his eyes again, wisdom and perspective he hadn’t possessed before.

“In Asphodel,” he murmured, “everything revolved around survival. Making it through the day, living my life as best I could, knowing it could end at any moment. The past and the future were inconsequential. Fighting to survive might have made me strong but it’s … hollow. Tenryu showed me a glimpse of something more. I want to be more, to be bigger than just living each day and then living the next with nothing else to it.”

She smiled up at him. “I think I understand. I was always so determined to become a Consul because I didn’t want to live like a human, just eking out my existence with no greater purpose. I wanted to be part of something bigger than just myself. I wanted to make a difference.”

His lips curved in an answering smile. “Before, my purpose had always been to escape Samael. But once I did, I was lost. I wasn’t quite as self-aware as you to realize what I was searching for.”

She grinned. “Well, not everyone can be as smart as me.”

He snorted, amusement lightening his eyes.

She inhaled deeply through her nose, her grin fading. “So you’re really planning to do this? To attack Asphodel?”

His humor faded as swiftly as hers had. “It must happen. Asphodel and Hades are a shadow cast over the Underworld. I don’t know or understand what they are doing to the ley line magic that has Tenryu so upset, but it doesn’t matter. Samael is at his weakest right now. His forces are split between the Underworld and Earth, and we just eliminated a portion of his military.”

“But Asphodel is practically unassailable, isn’t it?” she asked worriedly. “I remember it … the gorge on one side, mountains on the other. The nearest ley line is hours away, even when travelling fast, and he has guards and scouts everywhere.”

Ash smiled darkly. “It’s true that Asphodel is difficult to reach and that the nearest ley line is too far for a successful ambush, but having Tenryu changes the game. He can open a new line ley right on the plateau. We can launch an attack before Samael even knows what’s going on.”

She nodded, eyes widening as she realized just how useful Tenryu’s ley line abilities were. “But will that be enough? Even with Tenryu’s power, there just aren’t that many draconians and Samael has entire armies.”

“Some of his forces are on Earth. I’ll need to do a sweep over Asphodel to see what kind of numbers he has there.”

She twisted her hands together. “But how many soldiers does he have on Earth? That’s a pretty important factor.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t have time to find out. If we wait to do reconnaissance on Earth, that will give Samael time to receive reports about the army we already defeated. He could pull his forces from Earth and reinforce Asphodel with so many soldiers we’d never stand a chance. We need to strike now while his forces and attention are split.”

She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. “How soon is ‘now’?”

“The next eclipse, so in one cycle.”

Three Earth days. Hardly any time at all.

“There is too much riding on this to go in blind,” she said quietly. “You don’t know how many of his forces are on Earth, where they are, or what they’re doing. You don’t have time to find out that information, but I do.”

He stiffened a little. “What do you mean?”

“My father has to be keeping track of Hades’ movements in Habinal City, or wherever they are. Even if he doesn’t know, he can help me find out. I can go to Earth, gather as much information as I can, and get back here before the next eclipse.”

Ash’s worry shifted to thoughtfulness. He mulled it over, and when his eyes dropped to hers, she knew he agreed.

His arms tightened, pulling her closer. “If you’re going to have enough time to collect information, you’ll need to leave immediately.”

She sagged in his embrace. “I don’t want to be apart from you again so soon either.”

His fingers touched her cheek, guiding her face up. His lips brushed softly across hers—not hesitantly, but more like he was savoring every moment of something long awaited. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth harder into hers. His gentleness vanished and he crushed her against him as though he could fuse them into one. She kissed him urgently, needing him so badly she couldn’t understand how she had waited through their whole conversation first.

She was panting for air by the time she pulled back. She just stared into his eyes, memorizing his face all over again.

“Are you sure?” he asked softly.

“I need to do anything I can to help.” She pressed against him, hiding her face against his neck and closing her eyes. “I don’t want to go, but … I have to do it. I don’t want to lose you at Asphodel right after getting you back.”

“You won’t lose me. Tenryu is practically invincible.”

“But you’re not,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut even tighter. “Every reaper in Asphodel will be targeting you, because if they kill you, they cut off Tenryu’s power.”

“We’ll be careful. We didn’t have any trouble with the army in the valley.”

“I doubt it will be that easy a second time.” She opened her eyes, gazing sightlessly at the trees as she pressed closer to him. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t bear it.”

“I have to do this,” he whispered against her hair. “This isn’t something I can walk away from.”

“I know.” She drew in a shuddering breath and let it out. Every day they had together was a gift that she wouldn’t take for granted. Raising her head, she met his eyes, seeing the same desperate need she felt reflected in his gray irises.

Then her arms were around him and their mouths were locked together. She pushed him back onto the leafy ground, sprawling on his chest without breaking their kiss. His hands were in her hair, holding her mouth against his. Breathing wasn’t necessary. All she needed was him.

If only she could freeze time so they never had to be apart again.

Piper’s hands tightened on the ropes attached to the spines on Tenryu’s shoulders. She was crouched tight to his back, tension making her whole body ache as she tried to ignore the dizzying vertigo of the drop behind her.

Tenryu clung to the side of a sheer cliff, his long talons sunk into the rock like ice picks into a glacier. Even the curved talons at the tops of his wings were hooked into the stone to hold his massive weight in place. In the darkness of the eclipse, it would be almost impossible to distinguish the dragon from the basalt mountain, which was why they were there.

At the other end of the valley, she could just make out the shapes of buildings. Dread curled in her belly, a slinking fear that wove through her thoughts. Memories stirred deep in her subconscious where she’d buried them—memories of dark steel cells, of tiny white rooms where innocent daemon victims were experimented on, of a large, opulent office where cruel, cunning red eyes cut through her soul and left her bleeding.

The air grew heavy and poisonous in her lungs as she stared at the distant shapes of Asphodel, the memories fighting to break free of her control.

Breathe, silver child.

Tenryu’s rumbling voice rolled through her mind, banishing the encroaching nightmares. She inhaled shakily.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “This place brings back bad memories for me.”

She could only imagine how Ash felt about returning, and he was a lot closer than her and Tenryu. Even in darkness, the dragon was too conspicuous for a scouting mission. Hidden with a cloaking spell and moving fast, Ash was in the middle of a quick pass over the estate to get an idea of what forces Samael had at hand. He needed to know what they would be up against before they could plan their attack.

Tenryu shifted on the cliff, bouncing her slightly. She pressed closer to his warm, hard scales. Part of her mind couldn’t properly comprehend this moment—clinging to a dragon’s back on a mountain in the Underworld. How much her life had changed since that not-so-long-ago evening when her father had handed her the Sahar and casually asked her to keep it safe for the night.

Can you feel it? the dragon rumbled.

“Feel what?” she asked with a shiver. Despite Ash’s reassurances that she could trust Tenryu, part of her still feared him. The pressure of his immense mind brushing against hers made her feel even smaller than his enormous size did.

The poison in the earth, in the air. The shuddering pain of the world’s magic.

She squinted, straining her senses, but she couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary for this place.

“I can’t sense anything,” she admitted. “What are they doing to the magic?”

He rustled his huge wings, seemingly impatient with her lack of understanding. The magic of the world flows across the land as arteries run beneath the skin. Here, the world bleeds.

She took that to mean he either didn’t actually know what Hades was doing to the Underworld magic or he couldn’t be bothered to explain it in a way she could comprehend. That he’d spent a thousand years trying to stop it was a concept beyond her grasp. A thousand years of failure before reaching this point, failure that had driven the wedge between Tenryu and the draconian caste so deep that Nyrtaroth had invented an all-powerful weapon to defend against the dragon.

She craned her neck to get a look at Tenryu’s softly glowing blue eye.

“Is Ash different from the other Taroths you’ve … known?” She hesitated over the last word, not wanting to say “killed.”

Mortals fear death above all else, he rumbled. A child knows nothing of mortality, but with age, the inevitable death looms and the fear of it grows to an illness, weakening body, mind, and soul. Ashtaroth knows his mortality but he does not fear it. His soul burns undiminished by mortal fear.

She nodded slowly. Ash didn’t fear death. To him, each day was a gift, not an expectation. He was prepared at any time to die and that was the primary reason he had always seemed so fearless to her. Yes, of course there were things that frightened him—like losing his loved ones or his willpower—but in his mind, he had already outlived his life expectancy and every day he was allowed beyond that was a fleeting, temporary offering to be cherished. And with that acceptance came a strength that the prospect of pain or death couldn’t dim.

“Is that why he survived bonding with you when so many draconians didn’t?”

His body is mortal but his soul is of the dragons.

Her gaze returned to the dark shapes of Asphodel, where Ash was scouting, unseen. If he had grown up among the other draconians, hiding in the mountains his entire life, would he still have the fearless strength he had now?

In a way, Samael had created his own worst enemy. He had punished and tortured Ash, driving him to become stronger, more determined, more fearless with each passing season. He had forged Ash’s will into unyielding steel honed by years of suffering. Samael’s ancestors had tried to wipe out the Taroths, but Samael had taken the last of their weakened bloodline and compelled him to evolve into a draconian strong enough to survive a great dragon’s fire. The irony was chilling.

Samael had never intended to allow Ash to escape and he would do everything in his power to destroy Ash, especially once he learned about Tenryu.

He returns, the dragon rumbled, breaking into her thoughts.

She looked up. Ash shimmered into view as he dropped his cloaking spell, gliding on silent wings toward them. Relief swept through her. She’d tried hard not to worry about him—he knew better than anyone how to get around the valley unnoticed—but she hadn’t been able to completely quiet her trepidation.

He dropped down on Tenryu’s back beside Piper, breathing hard from his flight. The dragon spread his wings. Piper clutched her handholds as Tenryu pushed off the cliff wall and let go. His wings caught the air and they swept away from the mountain and the long, dark valley. She settled more comfortably as Tenryu flew among the jagged peaks, heading back toward the distant ley line they’d arrived through.

“Well?” she asked tersely, pressing her shoulder against Ash’s for the extra contact.

He unclipped his faceguard, casually holding on with the other hand—far less concerned about falling off the dragon’s back than she was. Beneath the armor, his expression was bleak.

“I’d hoped he would have sent more troops to Earth,” he said. “But the barracks in the estate and the ones in the valley are full.”

“How many soldiers are there in the valley then?”

“Over a thousand.”

She blinked. “But that’s … that’s four times the number of draconian warriors.”

“Not including any extra help Samael might have lurking in and around the estate. He usually has anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred mercenaries hired on at any time.”

“But …” Her blood went cold in her veins, chilling her entire body. “The draconians will be too outnumbered. How will you win?”

“We have more magic and we’re better fighters. And Tenryu and I can do more damage than a hundred soldiers of any caste.”

“But …”

His eyes turned to her, grave and haunted by shadows. His fingers closed over hers. “I never said it would be easy.”

“It sounds impossible.”

“It’s not. We just have to fight smart. We’ll have the element of surprise.”

She turned her hand up so she could clutch his tightly. “I need to find out what’s happening on Earth. If he were to bring in any more troops in the next cycle …”

In a small fight, even numbers weren’t always as crucial, but in a war … How would a mere two hundred and fifty draconians plus one dragon be enough to win, especially when attacking a place as heavily defended as Asphodel?

She briefly hoped the draconians would refuse to join with Ash, but, she realized, that wouldn’t save him. He would end up fighting the entire war alone, just him and Tenryu—because neither of them were walking away from this.

Well, him, Tenryu, and her, because there was no force on any of the three worlds that could make her stay behind, suicide mission or not. She’d already gone to hell for him once and she would do it again without a second thought.

Chapter Twenty-Two

She would have liked to see the draconian city, but the darkness of the eclipse was so complete that she couldn’t make out a thing. If not for his extra draconian senses for flying in the dark—an ability Tenryu must have shared—Ash would have been just as helpless without a guiding light as she was.

When the dragon landed, she created a small orb of light to hold in one hand, just enough to illuminate the small outcropping of rock they’d landed on, surrounded by the barren mountain slope. A pair of draconian guards stepped out from a shadowed crevice, eyeing Tenryu warily.

Ash slid off the dragon’s back and held out a hand to Piper. She jumped down, letting Ash catch her and set her on the ledge. Tenryu rustled his wings irritably, huffing a half-snarl at the draconian guards. The dragon was calm enough around just Ash and Piper, but the presence of other draconians had soured his mood. Bad memories, perhaps?

A loud, frantic squeal pierced Piper’s ears. Zwi came charging out of the crevice, chittering nonstop as she leaped for her master. Ash scooped her into his arms, holding her close and stroking her mane as she mewled and squeaked in a mixture of delight and distress. His absence hadn’t been hard on only Piper.

Seiya and Lyre hurried out after Zwi, followed by Raum. The older draconian’s steps hesitated as he neared the dragon but he trailed after Seiya and Lyre into Tenryu’s shadow. As Ash and Raum clasped arms in greeting, Piper looked around again, unable to see a thing beyond the faint glow of her light spell.

“Is this really their city?” she asked Seiya.

“Well, ‘city’ is a relative term. There’s a lot more space here than there are draconians. There are multiple hidden entrances and most of the city is inside the mountain.”

“I hear you plan to attack Asphodel,” Raum said to Ash.

Ash raised his eyebrows. “I may have mentioned that.”

“Before or after putting one of their warriors in the dirt?”

“Do you disagree?”

Raum’s mouth twitched in what might have almost been a smile.

Ash shrugged. “What’s done is done. All that matters now is what they choose.”

“Well, they’re ready for you, so you won’t have to wait long.”

Ash glanced at Tenryu—communicating a thought, most likely—before striding across the ledge into the shadowy crevice. The guards jumped to follow him. Piper took a couple steps, then realized Lyre, Seiya, and Raum weren’t following. Before she could ask why they were just standing there, Tenryu rumbled, rustling his wings. The sudden movement made the other three jolt away from him.

You are in the way.

She blinked at Tenryu and realized he wanted to lie down and rest on the rocky ledge.

“Come on,” she said to the trio. “Tenryu wants to stretch out and take a break.”

Seiya gave her a strange look and led the way into the narrow, natural-looking crevice in the rock. On the other side, a smooth-sided corridor stretched into the solid mountain. Tiny lights that scarcely interrupted the darkness dotted the walls, but it was enough to see by so she extinguished her light spell.

Once they were inside, Seiya stopped again. “How do you know what the dragon is saying?”

“You can’t hear anything?” When they all shook their heads, Piper shrugged. “Sometimes he speaks to me, but I don’t know why I can hear him.”

Seiya and Raum exchanged a look.

“Before we catch up to Ash,” Seiya said, “we want to know … how is he?”

“How is … Ash?” Piper echoed. “He’s fine.”

They traded another look.

“He seems like himself?” Lyre asked.

She frowned. “Well, the experience with Tenryu has changed him a bit, but … what are you getting at?”

“He wants to attack Asphodel,” Raum said. “We weren’t sure how much of that is his idea and how much is the dragon’s.”

“Oh.” She tried not to get offended on Ash’s behalf; the others didn’t know everything she did. They hadn’t had a chance to talk to Ash yet. “Tenryu has his own reasons, but this is Ash’s plan—and he’s right: this is our only chance to bring down Asphodel.”

Lyre nodded and the stiff tension in Seiya’s shoulders lessened. Raum gave Piper a long, searching look—not entirely convinced?—then stepped away, leading them down the hall. With a final glance at the other two, she followed. The stone corridors twisted and turned in an endless maze, interrupted by doorways filled with curtains or sliding wooden doors. She could discern no rhyme or reason in the layout of the halls. How did anyone find their way?

“It’s a deliberate maze,” Seiya said, noticing her growing disorientation. “To confuse and slow down invaders.”

“Oh.” She glanced around again. “The ancient city Ash and I visited wasn’t like this. You could see the balconies all over the mountains and there were no mazes.”

Seiya shrugged. “This city is on the border of what was once Taroth territory, so it was built to be highly defensible. Maybe they didn’t think the other one needed to be secure in the same way.”

If they hadn’t, it had been a shortsighted decision, seeing as how the draconians who’d lived there had been slaughtered by an invading Hades army. She was surprised that draconians tolerated living this deep in the mountain; they didn’t like enclosed spaces all that much. Good thing the halls and rooms she’d glimpsed were spacious.

Raum rounded yet another indistinguishable corner—how did he know his way around so well already?—and walked into a large, open room. It had the distinct geometric carvings decorating the walls and pillars as the other draconian city, but the table and chairs in the center were simple, unpolished wood. Ash stood in front of the table already, Zwi perched on his shoulder. A dozen older draconians stood around the other side, the low-backed chairs ignored.

Eliada stood at the forefront of the group, watching Ash with her cutting teal-blue eyes.

Ash stood unflinching under all their scrutiny, one hand hooked on the hilt of a sword at his hip. As Piper approached with the others, her eyes swept over him and her heart gave a little leap of desire. He was magnificent, mysterious, terrifying. Standing before the draconian elders, even though they were supposed to be the leaders of the draconians, his aura of confidence and command was unmistakable. Somehow his gray irises, threaded with azure light, demanded that any who fell under his gaze acknowledge his authority. A feeling whispered in the air, a weight pressing down—power settling over them, sizzling in the air like a storm about to be unleashed.

Her steps faltered. She had felt the whisper of that same kind of power under the gaze of a different daemon. Compared to Samael’s, Ash’s aura of command was mild, but there was no denying what it was: The power of a warlord. His birthright. Whether the elders realized it or not, Ash would become their ruler.

Eliada placed her hands on the tabletop, her eyes locked on Ash. “We have discussed your proposal in depth. Our decision is thus: we will not go to war on Asphodel.”

Piper’s stomach plunged but she wasn’t sure what emotion she felt most strongly.

“Launching an attack in the heart of Hades, against their well-defended capital and military barracks, is too great of a risk, even with the great dragon’s power. Our numbers are too small and our warriors are too valuable. Even if we win—which we don’t believe is possible—we would likely lose so many warriors that we would be defenseless against a counterattack.

“Furthermore, Hades’ vendetta against us would be more fierce and vicious than we’ve ever experienced. They would destroy us utterly. If we retreat now, we have a chance to survive. If we attack Asphodel, we will surely perish.”

When Eliada fell silent, Ash simply stared at her. Analyzing. Judging. The elders were practically squirming where they stood when he finally spoke.

“You’re right.” His voice, though quiet, filled the room. “The risk is high. The odds are against us. The enemy is powerful.

“But you’re wrong that if you retreat, you’ll have a chance to survive. You won’t. Retreating now will complete the death of our caste that began with Nyrtaroth’s demise. Our strength fades even faster than our numbers. You’ve lost the will to fight. You’ve lost the essence of who, and what, we are.”

The hint of blue in his irises grew more pronounced. “You are afraid to fight to save us, but your warriors aren’t. They saw victory in that valley. They saw power and strength. They saw a glimpse of who we were and what we can be. You can choose to hide and fade to nothing—if Hades doesn’t hunt you down first—but I will not. And when Tenryu and I call your warriors to follow us to war, they will.”

Eliada’s face went white.

“They will choose to fight,” Ash said. “They will win their freedom from Hades or die fighting for it.”

“Our warriors would not abandon their families to follow you to their deaths,” Eliada said hoarsely. “They won’t follow you.”

“When Tenryu and I go to Asphodel,” he said, “they will choose to fight alongside me—to fight for their families instead of another futile attempt to hide. You can lead your warriors, prepared and organized, into this battle with me, or you can stand aside. It’s your choice.”

The silence that fell over the room was thick enough to suffocate. After exchanging terse looks with the other elders, Eliada let out a shaky breath.

“Then you leave us no choice, Ashtaroth.” Another harsh exhale. “We will go to war.”

Piper hung back with Lyre and Seiya, watching as the elders took seats at the table and Ash and Raum sat across from them. They discussed preparations and Ash shared the information he’d gathered in Asphodel.

As her eyes moved from the elders to Ash, a tightness spread through her chest—a strange mixture of dread and sorrow. What she’d barely begun to realize when he’d told her about wanting to help the draconians was becoming painfully clear. She could see it now:

His path diverging from hers.

What had begun with Tenryu’s first attack was coming full circle as he fully shed the skin of a former Hades slave. He wanted to help the draconians, but he would do far more than that. He was rising to take his place as a leader, to claim his birthright. And together with Tenryu, he was starting down a road that would take him places she couldn’t even imagine.

And it was a road where she couldn’t follow him.

She pressed her hands together in front of her, hoping no one would notice the tremble of her limbs. She was losing him. It had already begun. In a way, Tenryu was responsible, but only as the catalyst. She was certain that Ash’s instincts and honor would have eventually led him to this place, to this road, but maybe not quite so soon. Maybe they would have had more time together before their paths diverged.

But their paths would diverge. What place could she, an Overworld haemon, have here? Would she follow Ash as nothing but an unneeded tagalong? Trailing after him while he walked the roads to greatness? She was sure he would. Assuming any of them survived the coming war on Hades, Ash was destined for greatness. She wasn’t.

She bit hard on her lower lip, reining in her emotions before they ran out of control. One day at a time. That’s what she’d promised herself. Their last day wasn’t here yet.

Ash pushed his chair back, breaking into her emotional battle with herself. His gaze paused on her, a frown flickering across his face as he caught a hint of her upset, but his attention focused on Lyre. He tilted his head in an invitation for the incubus to follow him.

Resignation sagged Lyre’s shoulders. He sighed, giving a brief nod.

Piper looked sharply between them, shoving her pain aside as confusion replaced it. What unspoken communication had just passed between them? Why did Ash want to talk to Lyre before his meeting was over? And how did Lyre know what their conversation would be about—and why was he so unhappy about it?

Ash glanced at the elders. “Is there a private room nearby?”

Eliada offered quick directions to a room just down the hall. As they left, with Lyre dragging his feet like a child about to be punished, Ash flicked a glance toward her. She stiffened, her eyes narrowing. What had that look meant? She glanced at the table, where Raum and the elders had resumed a discussion of Asphodel’s defenses. She took a step toward the door.

“Piper.” Seiya’s blue eyes cut through her. “If you go, you may not be forgiven.”

Piper winced, doubt stabbing her. Was she misinterpreting Ash’s glance? He had specifically asked for a private room, and Seiya’s warning was clear. If Piper overheard something she shouldn’t, either Ash or Lyre—or both—might not forgive her for betraying their trust.

Rubbing her damp palms on her pants, she walked quickly out of the room, battling with her conscience with each step. She should mind her own business, but at the same time she was pretty sure Ash wanted her to follow—secretly. Otherwise, he would have just told her to come with him. She suspected Ash wanting to talk to Lyre had more to do with his uncanny knowledge of Hades spells than his inexplicable weaving abilities—both topics Lyre had flat-out refused to discuss with her.

At the end of the stone hallway, the faint murmur of male voices beckoned her.

Burying her doubts, she crept down the hall until she was standing on the other side of the sliding door. The wood was thin, muffling but not disguising their words.

“ … magical disturbance that Tenryu senses has been going on for almost a thousand years now,” Ash was saying. “I know that predates Chrysalis by centuries, but if Hades has some sort of experimentation going on that can interfere with ley line magic, I have to assume Chrysalis would be in on it.”

When Lyre answered, his voice was cold and hard—a tone she’d only heard from the normally easygoing incubus a handful of times. “A safe assumption.”

A quiet pause before Ash responded. “I’m sorry, Lyre. I wouldn’t ask you if I had any other option.”

Lyre grunted. “I’m not surprised Tenryu can sense that something’s wrong in Asphodel. Hades has always wanted power, the more unlimited the better. And what power is more unlimited than the ley lines? They’ve been searching for a way to harness ley line magic for centuries, and it’s more likely than not that they’re messing with the Underworld’s magic in the process.”

“Have they managed to harness the ley line magic yet?”

“That was never my department,” Lyre replied emotionlessly. “As far as I know, it was a work in progress.”

Piper’s lips parted, her forehead wrinkling. His department?

“Why can Tenryu sense this disturbance in Asphodel?” Ash asked. “How can they be experimenting on ley line magic when there are no ley lines near the valley?”

Lyre made a noise that was half huff, half harsh laugh. “There are a lot of reasons why Samael and my family want me dead. I know too many of their secrets. But that one …”

The silence stretched.

“Beneath Asphodel,” Lyre said, “beneath the Chrysalis building, to be more specific, there is a ley line.”

Ash hissed. “A ley line under the estate. So they’ve had free rein all this time to experiment at their leisure. Are you sure they haven’t found a way to tap the power by now?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Lyre replied. “There’s a device down there that siphons ley line magic—probably what Tenryu has been sensing—but actually weaving that magic into a usable spell is almost impossible. It’s unstable and volatile. It practically has a mind of its own and random explosions were pretty common last time I was down there. My cousin died in one of those random explosions.”

He sounded distinctly pleased about his cousin’s demise.

“Did you work on it yourself?” Ash asked.

“Briefly, which is why I know it’s there, but I made sure my weavings disintegrated in the worst possible ways. I was quickly reassigned.”

Her breath caught in her chest as she realized what Lyre was saying. His “department” … being “reassigned” from the ley line experimentation … He had worked for Chrysalis. Horror tightened her throat. Had he really been one of the magic “scientists” that invented torture devices and conducted horrific experiments on daemons?

“So they have the device but no working spells that use it?” Ash asked.

“I don’t know.” Frustration tinged Lyre’s voice. “It’s been years, Ash. Everything I know is dangerously out of date.”

“You’re my only possible source of information. There’s no one else to ask.”

“Fine,” he said gruffly. “What else do you need to know?”

“Would destroying Chrysalis destroy that device?”

“Destroying the building, no. The ley line is deep underground. On top of that, destroying the device is only a short-term solution because they could just build another one. You’d need to destroy the records too. It’s all kept in their information vaults. Those are well guarded and deep underground as well. I doubt even your dragon could destroy them from the outside.”

“Then we’ll need to get inside.”

“It won’t work,” Lyre said flatly. “You don’t have the skill to disarm the weavings.”

“I’ll have to use brute force then.”

Boots scuffed on stone and she imagined Lyre pacing.

“That might destroy the ley line device but not the vaults. The room is designed to collapse in the event of an attack. There are layers upon layers of defensive weavings.” Lyre paused. “You don’t do well underground, Ash.”

“I don’t have much of a choice,” he said stubbornly. “We need to destroy the knowledge of how to make it, as well as the machine itself.”

A long minute passed, not even broken by Lyre’s pacing. The incubus sighed, the sound lined with too much pain and misery for words.

“No,” Ash said before Lyre could speak. “We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way.”

“I won’t ask you to go back there, Lyre.”

“I know. That’s why I’m volunteering. You said yourself the records need to be destroyed. Attacking Asphodel won’t accomplish that otherwise.” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “If you can handle it, so can I. Neither of us can truly escape that place until it’s destroyed. So let’s burn it to the damn ground.”

Piper bit her lip, guilt welling in her as her horror melted away. How could she have doubted Lyre? It was only too clear that whatever involvement Lyre had had with Chrysalis, it was a dark part of his past that he hated. Had he been as unwilling a participant as Ash?

“You can’t go in there alone,” Ash said. “You’ll need protection while you disarm the spells.”

“You’ll be a little too busy to come with me,” Lyre replied. “And since you’ll be the center of attention, I’d prefer you stay away from Chrysalis while I’m in there.”

“You can summon me once you’re ready for fire, but you’ll need someone to guard your back.” Ash raised his voice slightly. “Well, Piper?”

Her eyes went wide. She clapped both hands to her face, an embarrassed blush rushing into her cheeks. Crap. Hunching her shoulders, she reluctantly stepped away from the wall and slid the door open a foot. The two daemons stood side by side in almost identical poses with their arms folded. Lyre’s golden eyes were chilly and hard, but amusement glinted in Ash’s eyes.

“Of course I’ll guard Lyre’s back,” she said in a small voice.

Lyre gave an abrupt nod and turned to Ash. “I’ll start on something to deal with the estate wards, then I’ll see what else I can put together.”

“Will you have time for anything else?” Ash asked.

Piper tried not to show her confusion but Lyre’s gaze snapped to her.

“I can weave death spells in my sleep,” he answered Ash, his eyes cutting her like golden knives. “I’ll have time. Don’t forget to talk to the draconians about the supplies I’ll need.”

He looked away from her, cast one bitter glance at Ash, then strode past her and out the door. She sucked in a shaky breath as she pulled herself back together.

“I’m not a good friend, am I?” she mumbled as Seiya’s warning circled in her head. Would Lyre forgive her for eavesdropping on the secret he’d kept from her for so long? Ash might have wordlessly invited her to follow, but she’d made the choice to eavesdrop when Lyre didn’t know she was listening.

Ash unfolded his arms, relaxing his stance. “Lyre trusts you, but keeping secrets is too deeply ingrained in him. You would have found out anyway, and this was easier for him than having to actually tell you to your face.”

“But he’s angry with me …”

“I guarantee he’s angrier with me. Don’t worry, he won’t hold it against you.”

She rubbed her hands together to warm them. “So Lyre used to work for Chrysalis?”

“Chrysalis was as much a prison for him as Asphodel was for me. Even though he took a lot of Hades secrets with him when he got out, he did a very good job vanishing off their radar. Maasehet is the only daemon I know of to ever connect him with the Chrysalis master weavers.”

She nodded slowly. That explained why, when Maasehet had sold Lyre back to his family, it had been Hades reapers waiting to claim him.

Master weavers. It was strange to think of Lyre as a master anything. Even though she’d seen more than enough examples of his spell weaving abilities, she couldn’t reconcile that with the flirtatious, easygoing incubus she knew. Which persona was the real Lyre? Or were both equally real, just two different sides of one coin?

Ash stepped closer, his fingers brushing down her arm. “Is everything okay? You looked upset while I was talking to the elders.”

She met his questioning eyes and pushed away her dread that their time together was quickly drawing to an end. He had enough to worry about without adding her emotional meltdowns into the mix. She gave him a weak smile.

“Just anxious to get my trip to Earth over with. We need to know what Hades is up to there.”

His eyes searched hers for a moment more, and she wasn’t sure he was buying her white lie. Then he slid his hand to her back and guided her toward the door.

“We should prepare some supplies for you,” he said as they left the small room.

She followed him, putting everything else out of her mind. She had enough to worry about over the next cycle—three days on Earth to gather as much information as she could, and then they were going to war.

Piper strode down the corridor, trying to keep Seiya’s directions straight in her head. Her newly acquired weapons clinked quietly with each step—a long sword, two short swords, and an assortment of daggers and throwing knives to go with her pair of ryujin dragon blades. She looked ready to wage a war all by herself.

Kiev and Teva were waiting for her. Despite her protests, Ash had insisted she not go alone. He and Lyre were too busy to accompany her, so Kiev would be her official escort. She might have protested more, but he and Teva would save her some serious travel time from the ley line to Brinford. Plus, Kiev was good company.

However, she couldn’t leave just yet. She didn’t want to go while Lyre was still upset with her. She hadn’t seen him since he’d walked away from his conversation with Ash, and she feared Seiya was right that he wouldn’t forgive her.

After a couple wrong turns, she found the correct room. The suite was the same style of draconian dwelling she’d seen in the abandoned city: a circular central room with a handful of smaller rooms attached. An open doorway revealed the incubus sitting at a low wooden table. He was bent over a gem in his hands but he looked up as she walked in. His expression wasn’t friendly. Glittering gemstones and a handful of arrows were scattered across the surface in front of him.

Shame made her steps hesitate but she forced herself to keep moving until she reached the table. She knelt beside his low chair. He stared coldly at her.

She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Lyre. I had no right to do that.”

Silence.

Her lower lip trembled. “I—I’m leaving now. I wanted to … to say goodbye.”

She looked down at her hands clenched in her lap, unable to meet his icy stare any longer. She didn’t want to leave it like this. After all they’d been through together, she didn’t want to leave while he was hurt and upset with her.

Fingers touched her chin lightly, lifting her face to his. The Lyre she knew and loved smiled gently at her. His thumb wiped a tear from her cheek that she hadn’t realized she’d shed.

“You’re too curious for your own good, Piper,” he murmured.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked, another tear escaping. “I just—just—”

He pulled her into a hug, wrapping warm arms around her. The spicy cherry scent of incubus filled her nose as she hugged him tightly, squeezing her eyes shut against relieved tears.

She pulled back to look at him. “You told me before that your secrets were yours to keep and I had no right to them, and you were right. I shouldn’t have listened in.”

An amused twinkle sparked in his golden eyes. “Well, Ash practically invited you to follow us and then didn’t even warn me you were there.”

Defending Ash probably wasn’t the response Lyre wanted to hear, so she nodded instead. He looked calm enough, but she was watching for his dissembling mask of easygoing incubus. Underneath that veil of amusement, he was on edge, waiting for her condemnation of what he’d once been and done.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t expect your bad pickup lines to work on me now just because I know you’re some famous spell weaver.”

He blinked, then a laugh burst out of him. Humor warmed his eyes, his pleasure genuine with nothing hidden in his gaze.

“If the bad ones won’t work,” he asked, “how about my good pickup lines instead?”

She snorted. “Nope. Being a genius doesn’t win you any points with me.”

He waved a hand. “Hardly a genius. I was the intellectual runt of my family. Even my youngest brother could weave a tetrahedron complex before I could.”

“A … what?” She shook her head. “I need to get going, but there’s one more thing.”

She pulled the gem-encased Sahar from her pocket and held it out to Lyre. He looked from the Stone to her, an unspoken question in his eyes.

“You should take care of it. It’s not … not a good idea for me to carry it around.”

He lifted it from her palm. “Still tempting you?” The words were soft, understanding.

She huffed. “Sort of? I’m more afraid I’ll panic and try to use it to save my life, which wouldn’t go well.”

“No, not well at all.”

“It’s better that you hang on to it.”

He set it on his other side, a big glittering amethyst among the tiny, sparkling gemstones. Pulling her eyes from the Sahar, she rose to her feet.

“I have something for you too.” He stood with her and stuck a hand in his pocket. He pulled out two small gems. “New signal spells for you and Ash. I have the third and Seiya has the fourth in the set. Any one of us within a couple hundred miles will be in range.”

She accepted the two stones. “That’s a pretty big step up from the range of Ash’s tracking spell.”

“Genius weaver, remember? Of course I can do better than Ash.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a genius.”

He smirked. “Only compared to my brothers.”

She swatted his arm, then hugged him one more time. He returned her embrace without hesitation and she breathed a sigh of relief that her eavesdropping hadn’t permanently harmed their friendship.

“Don’t take too long,” he said, stepping back. “I need my date for the big Chrysalis reunion.”

She had no idea how he could speak so lightly of the upcoming battle. She managed a smile despite the surge of nerves in her belly. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

As she walked out, leaving him to his spells, she wished she possessed some skill or magic that could stop the coming war entirely. But the wheels were already turning and it couldn’t be stopped. All that was left to do was try to twist the odds in their favor, because she feared they were stacked far too high against them.

Chapter Twenty-Three

In the bluish dusk, the lights inside the rundown stone church leaked a yellow glow through the cracks between the boards over the windows. At least someone was home.

Piper glanced over her shoulder at Kiev. He was looking somewhat less dangerous than usual in glamour, but his expression was a mixture of bleakness and unease as he pulled his wrap over the lower half of his face. They hadn’t been able to see much of Brinford during their flight, but what they had seen made her stomach churn. If the city had looked like a warzone when she’d left, it now looked positively apocalyptic. Glowing fires had turned the horizon red but she wouldn’t be able to see the full extent of the damage until morning. Why was the city in such bad shape? Had the Gaians really done so much damage fighting the few daemons remaining in the city?

Huffing and hitching her small pack of supplies higher up on her shoulder, she crossed the dusty front lawn to the doors and pushed one open. At the other end of the foyer, the church opened into a tall, echoing sanctuary. Quiet voices murmured from the far end where a small cluster of people sat on the floor in a circle, playing some kind of card game. Busy saving the city from the daemon war, clearly.

As she walked into the sanctuary with Kiev trailing behind her, her boots clicked loudly on the stone floor. Several heads rose as the noise interrupted their game. One of the girls jumped to her feet.

“Oh my god!” Melonie gasped. “Piper?”

Managing a smile that was half grimace, Piper lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave as she crossed toward them. As the others stood, Melonie dropped her hand of cards and ran to Piper, grabbing her in a tight hug.

“Oh my god,” she babbled. “You’ve been gone so long! Consul Calder was so worried that you were killed in Habinal City.”

Piper flinched. She—or rather, Natania—had been partially responsible for the death toll at the Gaian facility.

“Nope, didn’t die,” she said, forcing a casual tone as she patted Melonie on the back.

“Were you there?” a far more belligerent tone demanded.

She looked at Randy, who stood with his eyes narrowed and arms folded. Melonie released her from her hug and stepped back, looking uncertainly at Randy. The others joined them—Jerome and Lee, plus a handful of apprentices around the same age that hadn’t been at the church when she’d left.

“I was there,” she told Randy neutrally. “We made it out just before the reapers closed in.”

“Did you now?” he said, a challenging note in his voice. “They say there were no survivors—except for the ‘Hades force,’ of course.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Who is ‘they’?”

“Huh?”

“You said, ‘they say.’ Who’s ‘they’? Did you get this straight from the reaper army?”

Irritation tightened his face. He waved a hand as if that wasn’t important and focused on Kiev behind her. His lips curled in a sneer.

“Who’s he? Another daemon?”

“Can’t you tell? Identifying daemons is practically the first apprenticeship lesson.”

“He’s a draconian, isn’t he?” His gaze snapped over Kiev’s leather garb, numerous weapons, and face wrap, which disguised his age and made him look all the more sinister. Even in glamour, he was intimidating. Since he’d correctly guessed Kiev’s caste, she was surprised Randy was acting so aggressively.

“It’s rude to talk about people like they aren’t there,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Randy’s bluster faltered slightly before he pulled his sneer back into place. Ignoring Kiev, he jerked his chin in the general direction of her torso—clad in her shimmering ryujin outfit with draconian blades strapped just about anywhere she could attach a weapon.

“Looks like you upgraded your daemon gear there, Piper,” he jeered. “Did you get it from your new draconian friend or were you cozying up with the daemons destroying the city?”

“Wow, really?” She rolled her eyes. “You do realize that not every single daemon in existence is involved in the conflict in this one single city, right?”

Lee started to snicker but stopped when Randy turned to glower at him.

“Anyway.” Piper planted one hand on her hip. “Thanks for that warm welcome, Randy. Moving on, I need to see my father and uncle. Are they here?”

“Not right now,” Melonie answered quickly. “They had a meeting but they should be back within the hour.”

“A meeting with who?”

“Don’t tell her,” Randy barked as Melonie opened her mouth to answer. “She doesn’t get any answers until she starts answering our questions.”

Piper turned to face him, her expression hardening despite her efforts to remain friendly. “Your questions?”

“Yeah, like what happened in Habinal City and where the hell you’ve been since then. What have you been up to all this time?” Randy folded his arms. “When the Consuls get back, they’ll demand the same answers.”

Melonie grimaced at the floor and Lee looked uncomfortable, but Jerome and the other four—familiar faces but she couldn’t remember their names—were nodding in encouragement of Randy’s words.

“In that case,” she said flatly, “I’ll save my breath and answer their questions when they get here.”

Stepping back, she tossed her pack down on the nearest pew, then plopped down beside it and propped her boots up on the back of the pew in front of her. She smiled to herself as she realized she’d just mimicked Ash’s exact position when he’d been waiting for her in the church so many weeks ago. Kiev drifted over to the pew behind her but didn’t sit, his ice-blue eyes travelling across the apprentices.

Randy and Jerome glared at her where she sat. She ignored them. Their attitudes probably should have bothered her more—last time they’d accused her of suspicious activity, she’d been furious and hurt—but she really didn’t care what they thought. She had a job to do and she would save her energy for that.

Melonie looked between Piper and her peers and back again, then pushed past the guys and sat beside Piper on the pew.

“Did you hear about the Consul Board?” she asked. “About a month ago, they—”

“Melonie!” Randy shouted. “Shut it!”

“No!” she yelled back. “She should know what’s going on, and it’s not like her father and uncle won’t tell her all this immediately anyway!”

“But she—”

Kiev shifted, a small move that grabbed Randy’s attention. He paled under the draconian’s stare and snapped his mouth shut.

Melonie turned back to Piper. “The Consul Board of Directors has dissolved.”

Sitting up, Piper dropped her boots back to the floor. The news wasn’t a surprise but she hadn’t expected it to happen so fast.

“The Ras tried to force the Board to push for a special government sanction,” Melonie continued, “to give prefects the right to kill daemons instead of just arrest them. Half the Board balked, some of the corrupt members were discovered, and the whole thing fell apart. All the Consulates in the region have been burned down or abandoned, and we don’t know what’s going on with the rest.”

Piper tamped down on the surge of bitter disappointment rising in her chest. So it was over then. The Consulate system was done. She’d suspected it was coming, had even discussed it with Uncle Calder, but facing the reality of it was more painful than she’d imagined. Somehow, through everything that had happened, the vague, deep-down hope that someday she would complete her apprenticeship and become a Consul just like she’d always dreamed had lingered persistently in her subconscious. Losing that comforting vision of the future felt like someone had just knocked out one of the pillars that supported the foundation of her very being.

“Well,” she said heavily, “no Consulates are better than Ra-controlled Consulates.”

She wanted to ask more questions about the Consulates’ fall, but she had to stay focused. She had more important things to worry about than a system that had been failing before she’d left and was now beyond saving.

“What’s been happening here in the city?” she asked instead. “It looks like a war zone out there. Way worse than when I left.”

Melonie gave her an odd look. “It is a war zone. Didn’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“The daemon war is here.”

She went still, staring at the girl. Kiev pivoted toward them, his sudden attention making Melonie shrink. She pushed her shoulders back again with obvious effort.

“After Habinal City, the Hades army came here. They’re attacking the Ra embassy.”

Piper flashed an alarmed look at Kiev as Melonie continued.

“We’re guessing the Ras had their own small army hidden in their embassy, because the next thing we knew, they were fighting in the streets and …” She took a deep, steadying breath. “We thought at first that the government would send in the military to stop them, or at least some extra prefects or something, but they’re all in a panic without the Consul Board to advise them on daemons and they don’t want to trigger something worse, I guess.”

Piper frowned. “I understand why they aren’t sending in a human military—they wouldn’t stand a chance against a daemon army—but how can they ignore it completely?”

“They’re scared,” Melonie replied. “They leveled buildings in Habinal City like someone dropped bombs on them.”

“We don’t have any bombs,” Randy interrupted, “because the daemons forbid us from making them. Convenient, isn’t it?”

“They forbade us from making weapons of mass destruction so we couldn’t destroy our planet,” Piper pointed out. “It was pretty necessary.”

“You always defend them!” Randy’s chest puffed out with fury. “The Consulates are failing and you don’t even care. You keep disappearing with daemons for weeks at a time and come back with all sorts of their shit. What are you doing with them? Where do you keep going? I want answers!”

“Well, we can’t all have what we want, can we?” Piper said, controlling her irritation. “And quite frankly, I don’t care what you want, Randy. I don’t owe you answers. I don’t owe you anything. I’m here to see my father and uncle, not listen to your paranoid crap.”

He surged forward a step but stopped, unable to reach Piper around Melonie. “You’re a daemon whore,” he spat.

“Would you like me to kill him?” Kiev’s quiet, menacing voice sent a visible shiver down every apprentice’s spine.

Randy’s gaze swung to the draconian and he backed away several fast steps. Retreating from a predator? Had he absorbed any of his training?

She waved a hand. “Nah, he’s not worth the effort. But thanks anyway.”

“I doubt it would take effort.”

Randy swelled again, his wounded ego overcoming his fear.

“Calm down, Randy,” Melonie said quickly. “Just let it—”

He immediately turned on the easier target. “Are you turning into a glam-girl like her?” he sneered. “Making nice with Piper so she can introduce you to her incubus pal?”

Melonie’s cheeks turned red.

“Oh, just shut up, Randy,” Piper said, her tone hardening. “You’re making yourself look like an idiot.”

“Don’t turn this around on me!” He balled his hands into fists, arms flexing. Jerome grabbed his shoulder but he shrugged his friend away. “You can’t fool me with your act. I can see right through your bullshit! I know you’re a traitor!”

The door at the back of the sanctuary banged as it was thrown open. A group of Consuls walked in, fronted by her father and Uncle Calder.

“What are you all yelling about?” Calder called in annoyance as he walked in. “We could hear you from—”

He broke off, stopping dead as his gaze landed on Piper. Lexa, coming in behind him, walked into his back. As Piper locked eyes with her uncle across the length of the sanctuary, a hundred emotions rose in her, closing her throat. Relief and delight at seeing him, concern for his pale face and the circles under his eyes, worry over how he would react to her long disappearance.

Her attention shifted to the man beside him. Quinn had taken a moment longer to stop, and he too gaped at Piper in shock. She couldn’t read his expression, and all those old feelings of hesitation and defensiveness crowded in to join the emotional storm inside her.

Calder recovered first. His green eyes snapped to Randy and the others.

“Apprentices! All of you outside and don’t come back until you’ve completed a full perimeter check.”

The apprentices groaned.

“But—” Jerome began.

“Out! Now!”

Piper waited as the apprentices reluctantly headed toward the doors. Melonie gave her a small smile as she followed the others. They stumped past the Consuls and out of sight. At a quick signal from Calder, the other Consuls quickly followed, heading right back out the door they’d just come in through.

As soon as they were gone, Calder rushed down the aisle. Piper stepped out from between the pews and met his hug with open arms. He lifted her right off her feet, squeezing the air out of her.

“Uncle Calder,” she gasped, half laughing. “I need my ribs in one piece!”

He chuckled and set her down. “You weigh an extra fifty pounds with all that steel on you.”

“Not quite.” Her eyes turned to Quinn, standing beside her uncle. They stared at each other, the awkwardness all the more obvious after her effortless reunion with Calder. The last time she’d seen her father, he’d backhanded her across the face. He’d been drugged at the time, but still.

After a brief hesitation, she lifted her arms. What might have been relief softened his face ever so slightly and he quickly wrapped her in a hug. She closed her eyes against a prick of tears.

He stepped back, holding her shoulders as his good eye searched her face.

“You’re back,” he said simply.

She nodded. Uncle Calder threw an arm over her shoulders, half-pulling her away from Quinn’s hands as he tucked her close to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kiev casually drift away from them, meandering to the opposite end of the sanctuary to give them privacy.

“I feared the worst when you didn’t come back, Pipes,” Calder said gravely, his relieved happiness sobering. “What happened? Did you meet with your mother?”

Her throat closed. She cleared it, the little cough tearing like a knife. “Yes. In Fairview, we found proof that Samael was interfering with the Gaians, and we went to Habinal City to warn the Gaian command staff. And … well, I guess you heard what happened.”

Quinn frowned. “If Samael was involved with the Gaians, why did he bring in a company of soldiers to destroy their base of operations?”

“Because we revealed that he was involved,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to the floor. “The Gaians were only useful to him if no one knew his secret. He did it to erase the evidence of his involvement.”

“It’s not your fault,” Calder said gently. “If that was his plan, Samael would have done it sooner or later whether you went there or not.”

“What about your mother?” Quinn asked. “Has she been with you this entire time?”

She clenched her teeth, fighting the crushing surge of grief that wiped out every other emotion inside her. She pressed her shaking hands against her legs.

“She … She … died.”

Calder’s arm tightened painfully on her shoulders.

“He … Samael, he was there.” She swallowed, struggling to get the words out. She forced her eyes from the floor to Quinn’s pale face, his expression frozen in place. “He came with his army, and he … he killed her. Right in front of me.”

Calder pulled her into his arms again, his hand on the back of her head pressing her face into his shoulder. A single sob shook her before she swallowed back her anguish. She didn’t have the leisure to grieve. She had to be strong.

Pulling gently away from her uncle, she wiped a hand over her face to erase her tears and straightened her shoulders. Quinn’s expression was unreadable and she had no idea how he felt about the death of his ex-wife, but either way, she didn’t expect him to mourn Mona in front of her.

“A lot has happened since I left,” she told them. “I need to know what I missed here—everything that’s going on with Hades and Ra.”

“Pipes, you only just arrived,” Calder protested. “You should rest. We can catch up on everything in the morning and—”

“There’s no time for that. I’m on a tight schedule.”

“A tight schedule for what?”

“I’ll explain, but first I need a rundown of what’s happening in the city. Melonie said the Hades forces are attacking the Ra embassy?”

“Yes, Hades forces are entrenched around the embassy but they haven’t been able to breach its defenses, and so far they’ve refrained from a large-scale attack like in Habinal City.”

“What are they waiting for?” she asked. “I can’t imagine why they’d purposefully drag this out.”

Calder glanced at his brother and shrugged. “We don’t know. It could just be the Gaians throwing them off.”

“What do the Gaians have to do with anything?”

“After Habinal City, they pulled all their forces together here in Brinford.” Calder rubbed a hand over his stubbly jaw. “We’re not entirely sure what’s going on, but they’ve been attacking Hades forces downtown. Or Hades has been attacking them. It’s not all that clear.”

She began to pace, striding up and down the aisle. Kiev drew closer, not quite joining the conversation but listening in.

“So we have Hades pinning the Ras down in their embassy and the Gaians messing around downtown.” She looked at her father and uncle. “How many Hades soldiers? Do you know?”

“Several companies at least,” Calder said. “It’s difficult to get a count of them.”

“And how many Ras?”

“We have no idea. All they’ve done so far is defend.”

She swore under her breath. “Several companies” could be six hundred or more soldiers, probably more than enough to crush the Ra embassy if they wanted to. Without knowing what was holding them back from finishing off the Ras, she didn’t know how long their mission would occupy them. Three days. What were the chances the Hades force would stay put for another three days?

Her steps slowed. Six hundred Hades soldiers. Even if the draconians’ attack on Asphodel succeeded, those were six hundred soldiers who could immediately withdraw from Earth and retaliate against the draconians. She doubted any of the draconians would be up for another battle that soon; they would be exhausted and injured, and—she swallowed hard—their numbers would undoubtedly be reduced from all the casualties.

“How many Gaians are we talking about?” she asked abruptly.

“A couple thousand,” Calder answered, watching her with narrowed eyes. “We think they pulled in everyone they have, soldiers and civilians both.”

An unknown number of Ra soldiers in the embassy, two thousand Gaians, six hundred Hades soldiers, all in the same city. It was an explosion waiting to happen. And she was thinking maybe an explosion was what they needed.

She turned sharply to Kiev. “Those Hades soldiers could withdraw at any time. The Ras aren’t even fighting back.”

He tilted his head. “But what are the chances they’ll pull out in the next three days?”

“Can we take that chance? And what about afterward? Will you be prepared to take on three or four companies of fresh Hades forces when they come charging back to Asphodel?”

“We’ll be gone by then.”

“And they’ll know where to find you.”

His mouth twisted unhappily. “There isn’t much we can do about that.”

“But maybe there is.” She surged back into motion, pacing frantically. Quinn and Calder watched her with wary confusion. “The Ras are just holding their position, but what if they went on the offensive? The Hades forces aren’t likely to go anywhere if they’re engaged in battle.”

Kiev tugged at his face wrap. “Well, yeah, but the Ras aren’t on the offensive.”

“Maybe they will be,” she muttered, coming to a stop again. She looked at Calder. “Do you know if Miysis is in the city?”

“I don’t know,” he said cautiously.

She drummed her fingers on the hilt of her sword, thinking fast.

“What is all this about, Piper?” he demanded.

She didn’t answer, focusing on Kiev again. “I know we only came for information, but I can’t just leave it like this. We’re leaving too much to chance. Even if the Hades force doesn’t budge in the next three days, they’ll pour back into the Underworld the second they hear about the attack.”

“What attack?” Calder exclaimed.

“What are you thinking?” Kiev asked.

“Maybe the Ras can do more than just defend their embassy. Maybe we can defeat Hades on both worlds.” Her hand closed tightly around her sword hilt. “I need to talk to Miysis. And the Gaians too.”

“Wait, what?” Calder interrupted. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

“I’ll explain in a moment.” Piper took Kiev’s elbow, guiding him toward the door. “You need to go back and tell Ash everything.”

“You want me to leave you?”

“He needs to know. I’ll stay here and see what I can make happen.”

He hesitated before nodding. “All right. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“No, you should stay. You’ll have preparations to make too and I don’t want you exhausting yourself flying all over the Underworld. I’ll signal from the ley line when I’m done here.”

“Are you sure?” His eyes crinkled and she suspected he was making a face. “Ash won’t be happy with me.”

“He can deal with it.”

“All right.” He clasped her arm, giving her a brief squeeze. “Good luck.”

He strode away, gone from the sanctuary in seconds. She hoped she was making the right choice.

“Well, Piper?” Quinn demanded.

She reluctantly turned back to them.

“Right now,” she said, “a draconian army is mobilizing in the Underworld to attack Asphodel. While Samael’s forces are divided between Earth and the Underworld, they’ll destroy his base and break his power.”

They stared at her, dumbfounded. Why was it so shocking? Hadn’t they gleaned as much from her conversation with Kiev?

“We came to find out how much of Samael’s forces are here,” she continued, “and I want to make sure those forces can’t turn around and reinforce Asphodel.”

They gaped at her like she’d sprouted two heads. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“So …” Calder said, his voice slow with incredulity. “You’re planning to somehow convince the Ras to attack Hades?”

“Pretty much.”

“It won’t work,” Quinn said flatly.

She scowled at him. “It can work. It needs to work. Assuming Miysis is here, he can be reasoned with, especially with Samael’s defeat on the table. The Gaians are less reasonable, but I can at least find out what their plans are.”

Quinn’s good eye narrowed. “How do you propose to get in contact with Miysis? I hope you aren’t thinking of walking up to their embassy; they’re in the middle of a war zone. You’d be killed on sight. Without your mother, you have no way in with the Gaians. And what about the city? How many casualties will there be if you do convince Miysis to launch a major attack downtown? It’s too—”

She raised her hand as she cut in.

“Father.” She met his gaze, calmly resolute. “I won’t discuss whether this is a good idea or whether I should do it. I am doing this. I need to do whatever I can to make it happen. Samael intends to rule Earth—he’s already started—and this is our best chance to stop him. This is our future. This is saving our planet.”

She glanced at Calder before refocusing on her father. “We can discuss how to mitigate as many risks as possible, but there’s no point in telling me that it’s dangerous. I probably know better than you do what I’m up against. I will either succeed or die trying, no half measures. There’s an army gathering in the Underworld and every daemon is prepared to die to stop Hades. Thousands of lives depend on what I can accomplish here in the next three days.”

He leaned back a little, absorbing her words. She didn’t break eye contact, holding his gaze with a steady look. She could feel him measuring her, analyzing her words against the daughter he knew—the one he’d never had faith in, the one he always pushed onto the sidelines. She didn’t flinch under his stare like she once would have.

He finally gave a slow nod. “What do you need from us?”

She exhaled, a wave of tension releasing from her muscles. Even though he hadn’t agreed with her or retracted his doubts, his question in itself represented his implicit support. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t intend to follow through. A slow smile spread across her face.

“Thank you. We have a lot to do and not much time.”

Piper threw open the car door and hopped out. From the driver’s seat, Uncle Calder climbed out and shut his door. The street was quiet—too quiet. The drive through downtown had almost finished off her nerves. She’d seen more than enough of the state the city was in after weeks of daemon battles. She wasn’t sure it could recover. If this didn’t end soon, Brinford would become just another abandoned metropolis that the surrounding wilderness would slowly reclaim.

The building in front of them was just as silent and lifeless as the rest of downtown. Fire had blackened most of the familiar warehouse on one side but the structure was mostly intact. On her previous visits to the Styx, she’d used the front door, but it was boarded shut. Luckily, Calder knew where the back entrance was.

While they were paying a visit to a certain succubus, Quinn was working on his assignment: locating the Gaians’ current leadership. All the Consuls at the church—more having joined Quinn after she’d left—were working on it. It boggled her mind that she was the one directing their efforts, not that anyone besides Quinn and Calder realized that.

Calder led her to the recessed metal door and knocked. She huddled beside him, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow in the dark alley. The air stank of old urine, garbage, and burnt wood.

“Are you sure she’s still here?” she whispered.

He knocked again. “I doubt Lilith would ever abandon her club, even if the city burned to the ground around it. She’s spent her whole life building this place up from nothing.”

Calder knew Lilith better than she did; he’d spent quite a bit of time at the club when the situation in the city first started going downhill. She grimaced and folded her arms, hugging herself against the chill in the air. Not as cold as Underworld nights. Surprisingly, she missed the somewhat bitter, crisp tang of the air there—or maybe that was just the alley’s stench talking.

With a clank, the door cracked open. A sliver of a face peered out, then the daemon opened the door.

“Ether?” Piper said blankly.

He blinked at her, his head tilting to one side as he struggled to recognize her. The slender daemon looked just as she remembered: an unremarkable face, bright blue eyes, and that dorky sweater vest over a long-sleeved shirt. She wasn’t sure if he was deliberately trying to appear as harmless as possible, or if he was just bad at imitating human dress.

“Ah,” he said in his light, quiet tenor as recognition sparked in his gaze. “You are Kindra’s friend. She is not here.”

“I know. She went home a couple months ago.”

“That is good. Much safer.”

“Why are you still here?” she asked curiously.

He just looked at her, his blue eyes revealing nothing.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uh, we need to talk to Lilith.”

Ether pulled the door open wider, making room for them. Piper walked in, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of a building that had been closed up for too long. Calder followed her in and Ether bolted the door behind them.

“This way,” he said.

He led the way through the maze of halls until they walked out into the main room of the club. Broken tables and chairs littered the floor, along with a generous sprinkling of garbage. The only illumination came from emergency lights glowing high on the ceiling two stories up. She peered around, her heart sinking. The Styx clearly hadn’t survived the conflict in the city untouched.

“I’ll get her.” Ether retreated to another hall, his footsteps echoing through the room as he disappeared.

She and Calder waited in silence. She tried not to fidget as the minutes dragged on, unable to calm her spinning thoughts and worries. What if Lilith couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help her? She wasn’t a fan of asking the succubus for yet another favor but she had no other ideas.

“Ah,” a female voice sighed. “Calder and Piper. How interesting to see you again.”

A shadow appeared in the hallway and Lilith slowly stepped into the light. Her cheeks were hollow, porcelain skin pale in a sickly way, blond hair hanging around her shoulders. She wore leather pants and a red tank top, no makeup. Still beautiful, but not the glamorous succubus Piper remembered.

“I can’t begin to imagine why you’re back,” Lilith continued, bitterness mixing with her singsong tone. “There is no one here to rescue this time. The only daemons who remain are not planning to leave.” She raised an eyebrow at Piper. “Unless you’ve come to repay your debt.”

“I need a favor,” Piper said, seeing no point in skirting around her objective.

The bitterness twisted Lilith’s face. “Of course. Why else would you visit me? Somewhere along the line, you mistook me for a generous woman, Piper.”

“There’s a chance we can save the city from the Hades war,” she said neutrally, resisting Lilith’s verbal bait, “if you can help us.”

Lilith’s lips curled. “A chance to save the city. So tempting. Forgive me if I have little faith in your ability to deliver on that promise.”

“It’s not a promise. It’s a chance.” Piper studied Lilith in the dim light. The succubus was tired, worn. She’d lost almost everything since Piper had met her, starting with the truth pendant she’d lent Piper.

Dismissing her hesitation, she began to unlace one of her armguards. “The pendant I lost in the Underworld was a priceless tool and I know I can never make up for its loss. It helped me find and save Ash, and it saved my life too. In that way, it’s even more invaluable.”

She slid the armguard off and tucked it against her side, holding it in place with her elbow. Beneath it, a small dagger in its dark sheath was strapped to her inner arm. The small, smooth hilt shone like mother of pearl. She unbuckled it, ignoring the twang of regret in her chest.

“This was a gift to me from the ryujin.” She pulled the blade from its sheath. Instead of steel, shimmering dragon scale formed a short, lethally sharp blade. “It’s not your pendant and probably not as valuable to you, but it’s rarer than any Ra spell.”

She held it out to Lilith. The succubus accepted it, turning it carefully in her hands. She slid it from the sheath, turning it to watch the light shine across the blade.

“What is this material?” she asked.

“Dragon scale. It will cut through almost any armor, it’s magic resistant, and it can pierce spells and wards.”

Lilith’s gaze rose to Piper, disbelief touching her eyes. The succubus had to appreciate the value of a weapon made by the ryujin—a caste feared throughout the Overworld that typically killed anyone who entered their territory uninvited. Ra spells could be bought but this dagger was truly priceless.

“This was gifted to you?”

Piper knew what Lilith wasn’t saying: How could she offer up such a valuable gift? She smiled as she pulled her armguard back on and laced it up. “The pendant saved my life and Ash’s. Maybe some day that dagger will save yours.”

Lilith’s hand tightened on the sheath. “I haven’t agreed to your favor.”

“I know.”

The succubus relaxed slightly and gestured to the bar, where a few metal stools with cracked leather seats were still standing. “Let’s sit. We will discuss this favor.”

They moved to the chairs and sat, Piper in the middle between Lilith and Calder. Lilith laid the dagger carefully on the bar top as though it might break if she set it down too hard.

“I’m surprised Ash didn’t come with you.” She smiled as she looked up at Piper through her long eyelashes. “He has always been overly confident in his ability to get his way with me.”

Piper gritted her teeth at the double entendre. Though she couldn’t prove it—and really didn’t want to—the circumstantial evidence suggested that Ash had slept with Lilith at least once before he met Piper. She didn’t appreciate Lilith’s reminder or the timing of it. She wondered if, after accepting Piper’s gift, the succubus felt like she had to regain the upper hand in their conversation.

“Ash is busy … preparing.”

Lilith’s eyes sharpened as she dropped the coquettish demeanor. “Preparing for what?”

Piper pressed her folded hands on the bar top. “To end this.”

“To end Samael,” Lilith breathed, her eyes widening as she put the unspoken pieces together. “I see. Tell me about this favor.”

“I need to get a message to Miysis.”

“Miysis? The Ras are little better than Hades. You would have them be our conquerors?”

“I don’t want either of them, but we can only deal with one at a time. The Ras have already lost their heir and they’ve been one step behind Hades for a long time. I’ll take Miysis over Samael any day. Miysis may be ruthless but he isn’t evil. Is he at the embassy?”

“I believe so.” Lilith drummed her fingers on the bar in front of her new dagger, the red polish on her nails chipped and ugly. “Most of my contacts have fled the city. I don’t know how to reach Miysis, not while he is barricaded behind a mass of soldiers in their embassy. With his elder sister dead, he is next in command beneath his mother; he will not be venturing out where Hades snipers could kill him.”

“The Ra family is matriarchal,” Calder put in. “Miysis can’t actually inherit command, can he?”

“He cannot head the family unless his younger sisters also die, but they are safe in the Overworld.” Lilith shrugged lightly. “Though he can’t take his mother’s place, he can still lead beneath her and will continue to do so until his sisters are older.”

Miysis commanding the Ra forces in Brinford was a big help. Piper would only have to convince him and not his mother or some other family member.

“Is there a safe way to approach the embassy?” she asked. “A—a white flag or something?”

“Even if the Ras were willing to let you inside,” Lilith said, “Hades would not allow it. They would kill you on the approach. They appear to have the embassy surrounded, though one can’t tell at a glance. Too many places for soldiers to hide.”

Piper pressed her hands to the bar top. “I need to speak to him. There has to be a way.”

A soft footstep crunched on the dirty floor behind them.

“I could reach the gates.”

Piper turned sharply. Ether stood with his hands in his pockets, blue eyes drifting between the three of them.

“You—you could?”

He nodded. “I am familiar with the sewers beneath the city. I could get close enough to get within the Hades’ defensive circle and leave a written message for the Ras to find.”

Right, Ether was a kelpie—an amphibious caste. He wouldn’t have any problem in the water, just like her. But she also knew he hated the Ras after they’d held him prisoner in their embassy for weeks. Could she trust him to deliver a message?

“Could you take me?” she asked. “Dropping a note that they may or may not pick up leaves too much to chance and our time is limited.”

“I will not take you,” he said, his soft tone somehow broking no argument. “I will not be responsible for your life.”

“We can make sure they find the note,” Lilith said. “There are spells that turn objects into magical beacons that no daemon within a hundred yards could miss.”

Piper frowned, thinking it over. Dropping a note with some kind of beacon just outside the embassy was probably the best they could do, but what if the Ras assumed it was a Hades trick? What if the note never made it to Miysis? What if it took too long for him to see it and respond?

“Let’s do it,” she said. “We can try to come up with other ideas in the meantime, but whatever we can do now is better than nothing. What should we put the note in? I don’t want it to blow away or something.”

Lilith smiled as she leaned over the bar and reached under it. She pulled out a small, empty vodka bottle and held it up, a wicked little smile tweaking her lips.

“A note in a bottle. That feline curiosity of theirs won’t be able to resist it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Piper paced the width of the sanctuary and back again, staring down the rows of pews every time she made a turn. Nervous energy kept her moving even though she was exhausted. She hadn’t slept since making the trip from the draconian city to the ley line. She needed to rest, but she couldn’t sleep. Not until she knew whether the note had worked.

It had taken them about an hour to get the note ready and in the bottle, including asking one of the more skilled daemons hiding out in the club basement to spell it so it flashed like an invisible beacon for the Ras to find. Then Ether had taken it and left. Lilith had seemed almost as nervous as Piper as the minutes dragged into an hour and then another. The embassy was on the border of downtown—the opposite border to the Styx—and wasn’t a trip Ether could make that quickly.

Nearly three hours had passed before he returned, reeking water dripping from his clothes onto the floor. He’d thrown the bottle over the embassy fence before getting the hell out of there. He was certain they’d seen it even without the beacon spell. Piper had thanked him profusely and she might have even hugged him if he hadn’t been drenched in sewer water.

With nothing left to do but wait and see if Miysis responded to her note, she and Calder had left to return to the church. On their way out, Piper had glanced back in time to see Lilith take Ether’s hand as she reached up with the other to touch his face in concern. Piper had hurried away, surprised and a little embarrassed. Plain and soft-spoken Ether with the stunning, bold succubus businesswoman? Not a combination she would have predicted, but it explained why Ether was still at the club.

Another three hours had come and gone with no sign of Miysis. Her note had asked him to meet her at the church. She hoped that revealing the hiding place of the “Consul resistance” would convince him that it wasn’t a trick and how imperative it was that he meet with her.

Would he? She’d never been good at predicting his actions, but she was even more out to sea after the complete shattering of their uneasy friendship. After he’d ordered his men to kill Ash and then tried to kidnap her, she’d done her damnedest to kill him on that cliff in the Overworld. After that, she’d killed his sister. If she weren’t so desperate for his help with her plan, she would have been quite happy to never see him again.

Exhaling loudly, she stopped pacing and clenched her hands into fists. “He won’t come. I should have written a longer note.”

“I don’t think he can resist,” Calder said from where he sat on a front pew. “Had you given him too much information, he might have made a decision without talking to you first. On top of that, the two of you have a history. I’m sure he’ll come.”

Unclenching her hands before she strained a muscle, she managed not to flinch. Her father and uncle knew that she and Miysis had last parted on bad terms, but they didn’t know that she’d killed Maasehet. Then again, there was a chance Miysis didn’t know she was responsible either, especially if the Gaian facility had been razed to the ground. She kind of doubted it though. Daemon and haemon magic had different signatures, and the Sahar probably left its own unique mark.

The sound of a door opening made her spin toward the front of the church, but it wasn’t the main entrance. The side door had opened and Randy stood in the threshold, squinting at them. Jerome looked over his shoulder.

“What are you doing up, you two?” Calder asked sternly.

“We heard voices,” Randy said as his eyes landed on Piper. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“You’ve learned to tell time, congratulations,” Piper said, rolling her eyes as her nerves settled again. Stupid Randy showing up and making her think it was Miysis arriving.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Calder said. “Back to your room, please.”

“Who’s not coming?” Randy asked. “What note were you talking about?”

Calder rose from his seat on the pew. “Consul business, Randy. Back to your room.”

Randy took a couple steps into the room and Jerome followed hesitantly. “Is it that draconian again? We have a right to know if you’re bringing daemons in here while we’re asleep.”

All traces of good humor vanished from Uncle Calder’s face. “You have a right to know whatever I decide to tell you, and right now I have nothing to share with you.”

Quinn turned on the two boys with his glower that could stop daemons in their tracks. Randy and Jerome shrank back.

“If you both aren’t immediately out of my sight, you will—”

In a rush, Melonie and Lee burst out from the same doorway, almost colliding with Randy and Jerome. When they saw Piper, Calder, and Quinn already in the sanctuary, they skidded to a stop. Both had the expressions of frightened rabbits.

“Consul Calder!” Melonie gasped. “There are daemons outside!”

Piper jerked straight. Was it Miysis? Had he come?

“Where?” Calder demanded.

“Everywhere!” Lee blurted. “I heard a noise and looked out the basement window and I saw them. Dozens of them on the lawn. Daemons with—with wings.”

“Griffins,” Piper said, her voice going bleak as she faced the main doors of the church. If the Ras were out of glamour, there was a good chance they hadn’t come peacefully. Crap crap crap. “You four need to go into the basement and stay there.”

Randy spluttered in affront. “Don’t tell me what—”

“Go!” Calder half-shouted. “Right now!”

“But what—”

Magic crackled across Piper’s senses a moment before the arched roof of the church exploded.

A truckload of stone plunged down to the floor in the center of the sanctuary. She staggered back, throwing an arm over her face as dust billowed out. Shadowy figures with outspread wings dropped through the brand new hole, landing among the pews and aisle. As the dust settled, the yellow light bulbs along the sanctuary walls gleamed on a dozen shining halberd blades.

A thirteenth griffin dropped through the opening to land in the center of the aisle. Golden hair brushed across his face, most of it captured in a thick braid that hung down to his waist. Topaz jewels on fine white gold chains had been woven through the plait, making it glitter. His clothing was a mixture of rich red silks and light armor, as beautiful as it was functional. He held a long sword in one hand.

His eyes, normally a bright yellow-green, were black as pitch as they locked on her like a lion stalking an injured gazelle.

“Miysis.” She couldn’t help the cautious note in his name.

He lifted his blade out to one side of his body, a casual but attack-ready position.

“Piper. Draw your sword.” The words were an icy croon in his melodic voice, almost as beautiful as Lyre’s incubus harmonics.

Oh shit. It was pretty safe to say he knew exactly who had killed his sister and he intended to kill Piper for it in a formal execution of justice.

“Miysis—” she began.

He gave the tip of his sword a little flick—some kind of signal. His soldiers surged into motion, moving blindingly fast. In seconds, they had surrounded her and Miysis, creating a circle around them. She was trapped inside with Miysis, and her father and uncle were stuck outside the circle of warriors. Randy, Jerome, Melonie, and Lee had retreated to the doorway to the basement, but the fools hadn’t actually left.

“Piper!” Calder yelled frantically, rushing toward the Ra soldiers.

“Stay back!” she shouted, throwing up a warning hand in his direction. “Just wait!”

Miysis glided a few steps closer to her, his black eyes not shifting from her face. His golden-brown wings were folded behind his back and his tail, shorter than a draconian’s, swished slowly behind him, the end flaring in a fan of feathers.

“Miysis, can we—” she tried again.

“Draw your sword.” He lifted his, light sliding across the shining steel, and she knew that was her last warning.

Heart pounding, she drew the sword at her hip, gripping the unfamiliar hilt tightly. She lifted it into a defensive posture. His stare cut through her, his face familiar but strange. She had no choice but to fight him; her uncle and father couldn’t take on this many Ra soldiers. She should have met Miysis somewhere else, somewhere with no potential casualties besides her.

With a slight narrowing of his eyes as her only warning, Miysis sprang at her.

She got her sword up in time to block his blade. The force of his charge knocked her clear off her feet and she crashed down on her back. His blade flashed for her and she rolled fast, barely escaping it. Jumping to her feet, she whipped her sword around to force him back, but he parried it and lunged in. She twisted away and the blade scraped across her pants, a cut that would have sliced deep into her thigh without the protection of the dragon scale.

He slid back, putting a couple of feet between them as he re-evaluated her entire outfit—he probably wouldn’t waste another strike on her protective clothing. He would be aiming for bare skin now.

“Miysis, please, can we—”

With a snap of his wings, he jumped for her, cutting off her plea. The only way she could talk to him was if she defeated him.

She whipped her sword up and braced herself. His strike slammed down on her blade, almost buckling her legs. He pressed hard, leaning into his sword as their blades scraped together. Her arms shook. His daemon strength was too much. She couldn’t hold it and she couldn’t push him back.

She locked eyes with him, her teeth bared with the effort of resisting him. He gazed back at her, his eyes like black ice, and she realized he wasn’t even using his full strength. He could be crushing her, but he wasn’t. Why not?

Dread rushed through her as her arms shook harder and she slid backward a few inches on the stone floor. Her sword dipped closer to her face, his right behind it as he added more pressure. She couldn’t fight him like this. He was too strong. She needed her daemon form.

As soon as she thought it, she realized that’s what Miysis was waiting for. But her father and uncle were right there, watching. They didn’t know about her daemon form. And Melonie and the other apprentices—

Miysis shoved harder and her arms gave out.

Strength surged through her as tingles rushed over her body. She slid sideways as she spun her sword, forcing his blade away from her body and down toward the floor. Both steel points hit the stone tiles, sending sparks flying. She dropped the hilt and leaped for him, grabbing his shoulder to propel herself over him and onto his back. He snapped his wings out, flinging her away before she could get a hold of his throat.

She landed on her feet and drew two short swords from the sheaths on her thighs. He kicked her longer sword out of the circle so she couldn’t reclaim it. Her eyes met his and she let it all go, allowing the shaded calm to rush through her. She forgot about her father and uncle. She forgot about the apprentices. Her world narrowed to her opponent.

Holding one sword low and the other at shoulder height, she sprang for him. At the last second, she ducked, coming in low. He danced aside, sword flashing past her face. She whirled away and spun back at him, swords twirling in her hands. Her blades crashed against his as he deflected both in one swift, angled stroke. They broke apart.

He smiled coldly and raised his free hand toward her. Magic sizzled the air.

She crossed her swords in front of her and channeled her magic into the blades—a skill Seiya had spent a full week teaching her as they travelled through the Underworld mountains. His blast shattered on her shield and she sprang through the crackling light. Her left sword hit his again as she whipped her right one toward his belly.

Magic burst out of him, throwing her back before her blade could connect. She landed on her feet, balancing on her toes. If he wanted to bring magic into this game, then so be it. She extended one sword and called on her power. Twisting blue and purple light flashed down the length of her blade. She flicked it toward him and a whip of magic snapped at his face.

He cast a shield and her magic hit it. Orange light burst from the point of contact—but his shield didn’t break. The golden barrier pulsed strangely as she yanked her magic back. She bared her teeth in frustration. After she’d broken his shields in the Overworld, he must have found a new technique to counter her hybrid magic. Natania had warned her that her magic wouldn’t always burn away daemon spells.

Dropping into a half-crouch, she angled her swords and leaped for him.

They crashed together, swords spinning and magic flashing. He shielded and she smashed her sword into it, blasting it apart with her own magic. His retaliating blast flew over her head as she ducked. They danced across the floor, blades crashing together, magic erupting out of them. She fought as she never had before, casting and defending with magic as fast as she was lunging and parrying with her swords. Everything she had learned while training with Seiya and the other draconians was all that kept her alive in the face of his strength and skill.

He swung his sword across her path, forcing her back. She cast a magical attack that he batted aside with a shielded hand, but she was already leaping in for the opening beneath his left arm. The gap closed as he spun—a trick! She dropped, hitting the floor as his blade missed her head. She rolled but his boot thumped down on one of her swords, wrenching it out of her hand.

She twisted on the floor and kicked his ankle, knocking him briefly off balance. Then she sprang halfway up and threw her full weight into his knees. He staggered, wings flaring, and she grabbed his sword wrist with her free hand as she shot up. His other hand clamped around her sword wrist. They strained against each other, his greater weight and strength pushing her down.

Ducking, she shoved his arm away as she twisted out of his grip. He lunged for her at the same time and then he was right behind her—too close. He grabbed her by the hair and his sword flashed toward her neck. With a gasp, she yanked her arm up. The deadly blade hit her armguard instead of her throat, but the blow was so hard it jarred her remaining sword out of her grip.

He still had her by the hair. She was trapped, too close, couldn’t retreat. It was impossible to defend against him and she couldn’t stop his sword a second time.

She twisted around, almost wrenching her hair out of her scalp, and jerked her remaining dragon scale blade from its sheath in her armguard. His shield appeared over his upper body as fast as a thought while his blade flashed up behind her for a killing strike.

She swung the blade up, cutting through his shield as if it weren’t there, and pressed the point under his unprotected chin.

Cold steel landed lightly on the back of her neck—his sword laying against her skin, nothing between his blade and death.

Chapter Twenty-Five

She and Miysis held in place, their noses almost touching, neither of them so much as twitching. His black eyes bored into hers. She sucked in air as she stared back at him. The church was dead silent except for the sound of their heavy breathing.

His lips curved in a humorless smile. The cold, sharp line against the back of her neck disappeared as he lowered his sword and released her hair. She stepped back, dropping her dagger to her side before sheathing it in her armguard.

Miysis also sheathed his sword. His wings rustled before tucking neatly against his back. His body shimmered. Wings and tail vanished as glamour rushed over his form. His familiar blond tousle replaced the long braid and his magnificent red silk garb and pale gold armor morphed into his simpler scarlet and gold military uniform.

Catching her breath as she shook off her state of shaded calm, she closed her eyes and shed her daemon form, returning to human. Opening her eyes, she focused on Miysis.

“So,” she drawled. “Can we talk now?”

His yellowy green eyes glinted strangely with thoughts she couldn’t begin to guess. “I suppose we can.”

“She’s a daemon!”

Randy’s panicked shout made her and Miysis turn. The apprentices were still clustered in the doorway, their faces pale as ghosts. Randy was pointing at her with a shaking hand.

“She’s a goddamn daemon!” he yelled, his voice high-pitched and verging on hysterical. “I knew there was something wrong with her! She’s a daemon spy!”

Piper couldn’t help but flinch. Her eyes darted to Quinn and Calder, but they appeared almost as shocked as the apprentices over her transformation. When she looked at him, Calder pulled himself together. He gave his brother a quick nod and pushed into motion, striding for the apprentices. He grabbed Randy by the arm as the boy babbled loudly about Piper being a mutant daemon mole and hauled him through the doorway, forcing the other apprentices back down the hall. The door slammed shut.

“Hmm.” Miysis glanced from the door to Quinn and back to Piper. “Are all Consul apprentices so … excitable?”

She shook her head. Randy’s accusations and the shocked, revolted stares of the other apprentices were too painful for her to make light of.

She focused on Miysis, so calm and cool. The rage and hatred that had overcome her on the Overworld cliff, and the bitter grudge she’d held against him in the months since, filled her chest like hot lead. She swallowed hard, pushing it back down. She’d seen equal hatred and rage in his black eyes when he’d challenged her. He might have hurt her and Ash, but she’d taken a loved one from him. He had more reason to hate her than she did him, but he’d still stayed his blade when he could have killed her.

He might still be planning to kill her. Maybe he wanted to hear what she had to say first.

With a neutral expression, he watched her wrestle with her emotions. As she let out a final deep breath and straightened her shoulders, he gestured to his soldiers. They moved with quiet efficiency, retreating to guard the doors and leaving her, Miysis, and Quinn alone at one end of the sanctuary.

Miysis picked up her three dropped swords and held them out, hilts extended toward her. She hastily sheathed them. Her legs were shaking a little from the strain of their fight. She glanced around, then gestured at the nearest pew.

“Want to sit?”

He raised his eyebrows, perhaps amused at the idea of sitting in a church like a worshipping human, but sat nonetheless. She dropped down beside him with a relieved sigh. Quinn moved closer but didn’t join them, which surprised her. She would have expected him to be right in the thick of the conversation.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she said, “Thanks for coming.”

“It was an interesting invitation.”

“Um.” She folded her hands in her lap, gazing down at them. Her left side ached and she vaguely recalled taking a hard blow from his elbow during the fight. She hoped she didn’t have any cracked ribs—again.

“At the Gaian facility,” he began.

She cringed, waiting for him to demand an explanation for what she had done to his sister.

“We found your mother’s body,” he continued, taking her completely by surprise. “Since we were unable to locate you or her kin, we included her remains in the death rituals for our own casualties.”

Her eyes shot up to meet his. “You … you did?”

“We scattered her ashes in the Shirillani Desert in the Overworld. I hope this is acceptable to you.”

“It’s …” She struggled to keep her composure. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I admit we did not extend that honor to any other Gaian, but I’d hoped that, despite your difficult relationship with your mother, you would not want her remains abandoned there.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, embarrassingly choked up. “I can’t believe you would do that for me, even though …”

His face hardened but not in a cruel way—more as though he was strictly controlling his own emotions. “War is an ugly god, Piper. It forces us to commit acts we would never otherwise consider. I know you well enough to understand that whatever happened in that room was a time of terrible desperation for you.”

A few tears slipped down her cheeks. She roughly wiped them away.

“If you feel that way,” she said slowly, “why did you just try to kill me?”

“I hoped to confirm you didn’t hold any malice toward me—which you proved rather definitively—and to draw out any … surprises.”

“I see. And the chance to punch me a few times had nothing to do with your plan?”

“Of course not. I take no pleasure in battering women. You seemed to enjoy hitting me, however.”

She snorted.

He tilted his head to one side, his bright eyes analyzing her. “So tell me why you summoned me here, Piper.”

“Everything has changed now that Samael brought an army to Earth. It’s no longer a game of politics and maneuvering.”

He nodded in cautious agreement. “My family never wanted this conflict with Hades. War on Earth is a logistical nightmare. If we could have avoided it, we would have.”

“Hades is attacking your embassy, but I heard you haven’t done anything yet but defend it. Now that he’s started a war here, Samael’s not likely to abandon it. You can’t defend forever.”

Annoyance flashed in his eyes; he probably didn’t appreciate a teenage girl giving him military advice. “We are perfectly aware of that.”

“So why aren’t you doing more?”

“Because we don’t want to destroy this world. If we bring in more troops to take the city, Samael sends in more troops to take it back. The city will be destroyed, become worthless, and the conflict will switch to the next city.” He gave her a hard look. “In war, you are either invading territory or you are defending territory. Neither Hades nor we possess enough forces to occupy this continent in the traditional sense. Samael wants to force us out of every city we hold power in until we withdraw entirely, leaving Earth to him.”

“So for now, you’re holding your position because you don’t want to commit additional resources to the conflict and provoke Samael into sending more troops.”

“Which would only escalate everything further.”

“What if Samael couldn’t send more troops to Earth?”

His eyes narrowed. “What could possibly stop him?”

She nervously rubbed her hands together. “Samael’s forces are split between two worlds for, well, the first time ever, right? No warlord has ever sent an army to Earth before. Now that Samael has, Asphodel is vulnerable for the first time in over five centuries.”

He made a sound of disgust. “I’m aware of the circumstances, Piper, but we cannot attack his territory in the Underworld. I will not send my men to their deaths in that black hell, especially not with the full knowledge that it would be an utter waste of their lives. The only way to attack Asphodel would be from within the Underworld—an invasion by another territory there. You know the Hades family has spent the last several centuries making sure the other Underworld families are too terrified to ever consider such a thing, don’t you?”

She turned to face him fully and the annoyed sarcasm faded from his expression.

“I just came from the Underworld,” she said, her quiet tone adding gravity to her words, which immediately caught his attention. “Things are happening there—are about to happen there—that even Samael doesn’t know about.”

He straightened on the pew, his eyes darkening—probably honing his truth-seeing magic to analyze her every word.

“About twenty-four hours ago, two companies of Samael’s army attacked a settlement of draconians in their former territory.”

“Draconians?” His brow furrowed as he puzzled out where she was going with this. “I didn’t think they had the numbers to warrant two full companies.”

“I don’t think Samael did either, because the draconians obliterated his army.”

He went very still. “Did they?”

She pressed her hands between her knees to keep from fidgeting. She didn’t see any reason to mention that Tenryu had done most of that obliterating.

“And Samael doesn’t know this yet?” he asked.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said, locking eyes with him so he could have no doubt of the truth she spoke. “And now, before Samael realizes what he’s up against and while his remaining forces are split between the Underworld and Earth, the draconians are preparing to attack Asphodel—to destroy it. They intend to break Hades’ power for good.”

Miysis stared at her with dark eyes, no doubt deducing far more than just the small amount of information she’d given him. After a long, terse moment, he finally spoke. “You want me to prevent the Hades forces here on Earth from reinforcing Asphodel, don’t you?”

Biting her lip, she bobbed her head in confirmation.

“This is an act of desperation,” he observed. “The draconians know this, don’t they?”

“They know. That’s why they have to attack now while—”

“When are they planning to launch this attack?” he interrupted.

“In about two days.”

His eyes widened.

“Ash believes they can take Asphodel—as it’s currently defended,” she said. “But if Samael recalls his troops from Earth before then, the draconians won’t have a chance.”

Miysis’s green eyes glittered with cunning in a way she definitely didn’t like.

“If the Hades troops on Earth withdraw in the next few days,” she said, “the draconians will be destroyed. Though you’ll be freed of your problems here temporarily, there will be no caste left in the Underworld to challenge Hades ever again. Hades will recover and nothing will change. They’ll be back eventually to attack your interests on Earth.”

She locked eyes with the Ra prince. “However, if you were to attack the Hades force, you could change that. If you destroy Samael’s forces here and the draconians destroy his forces in the Underworld, his power will truly be broken.”

Miysis slowly leaned back in the pew.

“When will you ever have this chance again?” she asked. “You said so yourself: you can’t attack Hades in the Underworld. The Ra family will never be able to defeat Hades, only attempt to hold them in check on Earth. But the draconians can attack Hades. If they’re wiped out because of the army here on Earth, there will never be another chance. Only you can ensure Hades is destroyed permanently.”

He folded his arms, a hundred thoughts flashing through his sharp green eyes as he considered everything she’d said. He could have asked dozens of questions but he said nothing, deliberating in silence.

After several minutes, he exhaled sharply. “We weren’t planning to attack the Hades forces. Our entire strategy was defense. We’re outnumbered and pinned down. If we launched an attack, Hades would swiftly defeat us and our efforts would amount to nothing.”

Cold ran through her. Shit. She hadn’t considered that the Ra forces wouldn’t actually be able to launch a successful attack.

“Can you bring in more soldiers?”

“That would be as good as announcing my intentions to Samael. It must be a surprise attack, and ideally, we would want to close around the Hades forces to prevent a retreat or withdrawal. I simply do not have enough men.”

Her father’s voice sounded from her other side, making her jump. “What if we could provide additional forces?”

She looked at Quinn. She’d forgotten he was there. It had to go against every iota of his nature to listen in on a controversial discussion without expressing his opinion.

“That would depend on the nature of these additional forces,” Miysis replied guardedly.

“The Gaian numbers easily eclipse either the Ra or Hades force alone,” Quinn said to the Ra daemon.

“The Gaians?” Miysis barked with a humorless laugh.

Piper worked to keep her expression neutral despite wanting to react pretty much the same way as Miysis.

“Though they aren’t as effective in battle as daemons,” Quinn continued, “they can provide more than enough of a diversion to give your troops the maneuvering room they need, especially with their array of weapons designed for use against daemons.”

“Would they ally with us?” Miysis asked doubtfully. “Even if they agreed, I would be wary of a betrayal.”

“You would need to stay in close contact with their commanders to ensure coordinated movements,” Quinn answered. “Your truth-seeing ability could detect any insincerity on their part.”

“Very true. But would they agree to an alliance?”

Both men looked at her.

“They will,” she promised, not allowing any doubt to show. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“For the chance to defeat Hades …” Miysis rose to his feet. He slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled out a small radiophone. “I must begin preparations now. Contact me once the Gaians agree so I can send my generals to meet with their leaders.”

She took the phone, hiding her surprise at the rare, expensive technology he was freely handing out. It would definitely make it easier to stay in touch with him. She backed away from the pew and into the aisle so he could exit the row. He paused, looking down at her with those cutting green eyes.

“If you can’t convince the Gaians, there’s nothing I can do.”

Her stomach shriveled “I understand. They’ll be there.”

Miysis nodded and turned. As he headed toward his men, he whistled softly. They hurried toward him, and almost as one, leaped into the sky, flying out the hole in the roof. Miysis shimmered into glamour and spread his wings. In a flash of golden feathers, he too was gone.

Piper let out a huge breath, shaking her hands to release some tension. Holy crap. She’d actually convinced him—with a little help.

She turned to her father, smiling hesitantly. “Thanks for jumping in there.”

“Not a problem. That was some excellent negotiation. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

She labored for a second to pick her jaw up off the floor. Her father had never complimented her skills like that—ever. “You—you really think so?”

He inclined his head. “And your fight with him …”

“About that …” she muttered, wincing. “After the Gaians broke the seal on my magic, I had to learn to control both breeds of my magic to survive. And that … that’s how I had to do it.”

His gaze flicked down her and back up. “So this is a glamour now?”

“No, this is the real me. The daemon form is technically my glamour—the opposite of a daemon.”

“I see. I’m glad you found a way to survive.”

She blinked. Was that it? No more questions?

“I realize now,” he murmured, “that I’ve only been seeing what I expected to see when I looked at you. Children grow up so quickly. One day you were just a little girl, running around with a toy sword. The next, you were an apprentice Consul struggling to find your place in the world. I couldn’t let go of the image of that little girl.”

Stepping over to the nearest pew, he sat, staring at the pile of rubble left by the Ra daemons. A cold wind blew in from the hole in the ceiling.

“I haven’t always made the best choices for you, Piperel. I had a lot of time to think in the weeks you were gone, not knowing if you would ever return. Calder told me what happened at the Styx, how you saved Randy’s life in the most dangerously charged daemon confrontation any Consul could ever face—outside the Consulate, with no rules, in a room full of restless, aggressive daemons eager for a fight. He said he wasn’t sure he could have extracted Randy unharmed if you hadn’t been there.”

She remembered making the surrounding daemons laugh as she dragged Randy away by his ankle, but she hadn’t considered the “rescue” to be all that impressive. She’d mostly been angry with Randy for acting like an idiot.

“And then you helped prevent a battle between the daemons there and the Gaians, saving many lives in the process.” Quinn’s mouth twitched, almost smiling. “My brother then concluded his lecture by telling me I was a blind idiot, that you wouldn’t put up with me much longer, and that if he had to choose someone to guard his back for his next high-risk mission, he would probably choose you over me.”

She almost couldn’t find her voice. “He said that?”

“He did.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Your whole life, I’ve wanted to protect you from my dangerous world. Your mother abandoned us because it was too much for her, choosing the simpler views of the Gaians instead. I didn’t want to lose you like I lost her.”

The silence that followed his final words was uncomfortably heavy. He had wanted to protect her; she’d always known that was the main motivator behind his decisions, but he’d tried to do it by clipping her wings every time she reached for the next level in ability or experience. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, he might have succeeded in crushing her spirit—all in the name of protecting her.

Drawing in a deep breath, she let go of her anger and bitterness on the exhale. Neither of them could change or fix the past. In all likelihood, Quinn was incapable of understanding how much his actions and attitude—and lies—had hurt her over the years, even if she explained it to him. But did it matter anymore? He finally saw her as she was instead of as the little girl with her toy sword or the struggling apprentice who couldn’t fit in.

She’d already lost one parent. She didn’t want to lose the other because she was trapped in the bitterness of things she couldn’t change. Smiling, she leaned down and hugged him. After a startled hesitation, he put his arms around her shoulders, squeezing back.

“So,” she said, gently withdrawing. “Do you really think we can convince the Gaians to join forces with the Ras?”

As he stood, his good eye briefly searched hers, checking if things were okay between them. Then he arched an eyebrow.

“We aren’t convincing them of anything. That’s your job.”

She sighed. She’d been afraid he’d say that.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Piper followed her father and uncle down the street, trying hard to look like she knew where she was going, just in case anyone was watching. Considering the way the back of her neck prickled, she suspected they weren’t alone.

After Miysis had left, she’d lain down to sleep. While she was resting, Quinn and Calder had redoubled their efforts to locate the Gaians in the city. It wasn’t hard to find signs of them, but figuring out exactly where their base of operations was had been more difficult. Downtown was a large area with many abandoned buildings. It had taken the better part of the day, but they’d identified the location.

Now, with the sun setting behind the skyscrapers, they were walking down an empty downtown street, hoping they wouldn’t get shot. How did one just … walk in on a radical military group? She’d been a lot more confident dealing with Miysis, which said a lot, all things considered.

They rounded a right corner and ahead, the rows of skyscrapers stopped. A vast open space filled with an old sports stadium interrupted the towering buildings. The stands formed a bulky L-shape that surrounded the unseen field on the other side. Huge pillars supported the overhanging back of the stands and multiple doors waited to welcome non-existent fans into the concourse.

“What kind of stadium is that?” she whispered to her uncle.

“It’s a baseball stadium.”

“Oh. How can you tell?”

He gave her a funny look. Okay, obviously a dumb question. She coughed slightly. “Why haven’t we seen anyone yet? Shouldn’t they have scouts or guards or something?”

“You would think …” he muttered with a shrug.

Her nerves tingled with adrenaline as she marched forward again. They passed another few buildings and reached the edge of the expansive parking lot. The three of them exchanged another cautious look and started across the cracked, weedy pavement. Was no one going to stop them? Really?

Since they’d had no way to contact the Gaians ahead of time to tell them they wanted to talk, they’d decided their only real option was to walk up and hope the Gaians realized, by their complete lack of any attempt at stealth, that they weren’t the enemy. But she’d expected someone to stop them—or shoot them—by now, especially since she was certain she was being watched. The tallest section above the corner of the stands was lined with narrow, vertical windows that looked like dark, staring eyes.

There had to be a lot of space in the concourse. How many soldiers were hidden in there? All two thousand? Surely the Gaians weren’t dumb enough to station all their soldiers in one place. She tugged nervously at the long sleeves of the black leather draconian top she wore over her shimmering, entirely too conspicuous ryujin garb. She hadn’t expected to need the change of clothes, but she was glad she’d brought it. Matching leather pants covered her legs down to her ankles. She had two long daggers in her boots and her remaining ryujin blade, but neither was easily accessible. She hoped she wouldn’t need them.

They were halfway across the parking lot, completely exposed with nowhere to hide, when the loud revving of an engine shattered the quiet.

Headlights appeared from beyond one end of the concourse. She shielded her face with one arm, the light blinding her. The black jeep roared as it rocketed toward her. Her heart jumped in her throat and she prepared to dive to the side before it ran them over.

The tires squealed as it slid to a stop. In the glare of the headlights, a dozen soldiers in dark fatigues jumped down, guns pointed at them.

“That’s far enough!” someone yelled.

Piper put her hands against her chest in an X, the universal sign of surrender for a magic-user. Her father and uncle did the same. The soldiers circled them while the jeep’s engine idled loudly. One came forward and did a quick pat down on each of them, checking—not very carefully—for weapons.

“We come peacefully,” Piper said as calmly as she could, her heart hammering in her chest. “We need to speak with your general.”

“Who the hell are you?” one of the soldiers demanded roughly.

“Piper Griffith. I’m Mona Santo’s daughter.”

“Mona Santo is dead.”

“Yes, I—I know.” She swallowed to get the catch out of her voice. “I also know Walter and some other members of the council.”

Two of the soldiers put their heads together in a rapid discussion. She attempted to project calm confidence, aware of the other soldiers, plus whoever was hidden behind those windows, watching her. She suspected that the Gaians had been tracking them for a while but had waited until they were in the open, indefensible lot instead of the cramped streets to capture them. Actually pretty clever.

As the two soldiers debated what to do, the last of the sunlight disappeared below the horizon and the twilight darkened to night. She’d almost forgotten that twilight didn’t last for hours here on Earth.

A detonation blasted through the quiet.

She, Quinn, Calder, and the soldiers all ducked in unison. Smoke illuminated by red flames billowed up from the north grandstand.

“Holy hell,” the lead soldier snarled. “Cuff them and get them in the jeep! We’re going back!”

A second blast hit the grandstand, sending another column of smoke toward the sky. A soldier cuffed her hands behind her back and dragged her to the jeep. Someone was attacking the Gaians now? How could she talk to them if they were under attack? It was just like Habinal City all over again!

The soldier tossed her into the back of the open-topped jeep beside Quinn and Calder as the rest of the Gaians piled in or hung off the roll bars on the outside. The jeep lurched forward, tearing back across the lot. They went around the corner of the concourse on two wheels, while Piper bounced painfully on her knees.

The ground dropped as they drove down a dirt ramp under the grandstand. Solid concrete closed in around them. They sped through a vehicle-sized opening into an even larger space. As soon as the vehicle stopped, soldiers jumped down and one grabbed Piper, hauling her out and setting her on her feet. Voices echoed everywhere in the dim interior, some nearby, some distant, all frantic. Another explosion shook the building.

“What do we do with them?” the soldier holding her arm asked.

“Take them to Walter. Let him decide.”

The commanding soldier took off, shouting for his squad. A handful of Gaians led her, Quinn, and Calder toward a doorway. Piper glanced around quickly, seeing rows of jeeps parked neatly in the large space, waiting to be driven out. The walls were solid concrete, supporting the weight of the colossal structure above. She had no idea if this space had been intended for vehicles, but with only the large double doors at one end and the drivable entrance at the other, it was as safe a place as any.

The soldiers rushed them through the doors and into a dreary corridor, its ceiling lined with piping and cables. Led by their escorts, they hurried up some stairs and into a wide, open concourse that ran the length of the grandstand, the walls decorated with old graffiti. Concrete stairs interrupted the long concourse at regular intervals, leading up to various levels of the stands.

The soldiers herded her, Quinn, and Calder to one of the staircases. They climbed at a jog, turning again and again to take the next flight. Finally, they reached the top, where light spilled into the dark corridor from an open doorway.

They walked into a frenzy of planning, the long room empty except for a table at the closer end. Tall, narrow windows along the back wall displayed the dark parking lot, while the front windows offered what might have been a brilliant view of the field below if there’d been enough light to really see it. The room was full of people: soldiers barking orders or demanding instructions, others standing at the table looking at maps of downtown, another handful at the front window craning their necks to see something.

Piper, Quinn, and Calder stopped just inside the door. She leaned toward the window, bringing the north branch of the grandstand into view. Smoking craters had been blasted in the seating.

One of their escorts hurried into the chaos and came out again with a man at his heels. The leader of the civilian branch of the Gaians looked uncomfortable in his dark fatigues, perspiration shining on his dark skin and furrowed forehead. When he spotted Piper, his steps faltered. Shock replaced his frazzled anxiety before a distinct look of greed took over as he scanned her from head to toes and back up.

“Piper!” he exclaimed as he reached her. He waved at the soldiers. “Uncuff her, uncuff her.”

Someone grabbed her wrists and she exhaled in relief as the handcuffs fell away.

“What about these two?” the soldier asked.

Walter looked at Quinn and Calder, noticing them for the first time. Shock rippled across his face again. “The former Head Consul! Well, I am certainly surprised to see you here.”

When he didn’t instruct the soldiers to uncuff her father and uncle, Piper cleared her throat. “Would you mind … ?”

Walter hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod to the soldier, who freed Quinn and Calder from their handcuffs too.

Another explosion rattled the windows. Walter flinched, half ducking before recovering himself. The Gaian commanders—who must have been promoted to replace the ones who’d died in Habinal City—were clustered at the table, arguing about evacuation and completely ignoring Walter and his new guests. Piper casually shifted closer to the table, glancing at a map on the corner nearest her. Several locations were marked in green and red. One of the green circles appeared to mark the stadium they were standing in.

“We were very distressed to lose your mother and the entire command staff in Habinal City,” Walter said, pulling his businessman mien back into place. A blast from somewhere below them drowned out his next few words and he flinched again. “You picked a bad time, I admit, Piper.”

“What’s happening?” she asked, abandoning her attempt to read more of the map.

“Another Hades attack. They want our weapons.”

“They—what?”

“Our weapons!” Walter waved a hand rather wildly. “The guns, the jeeps, the magical shields, all the specialized equipment we have for fighting daemons. They’ve been intercepting our patrols and stealing our equipment at an alarming rate.”

Well, that explained the large cache of gear they were keeping safe underground. Walter didn’t realize that Samael was just taking back what was his. Now that the Gaians were no longer useful to him, he didn’t want them well armed and dangerous, and he undoubtedly had his own uses for the weaponry.

“It all went bad two weeks ago,” Walter continued, almost babbling. “They somehow know how all our weapons work and we can’t outmaneuver them and they keep using masking spells to—”

“Cloaking spells?”

“Yes, yes, cloaking spells to sneak up on us. We can’t even strike back because we can’t find them.”

As he stopped to draw a breath, she eyed him. He was out of his element and he knew it. He had no place or purpose here. A Gaian general wouldn’t have been telling her all this—they probably would have locked her up somewhere until they had the leisure to deal with her—but Walter felt powerless so he was doing the only thing he was good at: talking.

Another blast shook the floor, but she didn’t think they’d taken a hit.

“What’s going on below us?” she asked Walter, interrupting his continued babbling mid-word.

“What? Oh, our small artillery units are set up in the grandstand on Level 2—Where are you going?”

She turned on her heel and strode out into the hall. Soldiers trotted past her into the room, too busy to question who she was. Quinn and Calder followed as she took the stairs back down until she saw 209 stamped on a wall in heavy black type. Guessing this was the second level, she wheeled through the doorway. From there, all she had to do was follow the sound of voices.

The Gaians had ripped out the seating on the second level, opening a large, flat platform in the middle of the grandstand. Six giant guns were set up on the concrete base, pointed across the ballpark toward the skyscrapers beyond. Walter had called them “small” units but they looked freaking huge to her.

Three-dozen soldiers were clustered around the guns while one man stood back, high-tech binoculars hanging around his neck and a radio in hand. She strode toward him, pretending she had every right to be there.

“Who are you?” he demanded. The sergeant, she was guessing.

“They assigned me to assist you,” she said, hoping that if she were vague enough, he wouldn’t realize she had no idea what she was talking about. “Where are they?”

His eyes narrowed, but maybe he was too desperate to question extra help, no matter where it was coming from.

“They’re in the two buildings across from us,” he said gruffly. “We can see them moving in the windows but we don’t know where they’re firing from.”

She squinted at the dark buildings on the other side of the field: skyscrapers with hundreds of mostly dark windows. The buildings weren’t that far, but it was hard to make out details in the darkness. The sergeant pulled off his binoculars and handed them to her. She put them up to her eyes, impressed by the heavily green-tinted but surprisingly clear view. She hurriedly trained them on the skyscraper where smoking holes from the Gaians’ artillery guns suggested the enemy’s presence. With the binoculars, she immediately spotted distinct shadows darting across numerous windows.

She lowered the binoculars and handed them back. “You’ve been shooting from here for several minutes now?”

“Yes.”

“But they haven’t hit you with any return fire?”

He hesitated. “Not yet.”

She looked around, frowning. The spot they’d hollowed out in the stands provided some shelter, but … “But surely they can see you here.”

Every soldier shifted nervously. They knew they were sitting ducks.

The sergeant’s radio crackled and a voice announced that the commanders were evacuating the complex and to continue firing as a diversion.

She squinted at those distant, darting shadows, visible now that she knew where to look. Why would Hades soldiers be running around in front of windows like scared chickens? Why would they shoot holes in the empty north grandstand but not fire on the clearly visible artillery guns? She focused again on those smoking holes in the skyscrapers. Firing at the shadows accomplished nothing except wasting their ammo.

Wasting their ammo.

Her shoulders snapped back. “It’s a trick.”

Everyone looked at her.

“This is all a trick to make you waste shells.” She spun to the sergeant. “They can make more ammo but they want these guns. That’s why they’re firing at the stands over there but not at you directly—to scare you, to make you fire back. Those shadows in the windows are just illusions.”

The strategy was so simple: fire a few shots, scare the Gaians, then provide harmless targets for the Gaians to waste all their ammo on—simple illusions, the same kind she’d seen Kiev make. Once the Gaians ran out of shells, the Hades forces could approach safely. Samael didn’t want to lose any soldiers fighting the Gaians, not when his main focus was on keeping the Ras pinned down in their embassy.

“Do you know where they’re firing from?” she asked.

“No, they’re hiding it somehow. We don’t even know they’ve fired until it hits.”

She whirled back around, her eyes flashing over the nearby buildings. The Hades attackers were firing from somewhere close, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near their decoys. How were they hiding their position? An illusion like in the draconian valley? No, Samael wouldn’t waste that kind of magic on Gaians. Haemons couldn’t see magic. It would only take the most basic spells to fool them.

She took a deep breath in an attempt to relax. The Gaians couldn’t see magic, but she could. Reaching inward, she pulled on a touch of shading, letting the cold, vicious calm spread through her. Blinking quickly, she scanned their surroundings. Behind the south end of the ballpark, a multilevel parking garage attached to a tall office building butted against the field.

There. A red glow of magic emanating from one end of the parking garage, the second level from the top. An additional glow lit another location at the other corner of the garage, same level.

She grabbed the sergeant’s arm and pointed. “Do you see that parking garage? The second level from the top, both corners? Aim your guns for those two spots.”

He started to lift his binoculars. “But there’s nothing—”

“Trust me, they’re there. You’ll need something with lots of firepower for the first shot, to blast through any shields they have set up.”

The sergeant stared at her, then pointed at the two guns on the far left. “Load high explosive shells.”

The soldiers at the guns leaped into action, picking up shells the size of footballs and loading them into the chambers.

“As soon as the first shots hit,” she told the sergeant, “the other four need to fire immediately before the daemons can shield or teleport.”

“T-teleport?”

“These are reaper daemons. They can teleport. We need to catch them off guard and finish them before they can escape. If you have any spelled shells, that would be best.”

The sergeant drew himself up and started barking orders. The soldiers raced to the other four guns, prepping them to fire. Piper quickly backed out of the way, joining her father and uncle. None of them spoke as they watched the swift preparations. When the soldiers were in position, guns aimed for the parking garage, the sergeant turned to look at her.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

He faced his men and gave the command. “Fire!”

The other soldiers clapped their hands over their ears and she got hers up just in time. The two soldiers at the far-left guns yanked the cords. A sound like a hundred simultaneous cannon blasts almost shattered her eardrums. The giant guns jumped back from the recoil, smoke bursting from the barrels, the shells gone too fast to see. The air whistled, then they hit, fire and smoke erupting from the parking garage.

“Fire!”

The other four guns went off. Smoke filled the air, burning her nose. She held her hands over her ringing ears, squinting through watering eyes.

The shells hit one after another, sending massive chunks of debris flying. Fire burst outward, then the spelled shells triggered. Blades of magic spun in every direction, ripping through the concrete like butter. A massive chunk of one corner of the garage broke away, tumbling into the ballpark outfield. A flaming, twisting jeep hung on the edge of the hole before toppling out. It hit the ground and exploded. Angry flames engulfed the other corner of the parking garage.

“We got them!” one of the soldiers exclaimed. The others let out hoarse cheers.

“How did you know they were there?” the sergeant asked her. “Are there any others?”

“Just those two,” she said quickly. Two small teams to distract the Gaians and force them to waste their shells.

Her brow furrowed. Two squads wouldn’t be enough to steal the heavy artillery guns. Two teams weren’t enough to do anything, which meant they couldn’t be the only ones. Heavy, immobile artillery guns would be hard to steal, but mobile weapons wouldn’t.

She grabbed the sergeant’s arm again. “We need to get down to the jeeps!”

“What?”

“They’re here to take your equipment!”

The sergeant’s eyes went wide. He pointed at six soldiers. “Stay here to guard the guns. Taylor, report to the general. The rest of you, follow me!”

He led the way to the door, Piper on his heels. They ran down the stairs and back into the main level of the concourse. The sergeant charged around the bend toward the door that would take them down to the lower level, but a hundred soldiers jammed the concourse, blocking their path.

“What’s going on?” the sergeant demanded.

“They’ve blocked access to the lower level with some kind of shield!” someone yelled in response. “No one can break it and they’re slaughtering everyone trapped down there!”

Piper looked at the sergeant. “I need to get to that shield.”

“Let her through!” he yelled. He pushed into the crowd. Piper squeezed after him as he and his team shoved and elbowed their way toward the stairs. She barely noticed her father and uncle get stuck in the press of soldiers as she forged ahead, leaving them behind. By the time they reached the stairs, the soldiers had realized they were coming and squeezed together, opening a path. They ran down the stairs and into the wide corridor at the bottom.

At the end, the top of a shimmering, multi-colored shield filled the open, doublewide doorway. Gaians got out of their way as they sprinted to the doors, where a couple higher-ranking soldiers were arguing furiously.

She pushed past them and stopped in front of the shield. Yes, she’d seen something similar before: a dome shield used by reapers, similar to Lyre’s, that was practically indestructible—except for a hybrid haemon. Beyond it, bursts of red magic and the flash of firing guns revealed the Gaians trapped in the pseudo garage, fighting desperately for their lives.

She turned back to the corridor crowded with furious, helpless soldiers. “I can break this shield.”

Everyone was arguing and yelling, not listening. She balled her hands into fists.

“Hey!” she bellowed. “I can break this shield!”

The hall went quiet all at once. The group of officers spun toward her.

“We need a plan,” she said, talking fast and hoping no one would interrupt with questions about who she was. “Does everyone here know how to shield?”

“Everyone,” one of the officers answered.

“Okay. Daemons rely on magic so they’ll primarily attack that way. Keep your shields up. If these are reapers, they can teleport, and they like to teleport behind people, so everyone should pair up to guard each other’s backs. Do you have magical weapons?”

Several soldiers called out that they did.

“Those will do the most damage to groups, so don’t waste them on individuals. The Hades daemons want the equipment, so they won’t use excessive force around the gear. We spread out on either end of the room, using the vehicles for cover, and force the enemy into the center of the space.”

“Then we attack with the magical ammunition,” the same officer finished. He turned to his fellow officers and they exchanged swift instructions. In a blink, they were yelling orders, half of them pushing back down the corridor to take charge of the soldiers at the back and up the stairs. Thirty seconds later, the hall was quiet again, filled with a sense of readiness. Hands gripped weapons and magic made the air sizzle as the haemons put up protective shields.

All eyes were on her.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Stand by!” an officer called. He pointed two fingers at her, her signal to go.

She turned to the shield, calling on her magic. An orb of fire grew between her raised hands, blue and purple flames swirling together as orange light sparked and flashed where the two colors touched. She pulled it back, twisting the magic together even tighter, then smashed it into the shield.

The barrier burst in a flash of orange light, vanishing into nothing.

She dove through the opening and into the garage, bailing to one side of the doorway. Roaring soldiers charged through after her, splitting in opposite directions and ducking behind the vehicles, some firing shots with their guns, others tossing simple magic attacks. Piper tucked behind a jeep and scrambled to pull up her pant legs to get at the daggers sheathed in her boots. Yanking them free, she half-rose, peering around the tail lights.

Absolute chaos. Guns, magic, soldiers, and daemons. Running, darting, screaming, dying. Her head spun and she wished longingly for the clean mountain battle between the draconians and reapers, not this dark, airless concrete tomb.

The reapers hadn’t been prepared for this many Gaian soldiers to come at them. The strategy was working. The daemons didn’t want to damage the jeeps and were limiting their offensive magic. Paired up, the Gaians weren’t vulnerable to the enemy teleporting behind them in surprise attacks.

Without a gun and only short daggers, Piper stayed tucked behind the jeep, wrapped in a shield as debris and random bits of magic flew everywhere. The Hades soldiers were clustering in the center for defense, shielding against the bullets and magical attacks of the Gaians. Their shields were too strong for haemons, but not for the magical ammunition they’d provided the Gaians with. She lifted her head, searching for the specially armed soldiers, knowing they would strike at any moment.

Before they could, light flashed. A dome shield formed over the reapers, swirling in a faint rainbow of colors like oil on water. Shit! The magical ammunition wouldn’t break that shield.

She dropped her daggers and grabbed the jeep’s tailgate, pulling herself on top of it. Lifting her hands, she formed another swirling orb of blue and purple fire. Her magic was like a beacon, lighting the room. All enemy eyes turned to her.

Gasping, she flung her blast at the shield. In the same instant, red magic shot from within the dome, straight for her.

Her attack hit the shield at the same time their attack hit her. Orange light lit the room as the shield went down, and their magic slammed into her, hurling her off the jeep. She expected a bone-breaking impact against concrete, but instead she crashed into several bodies. Hands grabbed her, lowering her to the floor as guns went off and red light blinded her. Shouts and pounding feet, the sound of scuffling and more gunshots, the sizzle of magic. Then the room quieted.

She stared dazedly, trying to catch back up to reality. Several blurry faces hovered above her, including the sergeant from the artillery team.

“Are you hurt? Is she hurt?”

Someone tugged the shredded mess of her leather top aside.

“What—what is this?”

Fingers tapped at her ryujin top. How many times had her clothes saved her life now? That attack from the reapers had probably been meant to slice her in half.

“Did it work?” she gasped.

“You broke their shield,” the sergeant told her. “We got some, the rest disappeared—teleported.”

She struggled to sit up. They helped her, backing up a little.

“I’m okay,” she assured them. She started to stand and they quickly jumped up, helping her rise. Once she had her feet under her, she looked around. More than half the soldiers had gathered nearby and were watching her.

“She’s fine,” the sergeant announced.

The mass of soldiers looked unanimously relieved. They continued to watch her … waiting. She self-consciously shrugged out of her charred, torn shirt and dropped it on the floor. Her shimmering top was the only color in a sea of black fatigues.

“Who are you?” the sergeant asked.

Another voice answered before she could.

“Walter has already informed us of her identity.” The man walked into the garage, the rest of the officers from the pressroom following him. Walter trailed after them, nervously eyeing the smoking results of the battle. The sergeant and the other officers who’d been in the hallway saluted sharply at the new arrivals.

“What I want to know, Miss Griffiths,” the general said, his gaze on Piper, “is why are you here?”

“Uh, well …” She straightened and met his eyes. “You won’t like it much, but we need your help.”

She stood in front of the lowest row of seats in the grandstand, taking deep breaths of the cool night air.

Convincing the Gaians to join forces with the Ra family hadn’t been as hard as she’d thought. The soldiers hadn’t needed to hear more than the words “defeat Hades” to agree to whatever she was proposing. They were sick of being on the losing end of every fight and they weren’t about to pass up a chance to get revenge for the massacre of their previous command staff.

The commanders had taken a bit more persuading, but not much. They knew they were losing badly against Hades. After the way she alone had turned the tide of the fight, mentioning how advantageous it would be for them to have daemons assisting them had been a winning point. With a little help, they could use their dangerous weapons to their full potential against Hades.

Footsteps crunched over debris, making her look up. Quinn and Calder came down the stairs behind her to join her in front of the ballpark.

“A dozen Ra soldiers are on the way,” Calder said, giving the radiophone in his hand a little wave. “They’ll assess the Gaians’ resources and help them plan an attack strategy to coordinate with the Ras’ plans.”

“And will the commanders take orders from a daemon?” she asked.

“We’ll make sure they do,” Quinn said with that composed, unyielding confidence that had won him the job of Head Consul at a relatively young age. Mediation was his job; he would keep the peace between the Gaians and the Ras.

She nodded and started to speak, but a troop of Gaians marched past them from the field toward the end of the grandstand. Every soldier waved or called a greeting to her. She waved back, forcing a smile. The whole damn army somehow knew she was the reason they’d won, and the large scale gratitude she was receiving was a bit overwhelming.

She turned back to her father and uncle. “So everything here is under control?”

“Yes,” Calder said. “We’ll ensure everything stays on track.”

Engine rumbling, a jeep drove across the patchy brown grass of the field and stopped below her spot on the stands. Half a dozen soldiers grinned up at her. The passenger seat of the jeep was empty, waiting for her.

She huffed. “Looks like my ride is ready to go. Twenty-four hours from now, we attack Asphodel. Someone from the Underworld will meet you here in about twelve hours to confirm the final details for the coordinated attacks.”

Calder stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, then passed her to Quinn for his hug.

“Stay safe, Pipes,” Calder said, his voice a little gruff. “And stay close to your friends.”

“I will.”

With one more embrace for both of them, she jumped over the rail and dropped into the passenger seat. They rolled into motion as the soldiers introduced themselves and she gave them directions to the ley line out beyond her former Consulate—a longer drive, but a safer choice than the closer one. As they raced through the streets, she watched the buildings pass by and wondered how much of downtown would still be standing in twenty-four hours … and how many Gaians would die because she had convinced them to join the coming battle.

But the city wouldn’t have survived the daemon conflict anyway and the Gaians would have been wiped out sooner or later. In twenty-four hours, they would all risk everything for the chance to defeat Hades for good.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It was raining when she came through the ley line into the charred clearing yet again. The sky had just begun to lighten into twilight after the long Underworld night. After activating her signal spell, she spoke briefly with a handful of draconian warriors that flew over to meet her. They’d been assigned to keep watch over the line for anything suspicious and to potentially pick off any surviving stragglers from the defeated Hades army. She was glad they’d been warned she would be coming through; it would have sucked to get blasted by her own side on arrival.

Before she could ask them what they knew about the war preparation, the power of the ley line blipped. Seiya walked out of the line, looking around with Zala perched on her shoulder. Spotting Piper and the other draconians, she hurried over.

Piper blinked in confusion. “Where did you come from?”

“Tenryu opened a new ley line just outside the draconian city so we can move warriors quickly. I’ll show you the way.”

“Oh. I guess that’s good. Where are Ash and Lyre?”

“Back at the city getting things ready. I don’t think either of them have slept since you left.” Seiya smiled briefly before her somber expression took over. “Kiev told us about your plan. Did it work?”

“It did. I arranged everything with Miysis and the Gaians.”

“The Gaians too?” Relief washed over Seiya’s face. “Thank the Moirai. Ash needs to know right away. Let’s go.”

She took Piper’s hand and they approached the ley line. Piper prepared herself for another jump through the Void. Travelling the ley lines was intense, difficult, and dangerous at the best of times. Doing it twice in five minutes was probably pretty stupid, but she didn’t have much choice. Holding tight to Seiya’s hand, she wrapped her mind in protective magic as they stepped into the warm, rushing power of the line.

As they came out of the screaming oblivion of the Void, the world returned in a burst of sights and sensations—mainly the rain pattering on her head and shoulders. Piper sucked in a breath, stumbling from the disorientation. Seiya steadied her before releasing her hand. Piper looked around, surprised to see they were at the bottom of a steep, dangerous-looking cliff.

“We’re about a mile away,” Seiya said. “Zala will carry you.”

As the dragonet transformed, Piper frowned again at the cliff, not liking the way it leaned over them. “This is an odd place to put the line.”

“Tenryu picked the spot so he could bury the line in an emergency.”

That explained the precarious cliff above. She hurriedly climbed onto the dragon’s back, eager to get away from the spot. Seiya took off, leading the way through the darkness. With the heavy cover of rain clouds, the twilight was darker than it should have been and all Piper could do was hold on to Zala’s back and try not to shiver too violently. Her dragon scale clothing was waterproof, but the rain was still cold.

Zala eventually descended and the looming shape of a mountain became visible. Seiya landed on an unobtrusive ledge, a much smaller one than Tenryu had chosen when arriving at the city, and ducked into a crevice. Zala landed too, almost too big to fit on the ledge. Piper slid off her back and squeezed into the gap after Seiya, leaving Zala to transform and follow them.

Seiya led her through the maze of corridors inside the mountain. The murmur of voices reached them and Seiya pushed through a curtained doorway. In the room beyond, the draconians from Asphodel were scattered around the space, talking quietly. Only Ash, Raum, Kiev, and Mahala were absent.

“Piper!”

A dark-haired blur shot for her, crashing into her middle and hugging her tightly.

“Hey, Raisa,” she gasped, hugging the girl back. “Can’t breathe.”

Raisa let go and stepped away, a huge grin stretching across her face. “You’re back!”

“Yep. And I didn’t even almost die this time.”

Raisa giggled as Ivria and Coby came over to join them, the latter having to first heave herself out of a wooden chair, her hand pressed to her bulging belly. Piper hugged them both.

“Well?” Coby demanded. “Did that Ra prince agree to the plan?”

“He did. And the Gaians will fight too.”

Coby grinned. “Excellent. We shouldn’t have to do all the work.”

She didn’t look too shocked about the news of Gaians agreeing to fight beside daemons, but draconians weren’t overly familiar with Earth politics.

Seiya touched Piper’s shoulder, drawing her attention. “I’ll get Ash.” She lowered her voice. “See if you can convince him to sleep, okay?”

Piper nodded and Seiya strode out, Zala once again riding on her shoulder. She turned back to Coby and Ivria.

“What’s been happening here?” she asked them.

“Oh, well.” Coby shrugged. “They’re all busy bees, rushing all over the place. The warriors are preparing supplies, planning maneuvers, reviewing the maps of Asphodel that Ash and Raum drew up, all that kind of stuff. Everyone else is preparing to move. The elders decided that it wasn’t safe to keep living here regardless of what happens in Asphodel.”

“It looks like they have several emergency shelters prepared,” Ivria said. “They’re splitting into three groups and they’re moving out at sunrise.”

“Which group are you all going with?” Piper asked, her gaze running over the mostly barren room. Netia and little Yana were playing some sort of game in the corner, without even a rug or blanket to sit on. “And why are you all sitting in here instead of helping them get ready?”

“They don’t want our help,” Coby replied with a scowl.

Piper stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“We haven’t been able to determine how Samael tracked us through the mountains,” Ivria said quietly. “For all we know, we could lead Hades directly to one of the draconian shelters. We can’t risk it.”

“But they took away all your belongings,” Piper said indignantly, gesturing at the women’s new garb. “How could Samael possibly still track you?”

“We don’t know, but they don’t want to risk it. And to be honest, neither do we.”

Piper stopped herself from looking at Jezel and Sivan, sitting alone in a corner, looking as dire and unpleasant as always.

“So you’ll, what?” she asked. “Just wait here all alone?”

Coby shrugged again. “For now.”

Piper huffed angrily but before she could respond, the curtain to the room swished open as Seiya returned.

Ash strode in after her. He’d left off his black armor and wore his more typical draconian warrior clothing. Her heart leaped at the sight of him and she relaxed, letting go of tension she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. His eyes, marred by dark circles, flashed over her in a fast, reassuring glance that she was unharmed.

Lyre came in behind him, also dressed in the same black gear. She wouldn’t have thought the incubus could look menacing, but a little thrill of intimidation ran down her spine. His face was too still and cold, hard and unyielding as though his skin had become armor itself.

Then a welcoming smile curved his lips and he was once again the incubus she knew.

The three of them walked straight to Piper. With difficulty, she restrained herself from jumping into Ash’s arms. Zwi appeared on his shoulder—she must have been hanging on his back—and hopped over to Piper’s shoulder, nuzzling her cheek affectionately. Piper stroked the dragonet’s mane.

“Seiya said you convinced him,” Ash said without preamble. She might have been offended by his lack of a greeting if she hadn’t known just how important the answer was.

“I did. It took some talking, but he agreed to it with a few conditions. Miysis doesn’t have enough troops on Earth, but he and the Gaians will be coordinating a simultaneous attack on the Hades troops surrounding the embassy. Miysis is confident they can trap and destroy the army.

“The Gaians?” Lyre said incredulously. “You have been busy.”

“Can we trust the Gaians?” Ash asked. “Can they actually work together?”

“My father and Uncle Calder are overseeing everything to make sure both sides stay on track.”

“Okay,” he said. “We’re on schedule. The evacuation starts at sunup and we’ll be ready to leave for Asphodel by the eclipse.”

Seiya gave Piper a meaningful look. Ah, right. Convincing Ash he needed to sleep for his own good would be as effective as telling a boulder to move, but if she needed to rest … All she had to do was think about sleep to bring on a long yawn. Zwi’s jaws opened in her own sympathetic yawn, flashing her tiny pointed teeth to the whole room.

“Ugh, I’m exhausted,” Piper said, not having to feign the fatigue in her voice; she’d gotten a bit of sleep at the church but it hadn’t been restful. “Is there somewhere quiet I can lie down?”

“Of course,” Ash said, scooping Zwi onto his shoulder before putting his hand on the small of her back. “There are some rooms this way.”

He guided her out into the corridor, Seiya and Lyre following. Just before the curtain swung shut behind them, Raisa waved a sad goodbye, standing forlornly in the barren stone room. Piper came to an abrupt stop, her anger over the draconians’ segregation sweeping back in.

She turned to Lyre. “Is it possible to put a tracking spell inside a person?”

“Not that I know of,” he said, surprised by the unexpected question. “I checked them all just in case. I can’t detect anything from any of them. I even checked the dragonets. The spell is either very subtle, or it’s embedded somewhere we haven’t thought of, or both.”

“They took everything, our weapons and clothes.” Seiya folded her arms, her hands gripping her upper arms tightly. “I can’t begin to guess how Samael did it.”

“Everything,” Piper mumbled, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples with her fingertips.

Ash pressed gently on her back, encouraging her to resume walking. “You need sleep, Piper.”

Her eyes flew open. “Not everything.”

She pulled away from him and pushed back through the curtain. The others looked around in surprise as she strode in. She walked past them to where Netia and Yana sat playing. Yana looked up with one wide eye, the other covered with a patch, and hugged her little toy dragonet to her chest. Piper dropped into a crouch in front of the girl.

“Yana,” she said gently. “Can I see your dragonet?”

Yana clutched the toy harder.

“Please, Yana?”

Ivria knelt beside her daughter and put an arm around her, smiling through her terse expression. “Piper won’t hurt Lala. She promises.”

“I promise not to hurt Lala,” Piper said solemnly.

With a quivering lower lip, the girl reluctantly held out her toy. Piper took it and stood. Ash, Seiya, and Lyre stood behind her, all three equally grim.

Piper held out the toy to Lyre. “Did you check this?”

“No,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t even think …”

He took the toy and turned it over in his hands, his eyes darkening to black in an instant. The little wings flopped this way and that as he slowly rotated it. He pulled a small dagger from a sheath up his sleeve and slit a seam in the toy’s belly.

Yana screamed, hysterical sobs overtaking her. Ivria clutched her daughter, her eyes locked on Lyre. He dug his fingers into the belly of the toy, then pulled them out. Between his finger and thumb, he held up a marble-sized steel pellet.

The draconians were utterly silent, all of them staring at the pellet.

“He used the child,” Lyre snarled. “Who would think to check a child’s toy?”

His hand clenched around the steel marble. He held the toy out to Ivria. “It’s clean now.”

She accepted it, her eyes shining with a film of tears as she held her daughter.

Coby gripped Ivria’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have known,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault. It isn’t Yana’s fault either.”

“It’s Samael,” Seiya said fiercely. “He’s the one to blame for everything, and we will make him pay.”

Ivria nodded mutely. Yana continued to cry as though she’d just watched a real dragonet get disemboweled in front of her. Lyre cast a guilty look at the distraught girl and backed up toward the door. With an apologetic wave, Piper followed.

Out in the corridor with Ash and Seiya, she looked at Lyre. “Can you destroy the spell?”

“I could, but I was thinking of giving it to Tiran and letting him fly it out into the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh. Yes, that would be better.” One more little diversion for Samael.

He pocketed the spell. “For now, weren’t you going to get some rest?”

“Right, yeah. Which way, Ash?”

He led them a dozen paces down the corridor, then made a left turn into a short hall lined with wooden doors. They were rough and kind of ugly, but more substantial than curtains. He pushed open a door to reveal a cot and blanket inside the tiny room.

“You can sleep here,” he said. “I’ll send someone with some food for you.”

“I have more to tell you about the Ras and stuff,” she said. “You should stay with me for a bit.”

He frowned. “But—”

“We can hold the fort,” Lyre said, wisely not mentioning the word “sleep.” “And I’ll get them to bring you both some food. You haven’t eaten in a while.”

“I can—”

Seiya stepped closer and put her hands on his back, pushing him through the door and into the room with Piper.

“Just relax, Ash,” she told her brother as she grabbed the door. “They don’t need you for the evacuation and that’s all everyone will be focused on for a while.”

“For a while?” he repeated. “I’m not—”

“We’ll see you in a bit,” his sister said firmly and pulled the door shut in his face.

“Hey,” he began in annoyance, reaching for the door.

Piper grabbed his wrist and spun him around to face her. She hooked her other hand over the back of his neck and stood on her tiptoes to press her mouth against his. He abandoned his attempt for the door and wrapped his arms around her, returning the kiss with interest.

When he lifted his head, he gave her a suspicious look. “I’m starting to think I’m being manipulated.”

“Maybe a little,” she said with a smile. “I missed you and I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep knowing you’re out there running yourself into the ground.”

He sighed. “I don’t have time to sleep.”

“Well, at least sit with me for a bit.”

She took his arm and led him toward the cot. After pushing him down to sit on the blankets, she unbuckled her myriad of weapons and stacked them into the corner. Then she sat beside him and curled up against his side. As he put his arms around her, she relaxed even more, closing her eyes as she inhaled his scent.

“Tell me what happened on Earth,” he said.

She told him everything, from her conversation with her father all the way up to the battle with the Gaians. He listened without comment until she was finished, then drew her even closer.

“When Kiev came back and told us what you were planning, I couldn’t imagine it succeeding.” He ran a hand over her hair. “I can’t believe you did it. You’ve shifted the odds in our favor more than I thought possible.”

“I just wish I could help in Asphodel,” she mumbled, heat rising in her cheeks. “Without the Sahar, I’m not much use. I’m getting pretty good with my magic, but I run out way before a draconian does.”

“You’ve already made all the difference.”

She leaned back so she could meet his eyes. “Do you really think you can win? That you and the draconians can destroy Asphodel and Chrysalis?”

“We will. We have to.” His tone suggested he wouldn’t allow any other outcome. Too much depended on their success.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she whispered, knowing even as she asked the question that he wouldn’t. He was always too reckless in a fight, more concerned about protecting others than his own safety. “I can’t lose you. I can’t survive it.”

“Yes, you can,” he murmured, his fingertips touching her cheek. “You can survive anything. Loss can be like chains holding you in place or a fire pushing you onward. We each choose every day what it will be to us.”

She closed her hand around his wrist, holding his hand against her cheek. “Don’t make me choose. Don’t make me go through that.”

He smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in it. “I’ll be careful.”

She clutched his wrist harder, all too aware that he hadn’t made any promises. He wouldn’t promise to survive because he didn’t know if he would.

He gently withdrew his hand and put it into his pocket, pulling something out. He hesitated, clutching the object, then uncurled his fingers. The Sahar it its amethyst casing sat in his palm. She looked at it, then at him.

He exhaled slowly. “I think you should take this with you tomorrow.”

She didn’t reach for it. “Didn’t Lyre tell you what Natania tried to do to me?”

“He did. He also said you were convinced you could hold out against Natania long enough to make a difference … if worst came to worst.”

Horror rose up in her until it clogged her lungs. “You don’t think we can win tomorrow?”

“I do think we can win. But with Samael …” His eyebrows drew together, and for the first time, he let her see the shadow of dread and fear he was so careful to hide around everyone else. “With Samael, you can never be sure you have the upper hand.”

She still didn’t take the Sahar. “I don’t think I can win against Natania. I would be more of a liability than help, even if I could control it for a short time.”

He took her hand and placed the amethyst in her palm. “You’re stronger than Natania could ever be.”

Her fingers closed around the gem. “I’ll take it with me, but I won’t use it—not unless there’s no other choice.”

That shadow still haunted his eyes. The responsibility of hundreds—thousands—of lives rested on his shoulders and as much as he was projecting unshaken confidence, he knew they might fail. By the time the eclipse started, they would be attacking Asphodel, unassailable and undefeated. Every draconian that entered that valley might die—including him. Every reaper in Asphodel would be trying to kill him. This might be the last private moment they had together.

“Ash,” she whispered, “you know I love you desperately, right?”

He drew her face up and kissed her, his mouth hot and demanding. Heat dove through her middle and she tossed the Sahar aside so she could slide both hands into his hair.

“You know you are my heart and soul,” he murmured against her mouth.

She pressed her mouth frantically to his, kissing him until she couldn’t breathe. They fell back onto the cot, tangled together, holding each other painfully tight as though afraid to let go. She couldn’t lose him, but she couldn’t protect him and she couldn’t stop him. He had to do this.

Wrapped in his arms, she pressed her face against his chest and hoped he wouldn’t notice the tears that escaped her control. She would rather die than lose him, but if things went badly tomorrow, they would both lose far more than just each other.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

At the end of the valley stretching before her, the orange light of torches illuminated the shapes of buildings. The empty, rolling fields that filled the rest of the valley and the jagged mountains that surrounded it were invisible in the opaque darkness. The deep gorge that curved around the far side of the estate before winding away through the mountains was just as indiscernible. Heavy gray clouds had rolled in shortly before the eclipse and the rain continued to fall, a light but steady shower. The cold wind tugged at her dairokkan, sending little shivers up her spine from the odd sensation.

Beside Piper on the edge of the cliff, faintly discernible in the dark, Lyre nervously spun his chain of spelled gems between his fingers, staring at the distant lights of Asphodel. His jaw was tight, muscles flexing in his cheeks. Like her, he wore black draconian clothing and an assortment of weapons. No sword though; instead, he carried lots of daggers and throwing knives. She was heavily armed as well, and underneath her dark outerwear, she still wore her ryujin garb—too brightly colored to wear on its own. Zwi, perched on Piper’s shoulder, shivered in the rain.

On her other side, Tenryu clung to the rocky ledge, flexing his wings with clear impatience. Ash had gone back through the brand new ley line behind them to bring through the first group of draconian warriors, which would then bring through another group and so on. Tenryu had created the line just on the other side of the peak behind them, on a sheer rock face that could only be accessed by daemons with wings.

Tenryu rumbled irritably, his tail snapping to one side and smacking a boulder so hard it almost tipped off the edge of the cliff. The dragon rather sheepishly pushed it back into place with his back leg. Piper pretended not to notice.

The ley line fluctuated as draconians came through. It was beginning.

No, it had already begun—on Earth. Just before the eclipse, they’d received confirmation that the Ras and the Gaians had launched their attack on the Hades forces surrounding the Ra embassy. Samael probably didn’t even know yet.

The minutes passed too slowly as warriors flew over the peak and landed on the cliff and nearby rocky mountainside, clinging to the slope wherever they could find purchase. Their numbers grew until over two hundred draconians and almost as many dragonets clustered on the mountain, waiting in eerie silence. The last of the warriors had gone with the evacuees—their only protection should the attack on Asphodel fail.

She looked over her shoulder, eyes searching for Raum, Seiya, and Mahala. She couldn’t make them out in the black night, but they were there somewhere. They knew Asphodel best and would each be leading a small company. Ash would be leading the fourth one. With so many draconians concentrated in one place, she probably should have passed out from the mass Nightmare Effect, but the combination of darkness, rain, and her ongoing desensitization limited its influence on her.

She turned, careful of the sheer drop only a step in front of her. Kiev grinned nervously from his spot behind her, ten draconian warriors arranged behind him. He was leading her team: the one that would help Lyre break into the bowels of the Chrysalis building.

Zwi chirped softly just before Ash landed beside her. That black armor plate once again covered the lower half of his face. Their eyes met, a thousand unspoken words passing between them. She reached out and gripped his hand. He squeezed back, then pulled her close and boosted her onto Tenryu’s back. She grabbed the spines on his shoulders and pulled herself the rest of the way up. Ash tossed Lyre up after her before leaping onto the dragon’s back. Tenryu was so massive there was plenty of room for the three of them. She and Lyre crouched, getting a good grip while Ash stood between them. She felt the soundless buzz of telepathy between him and Tenryu.

Tenryu rose to his full height, lifting his head as his great wings spread wide. Ash raised a hand. The four companies and Kiev’s team came to attention, wings tight to their backs and eyes on their leader. Piper’s heart leaped, clogging her throat. This was it.

With a downward slash of his arm, Ash signaled for them to move out. Tenryu sprang off the cliff, wings sweeping down to catch the air. Kiev and his warriors followed in the dragon’s slipstream. Behind them, the rest of the draconians took flight in a thunder of hundreds of wings.

As soon as they were moving, her anxiety blew away with the wind. A calm, intense focus fell over her. She thought of her first visit to Asphodel, facing memories she’d long since buried. The terror of the bastille, Samael’s cold cruelty and manipulation, Ash’s pain as he was tortured to punish her, the victims in the Chrysalis building enduring horrible experimentations.

They were going to stop all of that. End it all after five hundred years of unchecked power.

The lights and shapes of Asphodel grew brighter and clearer through the rain. Elegant, old-world buildings connected by courtyards and walkways filled the center of the town-like estate, the windows and footpaths brightly lit with spells, streetlamps, or torches. More practical structures, like the Chrysalis building, surrounded the center on three sides, and an expanse of military barracks sprawled over the remaining space within the estate walls.

Tenryu locked his wings in a glide, swooping lower. The draconians followed his lead, the four companies splitting as they drew nearer to the estate.

Lyre leaned forward. “What the hell are those? Those towers?”

Piper squinted, confused. The perimeter of the estate was enclosed in a high wall interspersed with narrow watchtowers, but they’d expected that. Then she saw it: four squat towers, one in each quadrant surrounding the center. She’d only flown over Asphodel once before but she was certain those short, ugly towers hadn’t been there before.

“I don’t know,” Ash answered tersely. “Let’s hope we don’t find out.”

Piper clutched Tenryu’s spines. Even if the towers were some sort of new weapon, they couldn’t stop. Besides, what kind of weapon could possibly stand a chance against Tenryu and Ash?

The great dragon tilted his wings, banking toward the south side of the estate. Ash’s and Seiya’s companies and Kiev’s small group followed him, while the other two companies peeled off toward the north end. They were closing in fast, Tenryu’s sights set on the encircling wall. They couldn’t attack the city yet. First they had to take care of the wards that protected it—the same wards Piper, Ash, and Seiya had been forced to detour around when they’d escaped Asphodel months ago.

An alarm blared, audible over the sound of the wind and beating wings. They’d been seen.

Tenryu folded his wings and dove for the nearest watchtower. Blue light lit the cracks between his scales and fire sparked to life, trailing off his wings. He opened his jaws wide and unleashed a torrent of blue fire. It exploded against the watchtower, annihilating the entire structure.

An explosion from the north side told her the other draconians had successfully attacked the opposite perimeter. They were using the spells Lyre had created, specifically designed to disrupt the ward spells on the towers.

Tenryu shot for the next tower. Blasts of red magic flew at him and Piper ducked low. The magic burst harmlessly on his scales and he loosed an ear-splitting roar as he expelled a second blue inferno. The tower crumbled.

One more. According to Lyre, the wards on the quadrant would fail if they destroyed three consecutive towers. If they couldn’t break the wards, they couldn’t attack the estate. Beating his great wings, Tenryu rocketed toward the third tower. One more blast of fire and it fell in a cascade of blackened wood and stone.

The sizzle of magic spread across her skin as the ward broke. The draconians roared a battle cry and Tenryu banked sharply, shooting over Asphodel where the wards had once been. Below them, figures ran frantically for cover as one company broke off, led by Seiya. Ash’s company and Kiev’s team followed Tenryu as he blasted random buildings below them while arching toward the sprawling structure that was Chrysalis.

The building loomed as Tenryu descended. He loosed another fiery blast, ripping the roof open in a burst of blue flames that quickly turned orange as flammable materials ignited. Piper grabbed Zwi off her shoulder, holding the dragonet tight. Ash’s head turned and his eyes, black and intense, locked on hers.

“Don’t die,” she said hoarsely. The wind snatched her voice away but she knew he’d heard her.

Kiev swept over her head, grabbing the simple leather harness she wore. He lifted her free from Tenryu as another draconian pulled Lyre into the air. They and nine more draconians swept away from Tenryu as the dragon arched away from Chrysalis, engulfing a few more buildings in flames as he went, causing as much chaos as possible and disguising the main target of his attack path.

As Tenryu and the company of draconians sped toward the barracks, Kiev and his team dove for the brand new hole in the Chrysalis roof. They dropped through the flames and into a dark, scorched hallway. Kiev set her on the floor and landed beside her. The others clustered behind them. This wasn’t the massive room full of humming equipment she’d seen the first time she’d broken into Chrysalis; that room must be at the other end of the building.

Only once the noise outside was muffled did she realize how loud it was—the blaring alarms, the yells and screams of the Asphodel residents, the shouts of the draconians directing movements. Inside, more shouting and panicked cries sounded from elsewhere in the building. Hopefully the Chrysalis workers were fleeing. That was the plan, anyway.

Her heart hammered with adrenaline. They needed to move fast. She turned expectantly to Lyre.

He stepped forward, shimmering out of glamour. She averted her eyes from his impossible beauty before it fogged her wits; for that reason, she was the only female on their team. She had the slight advantage of having a lot of practice resisting his advances.

Pulling his bow off his shoulder, he selected a golden arrow and looked back at the draconians. “Remember, once we get to the basement level, don’t hit anything with magic. Most surfaces are defensively spelled.”

He started forward at a brisk trot, Piper flanking him on one side and Kiev on the other. She pushed Zwi up onto her shoulder, letting the dragonet cling in place on her own; Zwi was her only connection to Ash and she couldn’t lose the dragonet. They rushed down a hall, then another, encountering no one. Lyre led them unerringly, his familiarity with every step he took obvious to the whole team.

The first person they ran into was a daemon in a white lab coat, running away down the hall. Lyre put an arrow between his shoulder blades before Piper even had her sword fully drawn. She kept it out, holding it in a white-knuckled grip as they headed down a staircase. They exited the stairwell straight into the bright, spacious reception area—and it was far from empty.

Daemons, a few in glamour but most not, were running for the main doors, so focused on getting out of the building after Tenryu’s attack that many didn’t notice the draconians rushing into their midst. Then someone yelled a warning, and most daemons, with a single panicked glance, redoubled their efforts to get out. But a handful turned, preparing to do battle.

An arrow from Lyre’s bow took out the nearest one, and then the draconians surged past him to meet their foes. Dragonets transformed in bursts of black magic, charging the daemons.

“Keep going,” Kiev yelled over the din.

Lyre ran across the foyer, heading for the opposite end with Piper behind him. As they darted past the battling daemons, one of the fleeing lab-coated men turned on Piper, his eyes flashing over her teal scales and dairokkan. Her sword whipped out, slashing across his belly. He staggered back and she kept running, right on Lyre’s heels.

As they shoved through white doors and into a dark, steel stairwell, a titanic detonation obliterated every other sound. The ground shook, the staircase creaking and groaning. She grabbed the railing for balance, Zwi clinging to her shoulder.

“Holy shit,” she gasped. “Was that Ash and Tenryu?”

Zwi chirped an affirmative.

She breathed a sigh of relief that Ash was still safe. Or, if not safe, so far unharmed.

Lyre hurried down the stairs, hopping the last few. Piper and Kiev followed, four draconians and their dragonets trailing after them. The other six were still in the foyer, keeping anyone from following them. At the bottom of the stairs, a reinforced steel door blocked their path. She knew from experience that it was warded; it had kept Zwi out the last time Piper had gone through it.

She and Kiev turned to face the other direction, guarding Lyre as he crouched in front of the door and pressed both hands to the steel. Magic crackled around him.

Red light flashed, blasting him backward.

“Lyre!” She jumped to his side, grabbing his shoulder.

He shrugged her hand off, growling profanity under his breath. “Hold on, I’ve got this.”

He put his hands on the door again. A strange hissing sound rushed out from it and the latch popped. He shoved it open. The room on the other side held a large desk, illuminated by a single lamp. Three halls led off it, labeled with clear signage: Examination Rooms, Equipment & Supplies, and Subject Occupancy.

Piper shivered as she followed Lyre inside. Her memories of this room were not good ones, even compared to the rest of her Asphodel visit. Her eyes were drawn to the Subject Occupancy hall, where she had witnessed the horrific experiments being conducted on daemons before finding Ash chained up in the last room.

Lyre rushed behind the desk and laid his hands on the blank wall behind it. Piper, Kiev, and the other draconians clustered nervously in the center of the room, waiting. Lyre stood, unmoving, the tension stiffening his shoulders obvious and worrisome.

After a long minute, air whooshed like a seal releasing and a crack in the shape of a wide doorway appeared. He pushed on the wall in the center and it sank back then slid to the side, leaving a dark, rectangular opening. Creating a small, floating spot of light, he walked into the darkness. Piper hurried after him, clutching her sword, Kiev on her heels.

The steel walls were streaked with lines of rust. The air smelled of damp mold as they left the main basement level behind. Stairs appeared, dropping a dozen steps before turning and dropping again, then again. Kiev was so close he was almost stepping on her; Ash probably wasn’t the only draconian who hated being underground. Lyre led them, his light bobbing above his head, his bow and an arrow in his hands.

They came to the bottom of the stairs. A wide metal door blocked their path, lacking any kind of lock or handle.

“Is this the vault?” Piper whispered.

“No.” Lyre stepped up to the steel barricade. “But we’re close.”

Magic vibrated from the door as he approached it. Before he could touch it, glowing green lines appeared across the steel: a huge circle filled with dozens of smaller, interlocking circles containing geometric lines and symbols. As soon as they appeared, they began to move. The large outer circle turned clockwise and the inner circles spun too, some clockwise, some counterclockwise, all moving together like a complex system of gears. The symbol in the center of each circle turned over and over, fast or slow depending on the circle.

At the same time the pattern on the door appeared, a glowing green ring materialized beneath the feet of each person standing in front of the door.

Lyre stepped back, the circle under his feet moving with him. He craned his neck, eyes flashing over the rotating pattern.

“What is—” she began nervously.

He held up a hand, the demand for silence clear. His gaze moved from circle to circle and the veins in his clenched jaw stood out. As he stood staring at it, the green color of the lines gradually shifted to a yellow glow that soon turned orange. The rings under their feet morphed colors at the same rate.

“Why is it changing color?” Kiev whispered to Piper.

“When it turns red, we all die,” Lyre said flatly.

Her eyes shot down to the orange circle surrounding her boots.

“I can figure this out,” he muttered. “I should know—ah!”

Unceremoniously dropping his bow and arrow, he lunged forward and touched a hand to one spinning symbol. It lit green instantly. He stretched out the other hand and laid it on a second symbol. It turned green too.

But the rest of the lines kept darkening, shifting from bright orange to the reddish orange of flames.

“Shit,” Lyre hissed. “Piper!”

She leaped to his side.

“Do you see the small symbol like a starburst by my left knee?”

Heart pounding, she dropped to a crouch, eyes scouring the glowing lines. It was so hard to see with everything moving. She squinted as the color dipped firmly into red territory. There: a tiny starburst in the center of one of the smallest circles.

She pointed. “This one?”

“Yes! Touch it—only the starburst, nothing else.”

Her heart rate kicked up. The lines grew brighter red and hissed ominously as she reached out two fingers and pressed them to the center of the starburst. The hot metal singed her fingertips.

All the spinning stopped and every line flashed back to green before fading away. The rings around their feet disappeared too. Lyre let out a long breath and pushed gently on the door. It swung open a few inches on soundless hinges. He backed up a step, then dropped to a crouch and put both hands over his face, inhaling and exhaling with deliberate precision.

“Lyre?” She crouched beside him, touching his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely from behind his hands. “Just need to breathe for a moment. That was too close for comfort.”

“What was it?”

“A puzzle,” he mumbled, rubbing his face once before lowering his hands. “It shouldn’t have taken me that long to solve it.”

A puzzle for a master weaver, she was betting. Something that only the experts at Chrysalis could solve, effectively keeping everyone else out. She didn’t want to know what the spell would have done to them if Lyre hadn’t solved it in time.

The incubus picked up his discarded bow and arrow, dropped the arrow back into the quiver, and glanced back at the others. “Don’t touch anything in this room.”

The draconians nodded fervently, still shaken by Lyre’s reaction to disarming the door and how close they’d come to dying from magic none of them understood. With his free hand, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked into the room beyond.

The walls of the giant rectangular space were part rough stone and part steel pillars that disappeared into the darkness. A handful of heavy steel doors lined the walls, but a pair of massive … massive things dominated the space. The tower-like devices were twice her height, metal frames with wiring that twisted into thick lines and coils. Bundles of electrical lines ran along the floor, disappearing into the dark back half of the room where the steady rumble of generators echoed.

The two tall, narrow contraptions faced each other, and between them ran a thin line of twisting, rippling green light.

She stared at the writhing cord of light and sensation scraped under her skin. It was like the rushing, flowing power of a ley line but … wrong. Just all wrong. She understood what Tenryu had been sensing. How could she not have sensed it sooner? It made every hair on her body stand on end.

“The vaults are over here,” Lyre said, turning toward one of the steel doors. “We’ll take care of the records before we deal with—”

He broke off, spinning to face the twin ley line device.

A man appeared out of the darkness, strolling casually beneath the twisting rope of ley line power. He stopped in front of it, his hands tucked casually in the pockets of his white lab coat. Pale blond hair, golden eyes, gorgeous. If Lyre had been in glamour, this incubus would be his perfect doppelganger—except Lyre’s eyes had never looked so cruel and flat. Dead eyes.

“Welcome back, little brother,” the incubus crooned, his purring voice as cruel as his eyes. He seemed completely unfazed by the five draconians in the room, not even glancing at them. “You do realize that destroying the records won’t erase your past, don’t you?”

“Obviously,” Lyre said, his voice as cold as his sibling’s but lacking that flat note of malevolence. “But destroying you would make me feel better.”

The other incubus smiled. “You are even more delusional than I remember, little brother.”

“No more than usual, Ariose.”

An explosion from somewhere above shook the floor and dust drifted down from the rough stone ceiling. Zwi let out a small whimper. Ariose glanced unconcernedly at the ceiling, then turned to the left post of the ley line device. With a little smile at Lyre, he put his hand inside a gap in the panel.

The beam of green light crackled and both steel towers started to vibrate, humming loudly. The light writhed, little bolts jumping off it like miniature lightning.

“What did you just do?” Lyre half growled.

Ariose’s smile widened as he pulled his hand out. He gestured casually.

With bright flashes of light, a dozen reapers teleported into the room, their blades whirling toward the draconians. Two died immediately, cut down by multiple reapers. Teva and a pair of dragonets transformed as Kiev and the remaining two draconians threw themselves at the reapers.

Piper grabbed Zwi and tossed her toward a dark corner to hide, whipping her sword up as a reaper sprang at her. Their blades crashed together.

Just behind her, Lyre faced Ariose, their eyes locked. Both barely seemed to notice the reapers and draconians battling. Lyre’s vulnerable back was to the reapers. The idiot wasn’t even defending himself.

As the reaper pulled back and swung his scythe at her face, she abandoned caution. Throwing up an arm, she let the blade slam into it. The scythe cut through the black leather but did nothing to the dragon scale she wore underneath it. In that instant when the reaper hesitated, shocked his weapon hadn’t cleaved through her flimsy arm bones, she ran her sword through his diaphragm and up into his heart.

Lyre finally moved, his hand flashing over his shoulder for an arrow. Ariose shed his glamour, a black bow in his hand. He grabbed an arrow and fired an instant after Lyre. The arrows collided midair, exploding in a golden blast that knocked both incubi back a step.

Halfway through rushing to Lyre, Piper stumbled in the wake of the explosion, shocked at the impossible accuracy of Ariose’s shot. The incubus’s eyes, now black instead of gold, flicked to her, catching her gaze.

Her mind blanked, overwhelmed with the need to be near the beautiful creature before her. She didn’t realize she was walking toward him until Lyre grabbed her flying harness and yanked her back so hard she fell. Her ass hit the floor, jarring her to her senses. Ariose’s attention had returned to Lyre but she could still feel the irresistible magnetism emanating off him. Holy shit.

Lyre slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out his chain of gems. He slid his fingers down the chain, stopping on a stone, somehow selecting it by touch alone. Ariose smiled and shouldered his bow as well, lifting a similar chain of spells from beneath his shirt.

“The reapers, Piper,” Lyre said without taking his eyes off his brother.

Shit. Since she was clearly too female to be of any help against an incubus out of glamour, she scrambled up and spun around to jump back into the fray with the reapers. Kiev and the other two were overwhelmed, scarcely able to stay alive. Magic blasted as their swords flashed in the dim light, and reapers darted and teleported, their scythes seeking an opening.

Piper jumped into their midst, letting go of all thought and fear. Her sword found a reaper too distracted by Kiev to see her coming. To her left, a dragon screamed its death cry, falling with a scythe buried in its throat, and one of the draconians staggered, his sword falling from his hand. Teva roared and charged the dragon’s killer, fangs ripping into flesh.

Piper ran and sprang onto the shoulders of a reaper heading for the stunned, grief-stricken draconian. The reaper whirled violently, dislodging her. She landed in a crouch and drove her sword into his knee. He staggered back, the motion pulling the hilt from her hand, and flung magic into her face. She shielded and flicked her fingers, sending a whip of magic slicing through his torso.

She put herself in front of the incapacitated draconian as Kiev took out another reaper. Drawing her twin short swords, she looked frantically around the room.

Gold light blasted outward from Lyre and Ariose, the concussive wave knocking everyone in the room off their feet. The ley line devices shook, the line of green light dancing crazily. No sooner did the first spell fade than another spell detonated: golden swirls like a thousand snaking wires. A dome shield erupted from the center of the attack, shoving the wires away. An instant later, a green-veined flash in a strange pattern of twisting lines and symbols expanded fast, glowing brighter and brighter. It broke apart in a red blaze, diffused before the spell could ignite. She couldn’t even see the two incubi among the sizzling, sparkling cloud of incandescence and magic, their attacks and counterattacks going off faster than she could follow.

A hand landed on her shoulder, almost shocking a shriek out of her.

“I’m good now,” the draconian behind her said, his voice haggard. “Protect Lyre.”

He grabbed his sword off the floor and she nodded, leaving him as she dashed away. They were down to six reapers—enough for Kiev and the other two to handle. She dodged past them, running for the haze of magic at the other end of the room. They couldn’t lose Lyre; without him, they couldn’t get into the vault to destroy the records and she had no idea how to safely destroy the ley line devices.

Another explosion erupted from the incubi, throwing her backward. She skidded on the floor. Sucking in a fast breath, she jumped into the swirl of light.

Sizzling magic burned her skin. Within it, Lyre and Ariose stood mere paces away from each other. They weren’t even trying to physically attack each other; it was a battle of magical skill alone, as though they had agreed without words that in this fight, they would prove who was the superior weaver and nothing more.

As she burst into the midst of their contest, two pairs of black eyes flicked toward her. Ariose bared his teeth furiously at the interruption and cast a hand toward her. She called on her magic, surrounding her body in a shield of swirling blue and purple light as she charged straight into the spell. Blades of magic screeched against her shield, orange light erupting all around her as her hybrid magic ate the spell—but it wasn’t enough.

The blades cut through her shield and hot lines of pain scored her body as the spell sliced through her dragon-scale clothing. But the delay of her shield had been enough. She flew through his spell and his eyes widened in fear as she barreled into him.

He caught her wrist with one hand but missed her other arm. She thrust hard as he desperately twisted away. Her short sword cut across his side. Blood splattered the floor. His hand on her wrist clenched and the surge of magic burned her flesh as he conjured a deadly spell.

Lyre’s hand closed on Ariose’s throat and golden magic crackled up his arm. Ariose went rigid, his back arching and head falling back. Then he went limp. His dead eyes stared at nothing as Lyre let him go. His body hit the floor.

She staggered back, vaguely aware of the pain of her injuries. Lurching around, she lifted both swords, intending to help Kiev and the two draconians with the last three reapers. Behind her, the ley line devices crackled and hummed loudly.

An explosion of sound blared through the room. Piper flinched, afraid that the devices had exploded—but they were still vibrating, undamaged. The sound continued, a deep percussive boom that pummeled her eardrums and shook her brain in her skull.

The awful cacophony thundered through the room and all three draconians collapsed to the floor, clutching their heads in agony.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

As the draconians fell, their dragons collapsed too, yelping in pain.

“Piper!” Lyre yelled frantically.

She sprang toward the downed draconians, but not fast enough.

Two reapers slashed with their scythes, ripping one of the draconians open in the chest and stomach simultaneously. His dragon screamed and transformed back into a dragonet in a rush of black fire.

The reaper standing over Kiev raised his scythe and the blade flashed down. Piper ran, knowing she was too slow, knowing she couldn’t make it.

Kiev threw himself to the side. The blade caught his shoulder, cutting deep as he wrenched away. Then Piper crashed sword-first into the reaper’s back, driving the daemon into the floor. The last reaper sliced open the third draconian’s thigh a second before Lyre fired an arrow through his throat.

Piper knelt, grabbing Kiev’s arm and pulling him half up. He clutched his head, hands pressed over his ears, heedless of the blood running from his shoulder.

“What’s wrong with him?” she yelled over the reverberating boom.

“It’s the sound!” Lyre shouted unhelpfully. He grabbed her arm, yanking her away from Kiev and spinning her to face him. “It’s like the Gaians’ little ultrasound speaker, but it’s a large field of sound instead. The sonic shockwaves are brutalizing their inner ears.”

“No,” she gasped in horror.

The sound was hurting her ears too but she wasn’t writhing on the floor. The draconians, with their sensitive inner ears for flying in the dark, couldn’t tolerate it.

“The shockwaves will incapacitate all the draconians so the reapers can slaughter them—including Ash and Tenryu.” He pointed at the ley line device. “Look!”

She jerked her head toward the contraption and saw the line of the green light pulsing in time to the sonic shockwaves, while the towers vibrated even more obviously, like running engines.

“See how the line is oscillating? The ley lines must be powering the amplification spells.”

Her eyes popped in horror. “You have to shut it down!”

“I don’t know how! Can’t you feel how unstable it is? One mistake and I could blow up the whole estate.” His fingers dug into her shoulders. “The amplification spell is somewhere else. There might be more than one, and they’ll be big. You have to find them and destroy them!”

She pushed his hands off her. “I’m on it. Try to shut down that machine.”

Not waiting for his agreement, she scooped her swords up and jammed the bloody blades back into their sheaths. Kiev staggered to his feet, shaking his head blurrily. If he was up, then the sonic shockwaves weren’t as debilitating as the ultrasound speaker the Gaians had used on Ash—theirs had caused him to seizure and lose consciousness. But this one was bad enough. Even if the draconians could endure it and stay on their feet, there was no way they could fight effectively.

As she spun for the doorway, Zwi ran out of the shadows and jumped onto her back with a pained wail. Piper sprinted out of the room with Zwi, leaving Lyre with the ley line machines, not knowing if there was any chance he could shut down the device without his brother’s knowledge—now permanently inaccessible.

She bolted up the dark stairs and into the main basement, then up more stairs toward the foyer. As she ran, not even shading could hold back her panic. How could they have forgotten about the draconians’ only real caste weakness? The Gaians had been the first ones to use their sensitive hearing against them, but back then, she and Ash hadn’t known that all the Gaians’ anti-daemon weapons had come from Samael. She should have made the connection! Why hadn’t she considered that Samael would implement a similar defensive strategy in his estate?

She charged across the reception room, leaping over bodies of unfamiliar daemons and black-clad draconians without pause. A few draconians clustered near the front doors, holding their heads as the sound pounded through the room.

“Piper!” one of them yelled.

She didn’t—couldn’t—stop. She crossed the room at full tilt and slammed through the door and into the stairwell they’d come down. At the top, she burst out into a white hallway and followed their path in reverse until she reached the giant, still-smoking hole in the ceiling. She leaped and grabbed the blackened edges. Using a piece of steel rebar as a handle, she hauled herself onto the rooftop. Rain poured down on her head as she spun in a wild circle.

Smoke boiled into the sky from buildings on every side and flames leaped chaotically beneath the rain, red and orange light glowing from the fires all across Asphodel. Blue light lit the sky, making her spin. Near the military quadrant, Ash and Tenryu wheeled in the sky, fire bursting off them. She saw their target: one of the squat black towers they’d noticed on their way to the estate.

There might be more than one, and they’ll be big. Of course, the towers! Her eyes shot across the skyline of the estate, picking out the other three towers silhouetted against the glow of multiple fires.

As her eyes darted back toward Tenryu, he released a mighty blast of blue fire. The flames cascaded off an invisible barrier floating above the tower. It was shielded—shielded so powerfully that Tenryu’s inferno magic couldn’t break through.

The booming shockwave battered painfully at her ears, as distracting as the racing urgency she felt.

Tenryu banked around to attack again, but a sudden volley of what looked like red cannon balls shot toward him from multiple directions. They exploded against him and he careened toward the ground.

“No!” she screamed.

Too late. He disappeared below the rooftops. Blue light and flames blazed toward the sky. He and Ash were alive and fighting, but for how much longer? How long could any of the draconians keep defending themselves with the sonic shockwaves causing them so much pain? Every second she wasted led to more draconians dying.

She couldn’t wait any longer.

With a trembling hand, she pulled the gem-encased Sahar from her belt pouch. Clenching her hand around it, she called on her magic to break the protective casing. If this wasn’t the worst of the worst-case scenarios, she didn’t know what was. It was time to find out if she was as strong as she hoped.

In the instant before she broke the amethyst casing, she imagined sealing her mind in a steel barrier of willpower. She would not succumb to Natania. She would not lose control.

The casing shattered in her hand.

The Sahar’s magic rushed through her in a swirling storm of lightning and rage. And right behind it came Natania.

This time she felt the strike against her mind. The force of the attack shook her inside and out, and she wobbled where she stood. Holding her imagined barrier in place with every ounce of will she had, she lifted her fist, Sahar clenched tight, and focused on the nearest tower. The power inside her built, searing her nerves, already agonizing. She brought her fist down in a violent gesture.

Power blasted down on the tower. Silver light flashed, almost blinding her.

The light faded and her heart jumped into her throat. The tower was still standing. It wasn’t even damaged.

No! Even the Sahar’s power wasn’t enough? That ley line machine had to be fueling the shield too. No barrier had ever withstood the Sahar.

She needed more. Clenching her teeth, she summoned more magic. It raged through her, lightning in her blood that fast turned to agony. Natania struck again, driving her mind into Piper’s with crushing force. She gasped, hunching as she fought both Natania and the torment of the building power.

“No!” she choked.

She raised her hand, ignoring the way it trembled. Burning agony. Madness and fury. She focused not on the tower in front of her, but on all four. She gathered them in her mind, laying mental targets across each one. The power in her swelled, intensifying more and more.

To destroy the ward over Asphodel, they’d had to attack multiple watchtowers on both sides at the same time. Since all four towers were fueled by the same source, the shields had to be connected. Maybe hitting all of them together would be enough. She had to try.

As she drew even more power into her, she could feel the ripping, tearing sensation of the magic breaking her. Then another battering-ram attack struck her mind, almost crushing her sanity in a single stroke. She cried out, fighting to hold herself and the Sahar’s power together as Natania struck again and again, not letting up.

Trembling head to toe, she raised her hand, pulling the raging maelstrom of power within her under control. She focused on the towers, solidifying her targets. The shockwaves boomed like a never-ending explosion, pulsing in her head.

She inhaled, preparing to unleash her attack.

Natania slammed into her mind one more time, tearing through her concentration and defenses like a torpedo. Piper’s mind ripped open and darkness sucked her down.

Agony. Twisting, pulling, falling. Fighting.

Inside her mind, in a strange, distant darkness, she and Natania battled for control. There was no thought, no strategy. Somehow, those things had dissolved when their minds had violently collided. Now, it was just a fierce, instinctive battle for control.

She was inside Natania’s mind but Natania was also within hers—both twisted together, tangled until their memories and emotions mixed.

Beneath the ferocity of their battle, she could feel flashes of Natania’s self rushing through her. Heartbeats of emotion—of pain honed over centuries, of loneliness and loss so profound they had taken on a life of their own, of desperation and vicious, poisonous bitterness. Five hundred years of hate had forged her mind into a lethal weapon.

In that detached inner world, Piper could feel her own self, flashes of what drove her onward: desperation, fear, need, urgency. Natania’s ferocious hatred cut through them all. But deep in the core of her self, of her soul, her heart held strong. Love was like a bright flame within her, her need to survive, to return to Ash, to Lyre, to her father, her uncle, her friends. She wouldn’t fail them. She couldn’t.

Their minds tangled as they cut and slashed at the other’s every weakness until all that was left was Natania’s bitter need to inflict pain and Piper’s frantic need to not fail her loved ones. They crashed together, agonizing fire and slicing pain as they tore apart on the blades of each other’s emotions.

Let me in! Natania screamed from somewhere inside her head. You can’t win!

Piper held against the onslaught of the woman’s hatred. Again she felt it—the pain and loneliness, the loss and desperation, endless years passing as madness lurked in her, growing stronger and stronger. Her soul bound to a lifeless stone. Her lovers’ betrayals, playing over and over in her prison, her only company, her only companionship. Twisting her. Torturing her. Alone. Alone for so, so long.

Sympathy welled in Piper, flowing through her mind.

Don’t you dare pity me, Natania shrieked furiously. Get out! This body is mine now!

Piper should have felt fear, fury, even hatred for the woman who was trying to destroy her. But with the threads of Natania’s soul mixing with hers, she couldn’t. All she could feel was a shared pain and compassion for her. All the terrible things Natania had done were still not as vile as what Maahes and Nyrtaroth had done to her.

No! Natania howled. Stop it!

Loneliness. A hundred years of loneliness while locked in her prison. Another hundred. And another. Nothing but isolation, but unbearable pain and growing madness that would never, could never end. Empathy rose through Piper, saturating her spinning, torn mind. Natania hurt so much. She hadn’t deserved what they’d done and she didn’t deserve Piper’s hate.

From deep in her core, love rose behind empathy: her love for Ash and her friends and family—emotion that Natania’s hate and rage couldn’t touch. With strength born from that love, she cut through the woman’s defenses, straight into her core self and, without thought or consciousness, she offered unspoken compassion for Natania’s pain.

In the strange dark space within their twisted, tangled minds, Natania screamed in agony and despair. Then her will to fight broke, and the writhing struggle between them went still and silent.

Natania was crying.

Kneeling on soft mats, Piper held the woman to her. They were sitting in a corner of the sparring room in the Griffiths Consulate. The nearest wall was lined with weapons of all shapes and sizes, while the far wall was decorated with practice equipment, targets, and man-shaped dummies.

She gazed around the room as she hugged Natania. This had been one of her retreats as an apprentice, a quiet spot where she would hide when things went badly—the room where she’d always felt strongest and the most in control, the place where she truly excelled. It didn’t exist anymore outside her memory.

That’s what this was: a memory. Her memory. She and Natania were inside her mind instead of Natania pulling Piper into hers.

She rubbed Natania’s shoulder gently as the woman sobbed harshly, her whole body shaking. She could feel everything in Natania’s mind and soul, and it broke her heart. Tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin.

“Why,” Natania choked hoarsely. “Why did you have to be so goddamn soft?”

Piper continued to rub her shoulder. “How could I hate you?”

“You hated me before.”

“I didn’t understand before. I couldn’t comprehend it.”

“I could have won,” Natania wept. “If you hadn’t …” She choked wordlessly. “I loved them. Why did they do this to me?”

She held Natania more tightly. The haemon woman had loved Maahes and Nyrtaroth with all her heart and all she’d wanted was for one of them to love her back. They’d loved the idea of her—a strong, confident woman brave enough to draw them both in—but they hadn’t truly loved her. She’d been a toy, a prize. They’d cared—but not enough. They hadn’t loved her.

Piper hadn’t been thinking of any of that when she’d let go of her negative emotions and extended her compassion to Natania. She’d just wanted to do something, anything, to ease a little of the woman’s pain. She hadn’t expected the gesture to break Natania’s will to fight. She hadn’t expected anything, to be honest.

She sat back and let her arms fall from Natania. The woman wiped her cheeks and pushed her hair back from her face. She lifted blurry blue eyes to Piper.

“I just wanted one more chance to live, to try again.”

Piper touched her arm. “I know. It’s okay.”

More tears trickled down her cheeks. “Don’t make me go back. I can’t bear it. I can’t—I just can’t—”

Piper squeezed her arm, smiling gently. “You don’t have to go back. I don’t know what comes next, if there’s another life after this one or just peace, but your time is long past due.”

Painful hope lit Natania’s eyes. “Is … is it over then?”

“I think so.”

“Please,” she whispered, clutching Piper. “I just want it to end.”

Piper pulled Natania back into her arms, holding her the way she would a heartbroken child.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

Natania buried her face against Piper’s shoulder, holding her tight as though she really were a lonely child in too much pain. Piper closed her eyes too and slowly pulled in all her love and compassion. She wrapped it around Natania, letting it flow through the woman, filling in the gaping wounds left by betrayal and isolation, calming the seething hatred and acidic bitterness.

Natania sighed softly, the tension lifting from her body. As she went limp in Piper’s hold, Piper could sense peace well up from within Natania, pushing away the last of her violent rage and leaving only gentle melancholy and a quiet undertone of hope.

“Thank you,” Natania whispered.

“May you find peace, Natania,” she whispered back.

With an aching heart and tears running down her face, she felt the chains of magic that bound Natania in her stone prison dissolve, the rage that had fueled them gone. The woman’s mind and soul slipped away like water rushing through her fingers, and then she was alone in her own head.

Chapter Thirty

Her eyes flew open.

In a single instant, she felt it all: the raging maelstrom of power ripping through her body, her fist still poised in the air for the strike Natania had interrupted, and the Sahar’s magic rapidly unraveling inside the stone clutched in her hand. Layer upon layer of weavings laid into the Sahar five hundred years ago were coming apart at the seams.

In a single burst, all the power contained in them came howling out of the Stone and into her body.

She screamed in agony and fierce determination as she whipped her fist down, unleashing the vortex of power within her. Magic tore out of her. The four towers exploded in colossal blasts of silver power. Bolts of white lightning shot for the sky as wood and stone debris launched in every direction, raining down on the estate before the explosion dissipated, leaving giant black craters where the structures had been.

And then, finally, silence.

She dropped to her knees, gasping for air through the blinding ache that seared every nerve in her body. Even though the raging maelstrom of magic from the Sahar was gone, it still hurt to breathe. Her muscles shook violently and her heart pounded erratically in her ears.

Painstakingly, she lifted her trembling hand and opened her fingers.

A crumbling clump of silver dust sat on her palm where the Sahar had been. She stared at the remains of the all-powerful, indestructible lodestone. A gust of wind blew over her, whisking half of it away and scattering sparkling dust across the wet rooftop.

Natania’s soul was free. Piper smiled weakly as a few tears mixed with the rain on her face.

A loud warning chirp made her look around and she was shocked to see Zwi standing beside her, back arched and mane standing on end. She’d forgotten all about the dragonet. Zwi growled at her and nipped Piper’s elbow, the pinch shocking her out of her daze.

Flicking her hand to cast away the Sahar dust, she lurched to her feet, staggering as her muscles threatened to give. Just as she regained her balance, red light flashed all around her from a dozen reapers teleporting onto the rooftop.

Zwi snarled ferociously and transformed in a flash of black flames. She spread her wings and jumped in front of Piper. As she arched her back and lowered her head threateningly, blue fire rushed over her wings and down her tail—Tenryu’s blue fire. Zwi was drawing on Ash’s new powers too.

The nearest reaper flung a glowing red attack at them. Piper tried to summon a shield but agony flared through her every nerve and she almost collapsed.

Zwi roared and the blue fire running over her scales leaped higher, devouring the attack in a flare of azure. The dragon leaped forward, springing at the reaper before he could react. She bowled him over, her fangs ripping into his body, then she snapped her tail around, connecting hard with another reaper. His pained cry didn’t quite cover the sound of his bones breaking.

As the other reapers hesitated, Zwi whirled around and jumped toward her. Piper had one shocked moment to realize what Zwi was doing—then the dragon used her head to scoop Piper onto her back as she jumped off the rooftop.

Sprawled backwards across the dragon’s back, Piper hung on as Zwi dropped with her wings spread wide—wings no longer capable of flight and barely slowing their fall. The dragon crashed down on the ground, her legs buckling. Piper was thrown off her, rolling across one of the dragon’s flame-coated wings and onto the wet cobblestones. Her clothing sizzled as the puddles extinguished the flames that had clung to her. Good thing neither leather nor dragon scale was very flammable.

She staggered to her feet as Zwi clambered to hers, shaking her head side to side in a daze. Piper’s eyes shot for the rooftop to see the reapers illuminated by nearby flames. She swore, her eyes darting to the entrance to the Chrysalis building. She was supposed to be with Lyre but she couldn’t lead these reapers straight to him.

“Come on, Zwi!” she yelled.

She broke into a limping run, bullying her body into cooperating. Zwi followed and they darted into a dark, narrow pathway between two buildings. Red light flashed behind them as the reapers teleported onto the ground. She and Zwi ran, careening through twisting alleys and pathways in an attempt to lose the reapers. The pouring rain hid the sound of their footsteps but also disguised any noise of pursuit.

When she couldn’t run anymore, she stopped in the shadowy opening where a footpath opened out into a sprawling stone courtyard. Breathing hard and still shaking from the aftermath of the Sahar’s power rampaging through her body, she propped herself on the wall with one hand, looking around as her desperation grew.

She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know where anyone was, including the reapers chasing her.

Blue light lit the clouds above.

Tenryu soared above the barracks as he unleashed another blast of blue flames. At the same time, a red orb shot from a rooftop below the dragon. It struck his underbelly and Tenryu roared, so loud that, even at a distance, the sound vibrated in her chest. A swirling inferno of blue and black fire consumed the dragon as he dove for the rooftop where the blast of magic had come from. Flames erupted in every direction, tearing the building apart.

From another rooftop near the dragon, a red glow appeared as a new magic orb was fired, illuminating the distant silhouette of some kind of large turret gun. Three more blasts shot from various rooftops as Tenryu raced into the sky, ascending out of the weapons’ reach.

Guns to shoot down flying opponents: another deadly combination of magic and human weaponry. Ash and Tenryu needed to help the draconians fighting the Hades soldiers on the ground but they couldn’t if they were too busy evading and destroying the turret guns. She clenched her hands, helplessness choking her. How was she supposed to help?

As she studied the nearest turret gun, frantically thinking of what she could do to destroy it, a different kind of red flash caught her attention. A reaper appeared beside the dozen soldiers manning the weapon. He spoke briefly with them before vanishing again.

The urgency drumming in her head stilled, turning to ice. That reaper had been a runner delivering orders to the soldiers operating the gun—orders from a general. The well-timed activation of the shockwave spell hadn’t been a coincidence; though they could have activated it immediately and prevented a great deal of damage to the estate, someone had waited until all the draconians were inside the perimeter wall and engaged in combat before incapacitating them. And someone had ordered men to those guns to attack Tenryu. Someone was coordinating all of this.

She shouldn’t have underestimated Samael’s preparedness. Even with his war on Earth, he’d been ready for an attack on Asphodel. He was too calculating, too organized, too ready to counter anything they could throw at him. They wouldn’t win this war, not as long as Samael was in control.

She knew what she had to do.

She spun around to the dragon behind her. “Zwi, do you know where Samael might be? Can you take me there?”

The dragon cocked her head, then rumbled in her deep dragon voice. In a flash of black fire, she transformed back into a dragonet and chirped at Piper. Turning, she ran across the courtyard and down another path. Piper sprinted after her, pulling her bloodied short swords from their sheaths.

Zwi led her toward the center of Asphodel. Even though the draconians had intended to focus their attack on the barracks, the battle had spread into the rest of the estate. As she ran, reapers and draconians darted across her path, fighting viciously, seeking the killing stroke. She dodged them, not stopping. Every minute that passed was a chance for Samael to reveal his next surprise and she didn’t think they could survive anything more.

Charging past the raging flames of a building on fire, she put her arm over her nose as the smoke burned her lungs. Her eyes watered, the toxic haze blinding her as she ran through the smoke—straight into a horde of monsters.

The half-dozen beasts stood over seven feet tall with scaly black skin and huge pointed horns like a bull. Their hooved feet clattered on the cobblestones as they jerked around toward Piper, glowing yellow eyes finding her. Terror rushed through her when she recognized them as the same caste as a daemon she’d seen leaving Samael’s office on her first visit to Asphodel.

Zwi shrieked a warning and transformed again. Piper threw herself backward as the nearest beast snatched at her, its stained claws missing her face. She whipped her sword up, slicing across its hand. It snarled, the sound like an infuriated grizzly bear.

As Zwi leaped into a pair of the monsters, Piper swallowed her fear and lunged in. Using her first sword to force the creature’s hand away, she ducked under its arm and jammed her blade into his ribs—except her sword hit its scaly hide and barely scratched it. It roared and swung its arm, clubbing her in the head and knocking her clear off her feet.

She landed hard and rolled upright, only to take a blast of sickly green magic in the chest from one of the beasts. Her dragon scale clothing blunted it but it still hurled her to the ground all over again. She crashed down on her back as Zwi roared furiously. The beast that had blasted her jumped forward, claws reaching for her.

A dark shape dropped out of the cloud of smoke and came down on the beast’s massive shoulders. Seiya ripped her claws through its throat, jumped clear as it collapsed, and unleashed three blades of black dragon fire at another daemon.

Piper surged back up, steeled herself for the coming pain, and called on her magic. It burned through her like acid but she managed to summon a whip of twisting blue and purple power. She flicked her hand, sending it snapping out toward two beasts. They both tried to shield, but with flashes of orange light, her attack sliced right through their barriers and into their bodies. Zwi pounced on the last daemon, her jaws snapping down on the back of his neck.

Seiya whirled toward her, her ponytail swinging out behind her.

“Piper!” Seiya grabbed her arm. Blood ran down her face from a slice across her temple. “Are you okay? That Sahar blast was insane.”

“Fine,” Piper gasped, still catching her breath after the pain of using her magic. She wasn’t really fine, all things considered. Ariose had sliced her up pretty good with his spell and that didn’t even include what the Sahar had done to her. “Where’s your company? Why aren’t you with them?”

“We were separated.” Seiya’s jaw clenched. “That sound started up and we were barely managing to defend ourselves through the pain and they drove us apart so they could pick us off more easily. We lost so many.”

She broke off, hastily regaining her composure. “We need to help Ash. They’re pinning him and Tenryu down with those damn guns.”

“You can go for the guns if you want,” Piper said, “but I’m going for Samael.”

Seiya’s eyes widened. “Is he here?”

They’d all been hoping Samael was on Earth, supervising his war there, but Piper couldn’t believe it.

“This is going too badly for us. He’s here. I know it. I have to find him.”

“Cut the head off the snake,” Seiya said fiercely. “Yes. He’ll be in the main hall.”

Piper straightened out of her pained hunch. “Where’s that? Are you sure?”

“It has its own special wards. With the estate wards compromised, it’s the only place he would be. Let’s go.”

They broke into a fast jog. Zwi ran after them, still in dragon form. Zala flew in out of the darkness and dashed ahead, scouting for danger. Seiya led them into a narrow alley and they picked up the pace, running for the center of Asphodel. In the distance, explosions of magic boomed and the earth shook. Piper glanced back and saw an eerie blue glow on the horizon.

With Zala leading them around any further reaper encounters, they moved fast. The buildings morphed from simple and industrial to elegant, old-world structures of stone and wood, with peaked roofs and curling, decorative eaves. They sprinted through garden courtyards and cut beneath covered wooden boardwalks.

As they ran into a narrow gap between two long structures, Seiya slowed and dropped into a half crouch, creeping toward the opening. Piper followed, the pattering rain and distant—sometimes not so distant—explosions covering the sound of her footsteps, and they stopped together, peering out from their shadowy shelter.

An enormous, elegant building rose at the far end of a cobblestone courtyard. Beneath a steeply sloped roof, massive double doors etched with shining silver designs, at least fifteen feet high and quadruple the width of a regular doorway, dominated the front face. A grand entrance to a throne room, no doubt.

Piper glanced over the building before focusing on the courtyard. Over thirty soldiers—elite knights, judging by the gold bands adorning their right biceps—stood guard, long-handled pikes in their hands.

“The whole thing—building and courtyard—is heavily warded,” Seiya whispered. “The only way in is through that arch.”

At the front of the courtyard was a large wooden arch inlaid with matching silver designs. It looked utterly innocuous, just another decoration, but they couldn’t approach the arch without every reaper seeing them coming. And even if they could get inside the arch, she, Seiya, Zwi, and Zala were no match for thirty elite knights.

“How do we get past them?” Piper whispered hoarsely.

Before Seiya could answer, the reapers in the courtyard stirred to attention. Pikes flashed down in readiness. She and Seiya flinched in unison but none of the reapers were looking at them.

Diving out of the sky at high speeds, two-dozen draconians shot like dark bolts straight through the arch and into the courtyard. They crashed into the waiting wall of reapers with roared battle cries. Black and red magic flashed, and two-dozen dragonets transformed into their dragon forms. They ripped into the reapers.

“That’s Raum!” Seiya gasped, jumping up. “Raum is leading them! Let’s go!”

She ran out of their hiding spot, sprinting for the arch. Piper ran after her, raising her swords as the shaded battle calm swept over her. They charged through the arch and into the bloodbath.

Magic and blades flashed from all sides, with black draconian wings everywhere. Piper dashed in, ducking the stray stroke of a pike and slicing at a reaper as she ran past. Another sprang into her path, flinging a red blast. Ignoring the pain of using magic, she shielded, bursting through the orange flare when her magic hit his, and tackled him with one shoulder, ramming him over. Seiya came in behind her and jabbed her blade into his gut. Zwi in full dragon form followed, snarling with her scales coated in blue and black fire.

The draconian girl sprinted past Piper and leaped high, jumping right over two reapers. She landed opposite Piper and they attacked the pair simultaneously. Piper spun in close, parrying a fast stroke. She lunged with her sword but the reaper teleported. The other was too slow and Seiya’s lightning-fast swords found his flesh.

Together, she and Seiya pressed deeper into the courtyard. The fighting grew fiercer as the reapers grouped tightly, preventing the draconians from getting past them to the building. Piper and Seiya came up against a wall of bristling pikes and could go no farther. The doors towered behind the line of reapers, mocking them.

Piper clutched the hilts of her swords. They had to get in there.

With a whirl of wings, Raum landed beside them. He had a heavy sword in one hand, dripping reaper blood. His black eyes swept over the two of them.

“Get ready,” he said.

Piper tensed. He whistled sharply.

All the dragons fighting in the clearing roared. Blue flames erupted over their bodies—Tenryu’s blue fire. Zwi using Tenryu’s power hadn’t surprised her, but the other dragonets too? After a shocked moment, she remembered Ash’s strange influence over the wild dragonets—then the dragons charged into the wall of reapers, flames engulfing their bodies, and she had no more time to think.

With Tenryu’s power flowing over them, the dragons tore through the reapers’ defenses. Raum launched forward, Piper and Seiya on his heels. He sprang over the battling dragons and daemons, wings snapping down. Seiya grabbed Piper and leaped too. They landed hard on the stairs and ran toward the doors. Other draconians flew over the battling reapers and turned on them from behind, pinning them between their blades and the flaming dragons.

Piper didn’t look back, trying not to hear the screams of dying dragons as the Hades daemons fought back. She and Seiya followed Raum up the front steps. He didn’t bother pushing the doors open. Instead, he lifted a hand and blasted them apart. Wood and metal flew inward, scattering across the polished marble floors inside.

The three of them ran through the debris, Zwi on their heels. Beyond the doors, a long hall opened, three stories tall with rows of beautifully carved pillars interspersed along the outer edges. Raum slowed his pace as they came into the hall, their footsteps echoing in the sudden silence.

At the far end, five wide steps led up to a dais backed by blood-red silk drapes. A single large but simple chair sat in total isolation against the gently rippling red. And in that chair, Samael sat. Other reapers surrounded him, but all she could see were those red eyes staring at her. Even with the distance of the room between them, she could feel the crushing weight of his gaze, the cutting pressure of his attention like a hundred blades laid across her skin.

He made a small gesture to his entourage. About half of them teleported, gone in an instant—carrying new orders to his troops? The others faced her, Seiya, and Raum. Six reapers, clad in black, each possessing not one but three gold bands on his right bicep.

Raum strode forward, closing half the distance. When he reached that invisible halfway line, the six bodyguards flowed into motion. They moved like snakes, gliding down the steps and forming a line in front of Samael, red eyes glowing faintly.

In a burst of blue and black flame, Raum’s dragonet, Nili, transformed into his full dragon form. Zala followed suit. Along with Zwi, the two dragons stood behind Seiya, Piper, and Raum, snarling softly.

“Raum and Seiya,” Samael said, his quiet voice filling the cavernous room with power and confidence. “After your great struggle to escape me, I am surprised you would willingly return to die.”

Seiya’s jaw flexed but she didn’t respond. The utter hatred burning in her black eyes was answer enough. Raum’s face was blank, emotionless. Samael’s gaze shifted to Piper. She straightened her spine, pushing back against that indefinable weight that saturated his stare.

“And Piper,” Samael said, “you have proved most elusive lately, but I observed your handiwork with the Sahar earlier.”

She sneered at him but didn’t reply. Just like Seiya and Raum, she wouldn’t take the bait.

“I have been most curious about our last encounter. Your new form is quite lovely, I must say. Ryujin, is it not?”

Again, she refused to answer. The silence between her, Seiya, and Raum was as thick and heavy as the rain falling outside.

Samael rose to his feet, smiling in an almost benevolent way. “I understand. This is not the time for talking.”

He gestured toward his six bodyguards. With red flashes, they teleported.

Her heart skipped a beat. Before she could react, metal blades crashed together on either side of her. She whipped her head around to see Seiya and Raum surrounded, fending off three reapers each. Their dragons leaped to their aid.

Piper stood alone between them as the reapers drove her friends away. Zwi stood behind her, trembling and snarling as her head turned from Seiya to Raum and back. The dragon leaped away, charging in to join Seiya’s battle as the girl stumbled. Piper raised her swords, about to join in too, when Samael rose to his feet.

She froze as he walked down the steps, his eyes locked on hers, pinning her down like chains of arctic ice. He looked casual and elegant in his silver-trimmed military uniform, his short, silvery braid hanging over one shoulder. If not for that soul-shredding stare of his, he would have looked average and forgettable.

His foot touched the last step and he vanished in a flash of red.

Hands grabbed her arms from behind her. The air crackled violently and black closed over her vision. The breath vanished from her lungs as the room disappeared from her senses. A terrible pressure crushed her from every direction at once as he teleported her. Then the world reappeared with a pop.

Her back hit a chair as she was shoved down. Her wrists were slammed into the armrests, jarring her swords out of her grip. Samael’s face filled her vision as he pinned her in place. The unfamiliar room was lined with bookshelves and with a birdcage in the corner—no, wait. She knew this room. It was his office—the room where she’d first cowered under his merciless regard.

Before she could regain her bearings, he shoved her down in the chair behind the desk and his hand closed around her throat. His fingers squeezed, half cutting off her air.

Somewhere below them, magic boomed and a dragon roared. The floor shook.

“Do you hear them?” Samael said softly. “You can save them. You can save Ash and his pet dragon as well.”

Paralysis gripped her, her lungs refusing to expand with air. No. He was lying to manipulate her.

“Surrender, Piper,” he said, his red stare driving her down into the chair, pinning her as surely as his hands. “Surrender the Sahar and promise me your obedience and I will spare them all.”

She dug her ryujin claws into the arms of the chair until pain shot up her fingers.

“No, you won’t,” she choked out. Another blast from below. Was Seiya still fighting? Was Raum holding out against the elite bodyguards?

Samael dug his fingers deeper into her neck, recapturing her attention from the sounds below. Her heart hammered and she swallowed hard, her throat moving against his hand on her neck.

“It doesn’t matter what you offer me,” she whispered. “The Sahar is gone.”

He went still. “Gone?”

“Yes. Gone.” She bared her teeth in a grin. “I destroyed it along with your towers.”

Emotion sparked in his eyes, unidentifiable to her. “You did not,” he said flatly.

“I did. It dissolved into dust. It’s gone forever.”

He stared at her, weighing her words. Rage suddenly burned across his face and magic surged over her skin from his hand on her neck. She grabbed frantically for her magic and pulsed it through her body, burning away his spell as he cast it into her. It took him an instant to realize his spell wasn’t working—just long enough for her to wrench out of his grip and swipe her claws at his throat.

He jerked back. Her claws missed his neck and caught his face, scoring four lines from his jaw up one cheek. Blood spilled over his pale skin.

Fury darkened his eyes to black. The air crackled as he lifted his hands and slashed them down. Desperately, she called up a shield between them.

Power exploded into her at point-blank range. The blast hit her shield and hurled her backward. The wall disintegrated beneath the onslaught of magic and she was flung through the new opening, crashing to the floor amidst the debris. She rolled over and scrambled up, pulling a long dagger from the sheath on her thigh as she took in the new room in one glance—an elegant parlor with little clusters of stylish, old-world chairs and sofas, the long outer wall lined with windows and heavy, embroidered drapery.

Samael stood on the other side of the demolished office wall, half obscured by dust. Then he vanished. She did an about-face, dagger whipping through the air. He appeared behind her, already casting. He blasted her weapon out of her hand and another flick of his fingers shot a red blade of magic for her chest.

The debris littering the floor saved her life. As she jerked back, she tripped over a chunk of wood and fell backward. His red blade missed her chest and seared across the top of her shoulder, burning right through her ryujin clothing. Only the scales on her shoulder saved her arm.

She landed painfully on her back. Rolling over, she leaped to her feet, hands extended to her sides and fingers curled—claws ready to strike. Exhaling fast, she launched herself at him.

He vanished. As she spun, magic blasted into her back, knocking her onto her knees. She jumped up and twisted, but he’d vanished again. A flash of red in her peripheral vision. A second blast hit her in the side, hurling her off her feet and into a cluster of furniture. She flipped painfully over the back of a sofa and onto a coffee table that collapsed under her. She staggered back up.

He stood by the shattered wall, one hand in his pocket. He bounced a crackling orb of magic in his other hand, tossing it up and down like a tennis ball. Desperate, she yanked out another dagger and flung it at him. He cast a shield and the weapon ricocheted off, clattering to the floor.

A muffled female scream from the level below caused Piper to involuntarily look down even though all she could see was the floor.

“Keep your attention on your own fight,” Samael whispered in her ear, suddenly behind her.

She gasped and flung her elbow back but caught only air. Red light filled her vision as he appeared right in front of her, two fingers pressed against her chest.

His spell hit her so hard she didn’t even remember falling. The next thing she was aware of was lying on her back, unable to breathe as fiery pain raced along every nerve. Her heart hammered desperately as she fought to make her lungs expand.

Samael appeared above her, standing beside her as he smiled down at her struggles. He crouched, observing her as she clutched at her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Her eyes popped, mouth open in a frantic, futile attempt to suck in air.

“You are a child, Piper,” he murmured. “You are an infant to me. Your attempts to fight me are nothing more than a toddler’s tantrum.”

Black closed over her vision. A child? She’d been a child when the Gaians had first attacked her Consulate and she’d gone on the run with Ash and Lyre. But she’d come so far since then—seen so much, learned so much, rewritten her soul in the process. She might not be the strongest or the fastest or the smartest fighter, but she was not a child.

Fury cleared some of the panic from her head. A spell was preventing her from breathing. It wasn’t a sleep spell, but the magic was inside her. She called on her own magic, mixing blue and purple in an agonizing concoction that she pulsed through her veins.

She sucked in a desperate lungful of air.

His eyes narrowed.

She flung her hands up, pulling the magic out of her body and hurling it into his face. With a wave of his hand, he effortlessly cast it aside. His hand grabbed her jaw and magic sparked once again against her skin—another spell to disable or kill her. He was determined to prove his magic could defeat hers.

A deafening roar erupted overhead, the sound vibrating through the building and their bodies. Blue light lit every window, turning the walls azure. Ash and Tenryu. Samael’s head snapped up, and for an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of fear in his red-tinted eyes.

In his moment of distraction, she snatched for his throat with her claws. He grabbed her wrist. She twisted her arm, grabbing his wrist in turn, and jerked him down toward her as she jammed her other fist into his gut.

He vanished, reappearing six feet away with magic already flashing. She sprang up and dove aside as his spear of power hit the floor where she’d been, piercing the floorboards like they were made of paper. Rolling back to her feet, she ran for the nearest window and jumped, crashing through the glass. She plummeted two stories, bending her knees to take the impact as she landed on hard cobblestones. Falling forward into a roll as pain shot through her ankles, she regained her feet, finding herself in another smaller courtyard at the back of the building.

Tenryu swooped past overhead, wings blotting out the sky. Blue fire glowed from between his scales and trailed off his wings and tail. The flames landed on an invisible barrier like burning oil, flickering briefly before going out—the ward over the building, preventing Tenryu from attacking.

But apparently that didn’t matter, because he wasn’t attacking. He flew right past them, wings beating the air as he shot away from the main hall. As she gaped upward in confusion, red flashed in her peripheral vision.

Samael appeared a few paces in front of her, a spell forming above his palms.

The clouds above flashed from flame-tinted red to bright, electric blue. She and Samael looked into the sky.

Swirling blue and black flames gathered over Tenryu, the writhing inferno growing bigger and brighter with each second as he sped toward the east corner of Asphodel. The flames swelled until she couldn’t even see Tenryu anymore, just a massive fireball in the sky.

And then he unleashed all his power at the Chrysalis building.

Chapter Thirty-One

The full might of Tenryu and Ash’s power blasted downward like an atomic detonation turned on its head. The blue and black inferno crashed into the ground and exploded back up, blindingly bright. The screaming roar of the explosion tore at her ears as she flinched back. Tenryu was a dark, winged shadow within the raging flames and smoke.

The ground beneath her feet trembled.

A massive column of rippling green light erupted from the center of Tenryu’s attack. It rocketed into the sky, hurling blue flames in every direction. The earth heaved and a deep, groaning roar built from beneath the ground.

With the screaming sound of shattering rock, the ley line erupted like a volcano.

Piper fell to her knees, clutching at the ground as it rocked and heaved. A shudder ran through the main hall. The wall nearest her creaked and groaned—and then the center of the building dropped, falling into a gaping crack in the earth that widened rapidly, swallowing half the structure. A towering band of green light sprang from the crack—the biggest ley line she’d ever seen. It raced past the courtyard, following the gaping crack that zagged through the heart of Asphodel.

Flaming orbs of blue dragon fire rained down all around them as the heaving earth stilled. Piper panted for air, staring at the brand new ley line that had split Asphodel in two. Other branches of green light leaked up where fissures cut through the estate.

The ley line a few feet away flared, leaping even higher.

Tenryu burst out of the line, green light mixing with the blue flames running over him. He dove for the courtyard, wings spread wide to fill the entire space. His jaws opened wide as he roared triumphantly.

As the dragon swept over them, Ash leaped from his back. His open wings barely slowed his fall as he dropped down into the courtyard, landing hard on the cobblestones a dozen paces away from Samael. The instant his feet hit the ground, magic sizzled through the air. A huge dome shield bloomed above them, arching over their heads to create a circle of interior space twenty yards in diameter. The shield shimmered in a rainbow of colors.

In the same instant that Ash cast his shield, Samael teleported. He appeared behind her and his hand closed over her throat for a second time, dragging her up off her knees. Magic seared her skin as a spell shot into her body. Her muscles locked, paralyzed. Before she could break the spell with her magic, a second spell rushed into her.

Agony lit her veins on fire, racing through every inch of her body. Torment burned her, incinerating thought, devouring her concentration. She couldn’t break the spell. She could hardly see, let alone summon the focus to control her magic. Paralyzed and unable to react, all she could do was scream mutely as his spell consumed her from within.

Ash uncoiled from his landing. Blue lines glowed along his arms and shoulders, flames dripped off his wings, and his eyes were solid, unbroken azure. That eerie stare locked on her and Samael, the rest of his face covered by black armor.

If Piper hadn’t been paralyzed and in agony, she would have cowered under Ash’s stare, but somehow Samael didn’t even flinch. Above them, Tenryu banked in a sharp turn and dove for the front of the main hall where his smaller cousins battled the last of the reapers. Blue fire burst outward but neither Ash nor Samael reacted.

“Ashtaroth,” Samael said in a near croon. “Using a Chrysalis spell against me … I am rather disappointed.

“This is not the same as the Chrysalis spell,” Ash replied, loathing coating each word, his voice sounding hollow from within his mask. “This one specifically is compliments of Lyre. He dares you to teleport through it.”

“I’m intrigued to see he has improved upon the spell he originally developed for my use.”

Ash drew his black sword from the sheath on his back. “No more games, Samael. It’s time to finish this.”

Piper wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She’d been prepared for Samael to threaten to kill her, to demand Ash deactivate his spell, to somehow use her against Ash to win—his favorite tactic of leveraging his enemies’ loved ones against them to hurt and control them.

She definitely didn’t imagine him shoving her away from him. She fell, hitting the ground hard as pain raged through her body. The paralysis was gone, but her muscles shook and trembled from the fire in her veins. Weak and shaking, she dragged herself a few feet away from Samael, trying to reach Ash. She could barely make her body move and she sure as hell couldn’t stand.

Samael smiled at Ash, looking almost tranquil despite the blood tracking down his face from the slices across his cheek.

“Yes,” he said softly. “It is time, Ashtaroth. This is how it should be. I will destroy you with my own hands.”

He spread his hands to his sides in an almost benevolent gesture. His body shimmered and his glamour dropped away like a curtain of water falling to the ground. Draping black robes replaced his military uniform and two curving scythes were in his hands, short-handled instead of the long-handled ones she’d seen other reapers wield. Also unlike his kin, his black hood hung around his shoulders, and for the first time, she got a good look at a reaper’s face out of glamour.

Deep-set red eyes glowed from sunken eye sockets. Pallid, almost translucent skin stretched over protruding cheekbones accented by a row of tiny bone-like horns that ran beneath each eye toward the back of his head. Slightly larger horns sprouted in two lines along his temples, running straight up into his hair. His neck was sunken and tight, casting flexing tendons into sharp relief and revealing pale blue veins beneath the waxy layer of white skin.

She’d had trouble believing Samael was over a century old, but staring at that skull-like face with glowing red eyes, she could see it: the ancient cunning that possessed him, cruelty honed into a fine art over lifetimes of dealing pain to his enemies. Terror gave her the strength to scramble away from him and she scuttled across the wet ground until her back hit the dome shield.

Ash didn’t shift his eyes from Samael, no emotion showing on his face. He carefully slid one foot out, widening his stance in preparation of the coming battle. The rain poured down in sheets, falling through the shield and splashing on the cobblestones.

In a flash, Samael disappeared.

Ash launched into motion, spinning away from his position even as Samael reappeared, twin scythes whistling as they cut through the air. He vanished again in a blink.

Piper pressed against the barrier, frozen again, and hardly noticed the pain spell as she watched the most terrifying fight she’d ever witnessed. Samael teleported ceaselessly, faster than any other reaper, flashing and vanishing and appearing and dissolving with each frantic beat of her heart.

Ash moved ceaselessly too, never stopping, never hesitating, never leaving an opening for Samael to take. His sword spun, weightless in his hands, and blue fire danced and swirled over his body, keeping Samael from getting too close, from teleporting inside his defenses. His reactions were instantaneous, so fast he blurred as he moved. His extra senses alerted him no matter where Samael appeared, whether Ash could see him or not, and the speed and unerring instincts he possessed had never been more obvious.

Their blades clashed, broke apart, clashed again. Then they added magic to the fight.

Red light blasted out of nowhere only to be consumed by the blue flame that danced over Ash’s body and glowed from his scales. Ash launched his own attack, lines of fire leaping from his body and swirling over the ground. They leaped high, forcing Samael to vanish again—only to reappear almost on top of Piper in the only relatively fire-free spot within the dome.

She cringed back but Samael didn’t turn toward her. His entire focus was on Ash—on this ultimate battle that had been building between them for Ash’s entire life. Samael had forged Ash into the weapon he was, creating what might ultimately become the instrument of his own destruction.

As Samael teleported again, his scythes missing Ash’s back by an inch, she realized she’d been so entranced by their fight that she’d almost forgotten the pain spell. As soon as she focused on it, it reignited at full intensity. She collapsed against the dome, writhing in agony. How? The desperate thought pushed through the torment. How could she have forgotten the spell when the pain was so terrible?

Because the pain wasn’t real.

The realization clicked inside her mind, pushing the pain aside. It wasn’t real. The spell was making her think she was in agony when there was nothing wrong with her. Gathering her frayed willpower, she called on her magic and pulsed it through her. The mind-manipulation dissolved as real pain scorched her innards.

She staggered to her feet, sucking in air. Her eyes darted from Ash to Samael and back as they spun through their deadly dance, weapons and magic flashing faster than she could follow: Samael teleporting nonstop, Ash seeking an error, a misstep, a hesitation where he could strike. But he couldn’t keep up the unceasing movement indefinitely. Soon he would tire. Soon he would make a mistake—and Samael would kill him.

As she watched, Ash pivoted sharply, leaping toward an empty spot just as Samael appeared in it. The reaper vanished and Ash skidded, sliding on the wet cobblestone. He whirled—only for Samael to reappear in the same spot he’d just been. Samael’s scythe lashed out, hooking Ash’s wing as he leaped away. Blood splattered the ground, mixing with the rain as Ash whirled, fire exploding out from him. Samael teleported.

Her heart leaped into her throat as she spotted other bleeding cuts and slices on Ash’s body. A deep cut in his thigh that had somehow split his armor leaked blood down his leg. She hadn’t even seen the strikes land, hadn’t noticed Ash flinch or stumble. He’d fought on, knowing any hesitation would be his death.

And she realized that it wasn’t a question of whether Samael would win this fight. It was when he would win it. Ash couldn’t evade forever. He couldn’t land an attack. Samael was too fast, too unpredictable, too cunning. Despite Ash’s impossible speed and near infallible instincts, Samael was undefeatable.

Her panic spiked, roiling violently, before it abruptly stilled. Calm flowed through her as her focus sharpened into crystal clarity.

Ash could destroy Samael if he were willing to kill her too by filling the entire interior of the dome with incinerating dragon fire, burning Samael alive no matter where he teleported—but he would never do that. He’d told her before that he would sacrifice anyone and anything, including himself, to keep her alive.

She wouldn’t let that happen.

As her eyes slid across the interior of the dome, obscured by the downpour, it felt almost as though Shinryu’s ancient, serene wisdom was flowing into her with each raindrop that touched her skin. Ash moving across the cobblestones, a lethal dance of feet, wings, and blade, an entire lifetime of hard-earned skill brought to bear. Samael’s lightning movements, his swirling black robes there then gone then there again. The blurring gleam of his curved blades, the flash of magic to distract and unbalance.

She watched it all, and she saw the true flow of their movements. They moved like fish in the current, dancing through the water. Even the wildest rapids flowed in a discernible pattern, and there too was a pattern in their movements. Water was her element, and as they danced through the rain, she drew a long dagger in each hand.

Ash stepped, sword spinning toward Samael as he vanished again.

She leaped forward. Three steps to reach Ash as he pivoted to protect his open flank. She dove under his flared wings, brushing his side on her way past, and rolled. As she came out of her roll, her right dagger flashed out. The blade cut through the flare of red light as Samael appeared in front of her, facing Ash.

The dagger sank deep into his left calf.

A hoarse, startled cry escaped him, rattling eerily in his throat. Those red eyes flashed down to her, fury and shock burning in them as he disappeared again.

The flow was broken, a rock thrown into the stream.

She leaped up and sprung straight into a backflip. Samael reappeared, triple blades of magic spearing the stones where she’d just been. She landed as blue fire leaped off Ash, almost engulfing Samael before he vanished again.

Spinning on light feet, feeling as weightless as a koryu in water, she slid behind Ash, catching his eye as she passed him. In his gaze she saw surprise and ferocity, and she hoped he saw in hers the calm, lethal focus that had possessed her. This was their fight. This would be their victory.

Samael reappeared. Ash lunged in with his sword. She sprang in the opposite direction, landed lightly, and spun. She hurled her dagger at empty space.

Red light flashed. Her dagger whipped past Samael’s right cheek, just missing him. He vanished again without attacking.

Ash moved faster, spinning through the steps of his deadly dance as he pushed Samael to keep moving, moving, moving. She flowed in and around Ash like a fish darting through racing waters, her blade seeking where Samael would appear. Together, they drove Samael around the dome. They moved together, synchronized and flawless, all his experience and all her instincts melding into deadly perfection.

Samael appeared at one end of the dome, flinging an attack of a hundred red wires of power toward them. She ducked beneath Ash’s wing, getting out of the way as he cast a band of blue fire across that half of the dome, devouring Samael’s spell. The reaper vanished.

She spun in front of Ash and grasped his shoulder, springing up. He grabbed her left foot and added the force of his push as she leaped off his shoulders into the empty half of the dome behind him. She flew through the air, pulling her ryujin dagger from its sheath on her arm.

Red light flashed as Samael reappeared—directly in her path. She slammed into him, driving the dragon scale blade through his hastily conjured shield and into his shoulder. With the momentum of her leap, she spun, yanking him off balance as she let go, falling backward to land hard at his feet. He recovered his balance with a swift twist, red light sparking over him as he began to teleport. Their eyes met, his glowing red irises searing her like acid.

And then Ash’s blade erupted from the center of his chest.

She held Samael’s eyes as shock rippled across his face, followed by enraged, manic denial.

One mistake. One small delay. All it had taken was a single moment pulled off balance, an instant lost to recover it, and Ash had closed the distance.

The red glow in the daemon’s eyes faded, leaving an empty black stare in a white skull face frozen in that twisted grimace of denial that he had been defeated. Defeated by his former slave and a haemon girl.

Ash pulled his sword from Samael’s back and the body fell, scythes clattering on the cobblestones. She sat up, suddenly aware of her aching body and the terrible exhaustion that permeated every fiber of her being. Deep in her subconscious, the whisper of Shinryu’s power faded.

She lifted her gaze to meet Ash’s equally weary eyes as the blue glow receded and a hint of gray returned to his irises. A tired smile touched her lips. They’d done it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

It was finally quiet.

Most of her attention was focused on the destruction in front of her. Exhaustion weighed her down like an impossibly heavy blanket draped over her body, but she kept moving anyway, climbing over the shattered remains of buildings. The former streets and pathways were littered with debris, almost impassable, but she pushed on anyway.

The distant sounds of battle had ceased at last. It had taken so long. The war hadn’t ended with Samael’s defeat—his death had been one of hundreds—but the combination of their leader’s demise and the terrifying display of Tenryu’s power in destroying the Chrysalis building, and half of Asphodel, had broken the reapers’ fighting spirit. The battles had shifted from fierce contests to cautious retreats that had only grown swifter. The draconians had regrouped and driven the last pockets of fighters into the outer edges of the estate. And, from the new silence, even that was over. All that was left to do was heal the injured and count the dead.

One specific injured or dead person concerned her now.

She jumped over a two-foot-wide fissure in the ground and continued to circle the immense crater that had once been the Chrysalis building. A few minutes ago, she and Seiya had found Kiev, weak from blood loss, and Seiya had taken him to find a healer. Piper had forged on, searching. He was here somewhere. He was nearby. He had to be.

The ley line, rising up from the crater, rippled and danced in her peripheral vision. She could sort of see it without shading, though she wasn’t sure if that was because she was getting good at that kind of stuff or if the line was so massive it was impossible to miss. It didn’t add any illumination to the darkness—it was magic, after all, not actual light—but the fires burning throughout the estate were enough to see by.

The shattered wall of a building blocked her path and she huffed tiredly as she reached it. She had just enough magic left to keep her daemon glamour in place but she was grateful for the extra strength as she hauled herself over the obstacle and dropped down on the other side. As she scanned the new vista of rubble, she forgot her fatigue.

A blond head stood out among the fire-blackened destruction like a diamond among coals. Lyre was sitting on the ground in a seemingly random spot, unmoving. But he wasn’t collapsed, unconscious, or dead. Relief swept through her and she broke into a fast jog toward him.

Then she saw the bodies.

Her steps slowed to a cautious walk as she approached. Two bodies. Two incubi. She came to a stop a few feet behind Lyre, lips pressed tight together. Both were strikingly similar to Lyre in appearance and all four had been killed by arrows—Lyre’s arrows, no doubt.

Carefully, she came forward and knelt beside Lyre. He had spoken of brothers. Ariose couldn’t have been his only family member in Chrysalis.

Lyre gazed down at them without seeing them. His golden eyes were a thousand miles away, looking at things she couldn’t begin to guess. Memories of his past, his childhood? He didn’t notice her beside him. Angry red burns marred the side of his face, interspersed with deep, horizontal cuts that leaked blood. One shoulder was badly burned, his shirt charred away. His bow was on the ground beside him, his quiver empty, his clothes generously splattered with drying blood. He was out of glamour but no mesmerizing allure distracted her; she suspected he had no magic left to fuel his aphrodesia.

“Lyre?” she whispered.

Sluggishly, his head lifted and he looked over at her.

“Piper,” he sighed. His harmonic voice lacked any strength. “Is it over?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s over now.”

He nodded, the movement equally sluggish. His eyes drifted back to the bodies. “I had to do it,” he whispered. “It had to be done.”

She tugged gently on his arm. “Come on, Lyre.”

He passively allowed her to draw him to his feet, moving stiffly like he’d been sitting for a long time. Since he had forgotten it, she picked up his bow before leading him away. When they were far enough that the bodies were out of sight, she stopped and squeezed his hand until he looked at her.

“Are you okay, Lyre? Are you hurt?”

He inhaled deeply and held it, pulling himself together. When he exhaled, he managed a weak smile. “Let’s get out of here.”

Holding his uninjured arm tightly, she led him back through the rubble, past the spot where they’d found Kiev. He’d been looking for Lyre too, staggering around and still bleeding from his shoulder wound. She wanted to ask Lyre what had happened after she’d left them in the chamber beneath Chrysalis but it could wait. She didn’t want him to have to relive it all over again so soon.

The estate was too quiet, the silence broken only by crackling fires and the occasional shouts of draconians calling to one another. She kept a sharp eye out for any hidden enemies but she didn’t expect an attack. Asphodel was theirs.

The whoosh of giant wings through the air stopped her. She looked up as Tenryu swept over them. The dragon landed in a semi-clear spot ahead and Ash jumped down to the street. As soon as he was clear, Tenryu took a couple running steps and leaped skyward. His beating wings carried him over the nearest buildings and his dark body vanished into the night.

Ash strode swiftly toward them, limping noticeably from his injured thigh. He halted in front of Lyre, his gaze flashing over his friend’s face. His eyes narrowed.

“Where are you hurt?”

Lyre grimaced and twitched his uninjured shoulder in a shrug.

“Lyre.”

Huffing, he lifted the bottom edge of his shirt. Piper sucked in a sharp breath. Two puncture wounds in his left side leaked blood in trickling rivulets.

“I mostly stopped the bleeding,” he mumbled.

“Arrow wounds go deep, you idiot,” Ash growled.

Lyre frowned in a sort of confused way—then swayed. Piper clutched his arm, steadying him as best she could. Ash turned around and pulled Lyre onto his back in a piggyback carry. He launched back into motion, heedless of the pain his leg must have been causing him. Piper hurried after them, still carrying Lyre’s bow, as they headed back toward the center of the estate.

In a large courtyard a few buildings away from what was left of the main hall, the draconians had gathered their injured. She didn’t see any bodies, and she was grateful they were collecting the dead somewhere else. Healers moved amongst the injured while the able-bodied carried wounded warriors into and out of the courtyard.

Near the edge of the chaos, Seiya and Mahala were kneeling beside Kiev, who was stretched out on his back. At a chirp from Zala, Seiya looked up and spotted them.

“You found him!” she exclaimed, jumping up. “How bad is he hurt?”

“He’s not about to die but he needs a healer quickly,” Ash answered. “Is anyone free to—”

“I can heal him.” Mahala stood. Soot was smudged across her face but she didn’t appear injured. “I just finished with Kiev’s shoulder.”

She and Seiya helped Lyre off Ash’s back. The incubus was limp, either unconscious or close to it. They lowered him to the ground and Mahala cut his shirt off with a knife to examine his wounds.

Piper backed away to give them space and Seiya followed. An unfamiliar draconian hailed Ash, waving him over. Rubbing her upper arms for warmth, Piper watched him join several other warriors for some kind of discussion. So much pain and blood filled the courtyard, but the injured draconians waiting treatment were quiet aside from the occasional gasp or groan. She turned away and stared at the sky. It was still pitch black; the eclipse wouldn’t release the suns for hours yet.

Beside her, Seiya rolled her shoulders back and forth.

“How are you doing?” Piper asked. Seiya had been pretty sliced up from her fight with Samael’s elite bodyguards.

“Fine. I have some nice new scars though.” Seiya flicked a glance down Piper’s body and back up. “We’ll get a healer for you next.”

“Me?” Piper looked down at herself. Ariose’s spell had cut her up a bit but she wasn’t bleeding anymore. She’d been thrown around and blasted with magic and now that she thought about it, her ankle kind of hurt from jumping out the window to escape Samael, but overall, she was in pretty good shape.

“The healers should take care of the critically injured first,” Piper said. “I’m just a bit scratched up, that’s all. Nothing serious.”

She was too tired to care about her aches and pains. Lyre’s bow was still in her hand, an unfamiliar weight. Her eyes drifted across the dark shapes of tumbled, broken buildings, some illuminated by the distant fires.

“We really did it, didn’t we?” Piper said. “We conquered Asphodel.”

“We did,” Seiya agreed.

“And Samael is dead.”

They stood in silence for a minute.

“What now?” Piper asked.

“It’s not over yet.” Ash’s voice made her and Seiya turn. He stood behind them, gazing back at the rows of wounded. “This wasn’t the only battle fought.”

Of course. The Ras and Gaians had fought the Hades forces on Earth while they’d attacked Asphodel. She unbent from her exhausted slouch.

“We need to know if they won,” she said.

“And we need to know if we should be expecting company if they didn’t.” He lifted a hand and waved to someone. Raum peeled away from the group of warriors he was walking with and headed toward them.

Ash’s eyes turned to Piper. “I know you’re tired, but we’re not quite done yet.”

“Tired” was an understatement of epic proportions. Her human body felt so weak and wobbly, and her multitude of cuts and bruises hurt a hell of a lot more out of her daemon form. The only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that she wasn’t the most tired one in the group.

“Well,” she said flatly, “this looks like it’ll be fun.”

Uncle Calder rubbed a hand over the stubble on his normally clean-shaven head and glanced around them.

She followed his gaze. Thankfully, the battle with the Hades forces had been over by the time she arrived in Brinford and it hadn’t been hard to find her father and uncle in the aftermath. However, she didn’t like the heavy tension in the air despite the recent victory.

The Ra embassy rose above them. Well, mostly rose. The upper third of the tower was missing, splintered away like a felled tree. Miysis would not be pleased that the beautiful aviary on the top floor had been destroyed. Signs of the recent violence were everywhere: the burnt shells of Gaian jeeps, the rubble of broken buildings, scorch marks and cracked pavement, and dark, unsettling puddles among the debris. At least the bodies of enemies and allies alike had already been collected and moved away.

Clustered around the embassy’s base was the entirety of the Ra force. Ostensibly, they were clearing rubble away from the building, but the way they watched the other side of the street with just a bit too much care …

Opposite them in an open parking lot, the Gaian forces were gathered. Even though they appeared equally as busy, the word that came to Piper’s mind was “loitering.” Their weaponry, a little too conveniently, all pointed in the direction of the much smaller Ra force.

The road between them was completely empty like some kind of designated no man’s land, and that was where she, her uncle, her father, Seiya, and Raum uncomfortably stood.

Seiya and Raum were the only draconians who could be spared to accompany her to Earth. Ash had been held back to coordinate a fast withdrawal from Asphodel with the other draconian commanders. Piper and Seiya had spoken with Mahala, and she’d promised to ensure Ash had the worst of his injuries healed before coming to Earth—especially the bad slice in his wing from his fight with Samael.

Zwi had come with Piper and was sitting quietly on her shoulder, watching everything with alert golden eyes. The setting sun dipped below the downtown skyline and long shadows darkened the streets, heightening the ominous feeling in the air.

She looked from one side of the street to the other and swore under her breath. Another battle was the last thing anyone needed. The Gaians outnumbered the Ras by more than enough to make it look like an easy victory, but the Ras were hardly pushovers. Her jaw clenched as she looked back at the Gaians. Were they afraid to withdraw while the Ra force was present? Or were they thinking that this was a good chance to finish the job once and for all—to exterminate the entire daemon presence from the city in one tidy shot. Not that it would be that easy.

“Haven’t they had enough death and destruction?” Piper snapped at no one in particular.

“It looks like you can ask them directly,” Calder said. “Miysis is coming.”

She looked around. The Ra heir was indeed heading toward their little group, with a small entourage of griffins. At least they were in glamour, suggesting they didn’t intend to enact any violence. Miysis’s red uniform was spotless. She supposed that made sense; the Ra family didn’t want to risk any more heirs by sending them into battle.

“What’s the deal, Miysis?” she demanded as soon as he was within hearing distance.

Calder and Quinn shot her disbelieving looks at her total lack of diplomacy. Miysis’s expression didn’t change as he stopped in front of her, glancing casually over her shredded, bloody clothing.

“Can I assume your efforts in Asphodel were a success?” he asked coolly.

“Asphodel is destroyed,” she answered. “Samael is dead. Looks like you and the Gaians didn’t do too badly either.”

Miysis absorbed the news of the demise of his family’s greatest enemy before answering. “It went reasonably well. The damage to the embassy was unfortunate—the Hades forces were better equipped than we’d expected—but our combined attacks caught them unprepared.”

“Glad to hear it. Since it’s all over now, what are you doing?”

“Pardon?”

“What is all this?” She waved a hand toward his small army, bottling her irritation. “Cleaning up a pile of rubble hardly seems like a top priority when you just finished a damn war.”

His eyes flicked toward the Gaians then back to her. He said nothing.

She folded her arms. “I’m too tired for word games, so I’ll be straight about it: Do you want another battle?”

He flexed his jaw. “Of course not. I didn’t want the first one either.”

“Then why haven’t you withdrawn your forces?”

“I should think that was obvious.”

She looked back toward the Gaians, hanging around with their armored jeeps and mobile artillery aimed at the already smoldering embassy.

She turned to her uncle. “Where’s the Gaian general?”

Calder strode toward the Gaian side of the street. The rest of them stood in awkward silence, waiting. Miysis eyed Raum and Seiya curiously but didn’t say anything. Several minutes passed before Calder returned, a handful of Gaians in tow. She wasn’t surprised to see that Walter was not among them.

“General,” she said brusquely. “Why aren’t you preparing your troops to leave?”

The general cleared his throat. “I’m afraid we can’t do that yet.”

She inhaled slowly, praying for patience. “Why not?”

The general looked at Miysis. Miysis gazed stonily back at the general. Piper tightened her hands into fists, resisting the urge to throw them in the air—or punch one of the men. Idiots. They were too worried about what the other might do to go home and end this war already.

Zwi chittered softly, the sound almost … smug.

With a deafening roar, Tenryu swept out of the darkening sky on vast wings. Every single daemon and haemon soldier ducked as the dragon whooshed overhead. He wheeled around in the sky and plunged down, crashing to the ground almost on top of her group. His spread wings arched above him, making him look even more impossibly massive.

She gaped at Ash, crouched on the back of Tenryu’s head, casually holding one of his horns for balance, his face covered by black armor. Faint blue light smoldered from between his and Tenryu’s scales, an eerie glow in the dusk light. She knew Ash had planned to catch up with her, but she hadn’t expected him to bring Tenryu. A great dragon on Earth?

Turning back to the others, she cleared her throat. Miysis’s eyes were black in a ghostly white face. He’d never looked so shocked and, dared she say, afraid. He’d backed up several steps and she suspected only his pride kept him from bolting away from the colossal dragon. The Gaians clearly weren’t worried about their pride. Most of them had scrambled backward and several had fallen over. Only the general had managed to keep his same basic position.

“Gentlemen,” she said. Miysis and the general tore their stares away from Tenryu to look at her. She smiled sweetly. “The warlord of Taroth and his great dragon would really like you to take your soldiers and leave. How about you start packing up now?”

“The warlord …” Miysis whispered in disbelief. His eyes flashed from the dragon towering over them, to Ash perched on Tenryu’s head, then to Piper. He gazed at her speechlessly—then he laughed, the sound ringing with mirth.

“Ah, Piper, the secrets you’ve been keeping from me. So this is how the draconians took Asphodel.”

Not quite knowing how to respond, she turned to the Gaian general. Before she could say anything, he nodded rapidly.

“Since the conflict with Hades is over and our goal was accomplished,” he said, his eyes darting everywhere but the great dragon, “we will begin an immediate withdrawal.”

“Excellent,” she said.

He gave her another jerky head bob and backed away before turning and striding swiftly to his side of the street, his subordinates scrambling after him. As the haemons left, Ash jumped down from Tenryu’s head and unclipped his faceplate, dropping it over his shoulder. Zwi chirped a greeting and leaped from her shoulder to his.

“Ashtaroth,” Miysis said.

“Miysis.”

“You’ve moved up in the world.”

“You could say that.”

The two daemons eyed each other. Piper resisted the urge to tense, not knowing what to expect. They hadn’t seen each other since Miysis’s men had almost killed Ash. One wrong word and the wary silence would erupt with violence. But neither said anything. Instead, Miysis extended his hand.

Ash hesitated then reached out. They clasped hands.

“The balance of power is changing,” Miysis said. “On Earth, in the Underworld, and in the Overworld. When we have the leisure, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the coming evolution.”

Ash glanced pointedly at the Ra forces behind Miysis. “Daemon armies have no place on Earth.”

“I agree. My soldiers would like to go home.” He made a short gesture to his entourage and they marched back toward the embassy. “We will maintain the embassy, of course, but without Hades to worry about, there is no need to station extra forces on this world.”

Piper managed not to sag in relief. No more daemon armies on Earth. Thank goodness.

“There is, however, one remaining item of contention.” Miysis faced her. “The unknown whereabouts of the Sahar is causing my family a certain amount of distress.”

“Oh, well,” she replied quickly. “I did have it, but it was destroyed.” She didn’t see the need to mention that she had been its destroyer.

His face blanked, then his eyes darkened. “Say that again.”

“The Sahar was destroyed in the battle in Asphodel. It no longer exists.”

He held his breath as she spoke, checking her truthfulness, then let out a harsh exhale. “Destroyed. Well. My mother will not be pleased.”

She relaxed a little when he didn’t ask for any details. “Honestly, the Sahar was more trouble than it was worth.”

“Perhaps.” He stepped away, his attention turning toward the embassy.

A sudden thought occurred to her and she looked at the great dragon behind her.

Tenryu? she thought clearly.

Silver child.

Can I … She quickly presented her idea.

You may, he rumbled, humor lining his mental voice.

She quickly refocused.

“Oh, by the way, Miysis.” The Ra prince stopped and glanced back at her. She smiled in a friendly way. “Now that you don’t have to worry about Hades, I don’t know what plans you and your mother might have in the Overworld … territory expansions or things like that … but I thought you should probably know that Tenryu here”—she inclined her head toward the great dragon—“is related to the water dragons … and the ryujin.”

Miysis’s eyes flicked toward the dragon. Tenryu pulled his lips back, revealing rows of curved fangs.

“A pertinent detail,” Miysis replied, as casual as her. “One I will pass onto my mother.”

“Thanks.”

“Piper, if you’re ever visiting your kin in the Overworld, perhaps you will visit my homeland as well. I would be pleased to show you our lands and the desert where we scattered your mother’s ashes.”

She blinked. “Oh. That … that would be lovely.”

“Until next time then.”

She watched him walk away, then glanced at Ash. “Do you think his invitation was sincere?”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “He invited you to see his home. A peace offering, I think.”

After glancing once more at Miysis, she turned to her father and uncle.

“Well, the Ras are leaving but the Gaians aren’t actually going anywhere.” She shifted uneasily. “They aren’t necessarily bad people and they’re right that daemons have had too much free rein here for too long, but I’m concerned about their weapons. They’re a little too quick to jump to violence.”

“Unfortunately,” Calder said, “they aren’t likely to disband at this point, especially after a hard-won victory.”

She frowned. “Do we want them to disband though? Humans and haemons haven’t had any real power in our world for a long time. We’ve had no effective way to defend ourselves against daemons.”

“One small army doesn’t solve that problem,” he replied. “Daemons will come back now that this conflict is over.”

“The Consulates are gone,” she mused, “but daemons might think twice about crossing the Gaians. On the other hand, we don’t want them running around attempting to police daemons. That would get ugly fast.”

“Having engaged in an actual battle with daemons,” Quinn said, “I think the Gaians may be ready to reevaluate their position. We will need to work with them on that.”

Well, if nothing else, the threat of a massive dragon showing up at any point would inspire some caution.

“What are your plans, Piper?” Quinn asked.

“Huh? Me? Uh.” She honestly hadn’t thought about it. “Well, back to the Underworld for now …”

“You have a decent rapport with the Gaians. We could use your help.”

Her help? He wanted her help?

“We need to leave,” she replied. “But I’ll … I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

She said quick farewells as Raum and Seiya took off, heading back toward the ley line. Ash lifted her onto Tenryu’s back, and every daemon and haemon in the vicinity stopped what they were doing to watch as the great dragon took flight. Her father and uncle shrank as Tenryu gained altitude, and then they were gone, lost among the skyscrapers.

Tenryu swooped down to land on the mountain ledge. Piper hung on to Ash, glad of his arm around her waist. She didn’t trust her exhausted muscles not to give out. She hadn’t attempted to switch to her daemon glamour since returning from Earth. It would be a while before she had the magic for it.

Asphodel was destroyed. The draconians had transported their injured and dead back home. Ash and Tenryu had been the last to leave, waiting until everyone else had headed for the ley line before unleashing the full might of their combined magic on the estate, burning every building to the ground. Piper had watched the demolition from a mile out; she could have left with the others, but she’d waited for him. She didn’t want to be away from him.

Considerately, Tenryu lowered his chest to the ground to reduce the drop off his back. She slid down. Despite her caution, her knees buckled on impact. She fell forward and Tenryu’s nose appeared in front of her, pushing her upright again. She caught her balance with a hand on his scaled muzzle as Ash jumped down beside her.

“Thanks, Tenryu,” she said tiredly.

You have done well, silver child.

She rubbed a hand over his nose, awe overtaking her fatigue. “Has the Underworld magic returned to normal?”

The healing has begun, he rumbled softly as he lifted his head. He spread his wings, stretching the leathery membrane tight. His head tilted to one side. Silver child. Offer my gratitude to my sister, should you return to her waters.

“I will.”

Tenryu turned and launched off the ledge, his vast wings beating the air. In the sky above, the first rays of sunlight slipped past Periskios, gleaming across the great dragon’s obsidian scales before he vanished amongst the mountain peaks.

She leaned against Ash as he wrapped an arm around her waist. Gazing at the spot where the dragon had disappeared from sight, she felt a pang of sadness.

“He’s not coming back, is he?” she whispered.

Ash lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

She looked at him curiously but he merely pulled her into motion. She barely noticed the dark corridors they passed, lost in an exhausted haze as he led her … somewhere. She hoped wherever it was had a bed. Food could wait. Just the thought of eating made her feel sick.

A burst of sound startled her back into alertness. Coby and Ivria reached them first, hugging her and Ash, then the rest of the draconian women piled on them. All the former Asphodel draconians were in the large room, even Raum, Kiev, and Seiya. Lyre sat in one corner. An over-sized black shirt—to replace his torn, burnt one—made his normally golden skin look bleached. Or maybe he was just that pale.

Gently disentangling herself from Raisa’s enthusiastic hug, Piper slipped over to Lyre. The others surrounded Ash, wanting confirmation that Samael was truly dead.

She sank down beside Lyre and leaned back against the wall.

He gave her a weary smile. “You look even more tired than I feel.”

“I could pass out right here,” she admitted. “But I’m afraid to close my eyes.”

A haunted look crossed his face. “I know what you mean. Is everything done in Asphodel?”

“Burnt to the ground,” she murmured, letting her head fall back against the wall. She glanced at him. The burns on his face were healed, but three faint red lines ran horizontally across one cheek. Mahala would have been careful, but she hadn’t had an unlimited amount of time to make the healing perfect.

“Can you believe it’s over?” she whispered, half to herself. “The Sahar destroyed, Samael dead, the draconians free. It’s just …” She shook her head.

“Give it a few days to sink in.”

Ash managed to duck out of the group and retreated to her and Lyre’s corner. As Kiev told the others about their adventure beneath the Chrysalis building, Ash shimmered into glamour before dropping down beside her. She was so tired that it took her a moment to realize he’d used glamour because his wings would have been in the way otherwise. Well, that worked for her. She tucked herself against his side, resting her head on his shoulder and entwining their fingers. The voices of the others washed over her.

They’d done it. It really was over. The Hades family was broken and scattered as the draconians had once been. And the Sahar was gone. A soft, peaceful feeling slipped through her. Natania’s soul was free. Her suffering, the greatest of any individual who’d been caught in the endless daemon war for power, was over.

Groggily, she realized she’d closed her eyes without noticing. She squinted them open. On one side, Lyre leaned against her, his head on her shoulder, fast asleep. On her other side, Ash’s head was tipped back, resting on the wall, eyes closed, breathing slow. He was asleep too.

She smiled and closed her eyes again, wiggling a little closer to Ash and hugging his arm to her chest. Lyre’s warm weight on her other side was as much a comfort. With the murmur of the draconians’ voices filling the room and her two daemons beside her, she gave in to sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“And this is my room.”

Leading Piper through the doorway, Raisa declared her ownership with the possessive fervor of a child who’d never had a space of her own. The oval-shaped room was small and simple, containing no more than a wooden cot, a chair, and a chest for belongings, but it was more than she’d ever possessed before.

“Isn’t it great?” the girl gushed to Piper, waving her arm at the bed. “I don’t have to share it with anyone, and if I close the door, no one is allowed to come in without my permission.”

Piper smiled. Privacy was probably another thing Raisa had known little of in Asphodel.

“It’s an awesome room.” She tilted her head toward a little square of blue cloth that had been carefully spread out on the bed. “What’s that?”

“What—oh. It’s, uh …” Raisa’s cheeks turned bright red. “Some of the kids were talking about sweet buns but I’d never had one before and, well …” She blushed more deeply. “One of the boys brought me one.”

Piper quashed a smile. That little bit of cloth the boy had wrapped the bun in would be cherished alongside her burgeoning crush.

“It was really good,” the girl said hurriedly in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “The sweet bun, I mean. You should try one before you leave.”

“I’ll try to get my hands on one,” Piper said, letting her grin break free. Looking at Raisa’s innocent blush at the attention of a boy, she was caught off guard by a rush of emotion. Not all that long ago, Raisa’s future hadn’t included sweet buns or crushes on boys. Romance would have been as strange a concept as having her own bedroom, and the life of a forced broodmare would have killed her playful spirit.

But that future would never claim her now. She was free to have a childhood, to date draconian boys and fall in love. She would grow up free and happy. Piper was sure of it.

Blinking away a couple stupid tears, she abandoned dignity and pulled the girl into a tight hug.

“Piper,” Raisa complained, hugging her back despite the protest. “You’re not leaving yet. Why are you all emotional?”

“It’s nothing.” She furtively brushed away the one tear that had escaped. “Show me the others’ rooms.”

Raisa bounced out into the hall and pointed at a neighboring doorway. “Jezel’s room is next to mine. Hers is a little bigger, but I think mine is better.”

Piper followed Raisa through a tour of the rooms of all her family members. The entire hall, with a dozen rooms, had been given to the former Asphodel draconians—the first time any of them had had a place truly their own. A home.

Seven cycles—three Earth weeks—had passed since Asphodel’s defeat. The draconians had resettled in their hidden city and life was resuming with a sense of normalcy. Sorrow had mixed with equal triumph as the community mourned the loss of so many lives, but more than half of the warriors who’d gone to Asphodel had returned, and that was cause for celebration.

“Do you have to leave?”

Piper started slightly, realizing she’d spaced out. She and Raisa were back in the hallway again after a tour of the suite where Raum, Ivria, and Yana would be living. Piper had no idea what sort of relationship Yana’s parents had and she wouldn’t ask.

Raisa stared up at her plaintively, her mouth turned down in a frown. “You don’t have to go. The draconians said you could stay. And Ash wants you to stay too, and no one’s going to argue with him.”

“I’m not leaving because I’m being forced to,” she said. “I just … need to go? I’m not a draconian or even an Underworlder. I’ll definitely be back to visit though. So much that you’ll probably get sick of me.”

With a snort, Raisa shook her head. “The last room is Seiya’s, here.”

She led Piper to the last door in the hall. Unlike the others, it was closed. Raisa tapped on it and Seiya’s voice answered.

Raisa slid the door open. “Hey, Seiya! I’m giving Piper a tour.”

Seiya was lying atop the blankets on her bed, fiddling with something in her hands. She waved them in, stretching her legs out in a sleepy way. She wore loose, dark pants and a sweater, her long hair undone from its usual high ponytail and spread across the blankets. Piper was surprised but happy to see Seiya looking so relaxed and comfortable.

Her room was a little larger than Raisa’s but still pretty barebones. Like Raisa, Seiya didn’t seem to mind.

“And how is the tour?” Seiya asked, amusement in her eyes as she sat up and crossed her legs.

“Very impressive,” Piper said.

“If you ask, I bet they’d give you your own room too,” Raisa said, a not-so-subtle hint about Piper staying permanently.

“I don’t think Piper needs her own room,” Seiya said. She flicked a glance at Piper, one eyebrow arched.

Piper’s cheeks heated. She was pretty sure Seiya was teasing her about sharing Ash’s room—where she’d been blissfully spending every night since their return—but her tone was difficult to decipher. Seiya smiled a little, her expression equally as ambiguous, and fiddled idly with the small object in her hands. A glint of shiny green caught Piper’s eye.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Is that the spell Lyre made for you?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Seiya turned her hand up, displaying the gem on her palm. “Did he show it to you?”

“Yeah, a little while ago. Do you like it?”

Seiya’s whole expression softened as she looked at the gem. “It’s wonderful.” She huffed a little sigh. “I’m going to miss that incubus.”

“Miss him? What do you mean, miss him?”

Seiya looked up. “He came by to say goodbye earlier. Didn’t you see him?”

“No, I—He’s leaving? When? Why?”

A loud chirp at her feet made her look down. Zwi stood beside her, twitching her tail in annoyance that it had taken Piper so long to notice her.

“Zwi!”

Another commanding chirp. The dragonet turned and trotted toward the bedroom door, then looked back in a distinct “what are you waiting for?” way.

“I think Zwi is here to fetch you,” Seiya said. “You’d better hurry if you want to say goodbye.”

“Lead the way, Zwi!” Piper exclaimed with a quick wave to Seiya and Raisa.

She rushed out the door after Zwi. The dragonet chirped again and bounded down the hall. Piper jogged after her through the twisting, turning corridors of the mountain city, moving steadily upward. They were heading for the north landing, which appeared to confirm Seiya’s guess.

Lyre was leaving? She’d been making her own plans, but she hadn’t thought about what he would do. She was so used to him and Ash as a duo that she’d assumed that wherever Ash went, Lyre wouldn’t be all that far away. And what was he thinking, saying goodbye to everyone else without even hinting to her that he was taking off?

The north landing was the largest entrance point into the city, a natural-looking platform near the summit. The corridor lightened with sunlight as she neared it, then she strode out into fresh air, squinting through the brightness. Zwi ran ahead of her.

Ash and Lyre stood at the other end of the platform, the sprawling mountain range spread out behind them. They were speaking, quiet and solemn, before Lyre reached up and gripped Ash’s shoulder in a sort of older brother way, saying something as he grinned.

Piper’s steps slowed, her eyes flashing over them. How different they seemed from the pair she’d first met in her Consulate: Ash, the powerful, decisive draconian with all his dark secrets, and Lyre, the playful, almost superficial incubus with his over-the-top flirtations and heart-on-his-sleeve simplicity. They hadn’t changed—not much, anyway—but she’d since come to see so much more. Ash, beneath his cloak of secrets, was motivated by desires that were simple yet profound—passionate fearlessness, enduring loyalty, a fierce love for those he cared about. Lyre, beneath his easygoing, mild-mannered exterior, was a creature of mystery, far more complex than she’d ever imagined an incubus could be.

Said incubus spotted her and that mischievous, flirty little half-smile curved his lips. The expression stretched the faint but noticeable scars on his cheek—three thin, horizontal white lines. She hurried over to him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips. “And without saying goodbye!”

“Of course I was going to say goodbye,” he said, all innocence. “That’s why I waited for you.”

She scowled. “But why are we saying goodbye at all? Why are you leaving?”

“For the same reason you are.”

“But … where will you go?”

“Oh … places.” He grinned and shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters! You don’t need to go off by yourself. If you don’t want to stay here, you could come with me.”

Lyre’s smile gentled. “You have your own things to do, Piper. You don’t need me tagging along.”

She paused, glancing at Ash. Lyre’s words resonated too strongly with her worries—ones she’d been working hard to ignore—about Ash’s path in life diverging from hers, going places she couldn’t follow. Lyre saw the same thing, except he saw her path going places too. Behind them, Zwi began a game of pounce with an innocent pebble, batting it enthusiastically across the rocky ground.

“But what about you?” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about me. There are untold numbers of gorgeous women out there just waiting to meet me.”

She rolled her eyes and looked at Ash. “Are you okay with this?”

“Of course,” he replied. “I was beginning to think he would never leave.”

“W-what?”

“Have we ever spent this much time together before?” he asked Lyre, clearly amused.

“Not even close,” Lyre said. “At this rate, people will start thinking we’re an item.”

“Yeah, you’d better get your ass out of here then.”

Lyre smirked and cast a look at Piper. “It’s her fault. Ever since she dragged us into her Sahar mess, we’ve been stuck together taking care of her.”

“Hey!” she protested. “I didn’t drag him into the Sahar mess. He was trying to steal it, remember?”

“Well, you got us accused of the theft, so I think it’s your fault. Right, Ash?”

“Definitely.”

“No way, that’s not fair!”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Lyre purred, winking at her. He let out a long, wistful sigh. “And despite all my best efforts, I never quite managed to get you out of your clothes.”

She snorted. “You never had a chance.”

“Hey, that time in the car—”

“Lyre!”

He snickered, and his expression softened. “You and Ash are perfect together.” His wicked grin returned. “You’re both bullheaded and reckless. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life.”

She blinked quickly, fighting to keep her composure. “Do you really need to leave now?”

“Yep,” he said brightly. “Already said my goodbyes. And I saved yours for last because I knew you’d argue with me.”

She grimaced. “I don’t know that I like being that predictable.”

His eyes lifted from her to something behind her. She turned to see Mahala walking over, her dragonet on her shoulder.

“Ready?” the draconian woman asked.

Piper looked between her and Lyre in confusion.

“Mahala is flying me over to the ley line,” he explained. “Ash is still on the no-fly list after that wing injury.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. She wanted to argue more. She didn’t want him to leave.

He had no trouble reading her thoughts. His hands captured her shoulders and he pulled her into a hug, engulfing her in the spicy cherry scent of incubus.

“This isn’t goodbye forever,” he chided gently. “I’ll catch up with you for the next adventure, don’t worry. Ash knows how to track me down too.”

She squeezed him in return. He let go—too soon for her taste—and stepped back. He turned to Ash and they did one of those brief, backslapping man-hugs before clasping forearms.

“Take care of yourself,” Ash said.

“You too, man.”

Piper frowned at the casual exchange and realized this wasn’t a final farewell for them, but rather a temporary parting of ways, something they had done many times before. Lyre had his own life, goals and dreams and experiences she didn’t know a thing about. He had his own path and following her or Ash around wasn’t what he wanted. And he didn’t need help from either of them to forge his own road.

In fact, she suspected that Lyre was the one who would be showing up to help them if they needed it, not the other way around.

Ash wound an arm around her waist, startling her out of her thoughts. “Time to go.”

“Huh? But Lyre—”

“Is ready to go. And you don’t need to hang around and watch him fly off into the sunset.”

She glanced at the bright sky. “But sunset isn’t—”

He half-dragged her back toward the corridor. She dug in her heels, looking over her shoulder. Standing beside Mahala, Lyre gave her a casual wave and his trademark crooked smile.

“See you around, beautiful.”

She stopped resisting—both figuratively and literally—and waved back. She would see him again. She knew she would.

She and Ash entered the stone corridor, Zwi trotting after them, and she managed not to look back. Instead, she looked at Ash. Lyre was on his way and it was almost time for her to go too. It seemed silly that she hadn’t figured out sooner that Lyre wouldn’t hang around the draconian city forever either.

Now that they didn’t have to hide from Hades, the draconians were planning to reclaim the ancient city with the dragon statue. Ash had suggested it and the draconians were excited to begin. Soon they would send a group to set up a few dwellings. It was the first step in a long process to rebuild their culture and territory, and Ash would be busy leading the efforts.

And Piper didn’t have a place in any of those plans. That’s why she needed to leave.

They walked through the quiet corridors, hands entwined. She chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking about what to say to him. He knew she’d been making plans to depart within the next cycle but they hadn’t talked about it. Neither of them wanted to. Neither of them was ready to talk about their future together.

They entered an unfamiliar part of the mountain city. Not that a lot of it was familiar to her, but she’d definitely never been here before. The hall grew narrower and more winding, almost like a natural crevice. The path steepened and the air smelled musty.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

She followed him in curious silence as he trekked up the steep pathway until they reached a dead end. A breeze blew across her face and sunlight beamed down through a gap in the rock above. Ash grabbed the ledge and pulled himself out the opening, then reached down for her. She grasped his hand and he lifted her up.

The bright suns blinded her as wind whipped her ponytail around her head. She squinted—and gasped from a surge of vertigo. She pressed back against him, his arms tight around her middle.

They stood on a tiny ledge of rock at the very summit of the mountain. Spread before her was an endless sea of mountain peaks, the dark, jagged basalt cutting at the sky. Forests of fiery red foliage sprawled through the twisting valleys. In a neighboring valley, a waterfall plunged hundreds of feet down the side of a mountain into the lush woodland below.

Above, the half-circle face of Periskios hovered gracefully in the sky just above the peaks. Swirls of white and gold clouds drifted across the planet’s surface and she could almost swear they were moving in an alien wind.

“This is all Taroth territory,” Ash murmured in her ear, pulling her closer. “This is all ours.”

“All yours,” she whispered, holding his arms against her middle, never wanting him to let go. His ‘ours’ didn’t mean him and her; it meant him and the draconians. “It’s beautiful.”

He stepped away from the rocky peak behind him, pushing her closer to the edge and causing her a minor panic attack. Before she could protest, he sat on the ledge, bringing her down on his lap so their feet dangled over the sheer drop. She leaned back, heart beating a little too fast.

“Uh,” she said breathlessly. “Is this a good idea? You’re not supposed to fly yet.”

“I got the all-clear from the healers last cycle.”

“You did? Why didn’t you fly Lyre to the line then?”

“Because Mahala wanted to do it more than I did. Besides, Zwi couldn’t fly him and I don’t really like carrying people around—except you, of course.”

She snickered. “A little too close and personal for anyone else?”

“Just a bit.”

“You’ve carried Lyre before.”

“Only when necessary.”

She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I’m glad your wing is healed.”

He rubbed his hands over her upper arms, his thumbs brushing over the bumps of her scars. “Are you still planning to leave next cycle?”

She flinched. Until now, he hadn’t asked directly about her departure. She snuggled deeper into his lap, the beauty of the mountain view not quite enough to ease the ache in her heart.

“It’s time for me to go,” she said. “Just like Lyre, I guess. I want to visit Hinote and actually stay in the Overworld for a while this time. Plus I need to thank Shinryu for everything and pass on Tenryu’s message.”

As she’d suspected, they hadn’t seen Tenryu again. Ash hadn’t said much about it and didn’t seem too bothered. She’d asked if they were still bonded and Ash had shrugged. Either he wasn’t sure or he didn’t want to say. She hadn’t pressed; she didn’t understand his relationship with Tenryu and if he didn’t want to share, she wouldn’t pry it out of him.

“After that,” she continued, “I’ll go back to Brinford to see my father and Uncle Calder.”

“Dealing with the Gaians will be a job and a half,” he remarked.

She twisted her hands together. For weeks she’d agonized over her decision to leave but she knew she had to do it. Ash made her deliriously happy but that wouldn’t last if she stayed with him. Eventually, her feelings of displacement would sour their love. As much as she wanted to support him, she couldn’t be his shadow. She wanted to live her life too, to chase her dreams and make a difference in the worlds on her own terms.

She just didn’t know how to tell him that she didn’t want the only future he could offer her.

“You have a big job to do too,” she said, barely managing a whisper. “There’s so much going on here. Your future is here. But …” She swallowed hard and forced the words out. “Mine isn’t. My future isn’t here … with you.”

His hands on her arms stilled.

Anxiety spiked through her. She twisted in his lap to see his face, but his expression was a mystery, his grey eyes telling her nothing of his thoughts, a tiny wrinkle between his eyebrows the only sign that her words might have hurt him.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. Being with you …” She touched his face, pressing her hand to his cheek, wishing his expression would change, would reveal something. Her mouth trembled and she feared she was breaking his heart. “I love you, Ash, but I can’t stay here. With you as the Taroth warlord … I just—I don’t belong in this place and …”

He tilted his head to one side. “Is this what’s had you in knots since Asphodel?”

“I—” she stuttered, confused by the hint of amusement touching his eyes. Didn’t he understand what she was saying? “Well, maybe it doesn’t bother you, but the idea of leaving you does actually upset me—”

His fingers caught her chin and drew her face up to his. He captured her mouth in a kiss, cutting off her sentence. She closed her eyes and kissed him hard, sliding her hand around the back of his head to keep him from pulling back, afraid it would be their last kiss ever.

“I’ve always known our futures would take us to very different places,” he murmured against her lips. “Just as I knew you would never be content to follow me. You’re not a follower, Piper, and that’s part of what I love about you.”

Her breath caught. He’d never quite said he’d loved her in as many words. She didn’t need him to say that specific phrase—one that was probably more of a human thing anyway—to know how he felt about her, but the word “love” still sent a flutter through her middle.

He kissed her again, his lips moving slowly against hers before he spoke.

“I never expected this to be simple—or easy. There’s no script for two people like us.” He lifted his head, his eyes locking on hers, looking through her, down into the depths of her soul. “But is there some rule that we can’t write our own?”

She stared at him, lost in his eyes, drowning in them. “What do you mean?”

“I told you before that I was yours for as long as you wanted me. Us being apart doesn’t change that.”

“It … doesn’t?”

“Our paths might be different, but does that mean they can never intersect again?”

“But you’ll have responsibilities … You need to ensure the Taroth line continues.” By having babies with a draconian woman, but she didn’t say that.

He touched her chin again, keeping her from dropping her eyes from his. “That won’t be today or tomorrow. It won’t be this season or the next. I’m yours for as long as you want me, and no amount of time or distance will change that.”

One day at a time, that’s what she’d promised herself, wasn’t it? But she hadn’t specified that those had to be consecutive days. She’d been thinking that his path would carry him away from her, to places she couldn’t follow. And maybe some day it would, but just because she was leaving didn’t mean what they had needed to end, did it?

“But … do you really think we can make it work?”

“What constitutes ‘working’? Is there a checklist I don’t know about?” He drew her closer. “We make our own rules, Piper. Whatever makes us happy. Whatever makes you happy.”

Her smile came a little easier. He was right. They didn’t have to follow anyone else’s definition of a relationship. They could make up their own. After all, there was nothing conventional about the two of them.

This wasn’t the world she belonged in. She knew that deep down in her bones, a conclusion she couldn’t ignore as much as she would love to spend every day for the rest of forever at his side. But she didn’t have to give him up quite yet. Soon, she would leave—but she’d be back. Just like Lyre, she didn’t have to say farewell forever, just for now.

She wound her arms around his neck and found his lips with hers. Heat rose through her, desire mixing with relief and the fire of her love. How much had they survived together? It felt like so long ago that she’d been sitting on the floor in her Consulate, staring at his bedroom door, wondering how to get her father’s ring box back from his dragonet. He’d opened the door to find her sitting there, so damn sexy while still intimidating. What had he thought of her? Had he seen a silly, overcompensating apprentice like everyone else? Somehow, she didn’t think so.

Should she have suspected it then, what he would come to mean to her? Should she have realized what was coming back in the Styx ring, when the explosive passion of that single kiss had blown her away? Or when she’d seen him in Asphodel for the first time, his body and soul beaten almost to the brink, pain and fury driving him to near madness? Should she have known then, when even at his worst he’d slid his mouth so gently over her neck, kissing the pulse in her throat when he could have ripped it out instead? Should she have guessed how deep her feelings for him would run when they’d stood together facing Samael and his army, and she’d turned the Sahar’s power over to him, knowing they might die for it?

When was the exact moment she’d realized she loved him with everything in her? When she’d thought he was dead, plunging off the cliff to the river below? Or even sooner, when he’d held her as she lay dying, breaking inside that he hadn’t saved her from her fall into the rapids?

So much pain between the two of them. So much suffering. But beneath it, passion and love, a fire and a strength that warmed them both, had kept them going when they’d had nothing left. Wasn’t that what Hinote had said? Love gave her the strength to fight on no matter what. It had been the strength that had defeated Natania and undone the Sahar.

Ash lifted his mouth from hers, brushing his lips over her cheek as he leaned back just enough to meet her eyes. She stroked her fingers over the scales that ran across the tops of his cheekbones. A lifetime ago—or so it seemed—his true form had terrified her. But now, it was just him. This was his real face and his glamour was the mask, the sheath over the shining blade of a sword.

Ash drew his feet up and stood, lifting her with him. He wrapped his arms around her and stretched his wings out, the cut Samael had inflicted on him healed so perfectly she couldn’t see the faintest mark.

“The weather is perfect for flying,” he said.

“Oh?”

“That valley with the waterfall is beautiful.”

“Is it?”

“It is.”

“And is it … private too?”

His eyes darkened and his arms tightened around her, making her suck in a breath. His mouth closed on hers mid-gasp, a fierce, hungry kiss that made her heart pound.

“We should go see the waterfall,” she said breathlessly.

His mouth curved in a dangerous sort of smile, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He turned and stepped backward, putting himself right on the edge, a deadly fall directly behind him. She hung in his arms, her alarmed stare flashing toward the drop.

“Hey, wait, you aren’t thinking of—”

Zwi jumped off a nearby rock and landed on Piper’s back, chittering excitedly.

His arms tightened around her and he boosted her up until her feet no longer touched the ground. His wings pulled in, tucked against his back. Oh hell no. She knew exactly what he was planning.

“Ash, don’t you dare—”

He grinned and leaned back. They plunged off the ledge.

She screamed, clutching his neck as his laughter rang in her ears. The free fall carried them halfway down the mountain before his wings snapped open, catching the warm updraft, and they swept effortlessly toward the valley. The magnificent vista of mountains whirled past them but she hardly noticed. She knew only the wonder of flight in his arms, a freedom more beautiful than anything to be found or seen in any of the worlds.

The End

(Though Piper and Ash’s story has concluded, keep reading for a preview of a new book in the Steel & Stone universe …)

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Excerpt

Return to the Steel & Stone universe

in an upcoming new novel by Annette Marie

Lyre jammed his hands deeper into his pockets. Shoulders hunched, he trudged down the corridor. Like most of the building, white dominated—white tiled floors, white walls, white ceilings. He didn’t know why they’d chosen white of all colors. He would have chosen something that hid the blood better.

His gaze flicked up to check each door number as he passed. The higher the numbers grew, the slower his steps became. By the time he reached the correct door, he was barely moving. Scowling, he glanced up and down the long hall. Empty. She was late.

Cursing under his breath, he stood silently, counting the seconds in his head, then sighed. Reluctantly, he turned to the window in the door and peered in.

The tiny room on the other side was barren but for a simple wooden cot with white sheets—white everything, of course. But its occupant was not white, unless Lyre counted his ghostly pale face. He lounged on the cot, leaning back in an almost sulky slouch—his posture at complete odds with the torn, gore-splattered clothing he wore. Black material hung in shreds from one shoulder, his arm smeared with drying blood.

Lyre’s chest tightened. The kid was young, just a youth. How could a kid be sitting there so calmly when it looked like he’d just walked off a battlefield? Leaning in a little closer, Lyre squinted at the youth. Dark hair that gleamed deep red in the fluorescent lights, braided along one side of his head. He had to be in glamour, which in itself was unusual. Lyre was in glamour too, but that was because no one liked dealing with an incubus without it. He angled his head for a better look and his shoulder bumped the door.

The boy’s eyes snapped up, locking on Lyre. Grey irises cut through him, burning with barely controlled rage that was at complete odds with his relaxed pose.

Lyre jerked back from the door, then shook his head. The boy couldn’t see him; it was one-way glass. But damn, it sure felt like their eyes had met.

“Lyre!”

He jumped, stumbling back another step as he turned.

A woman strode down the hall toward him, her long ponytail swinging behind her with each step. The heels of her black, thigh-high boots clacked loudly, an ominous beat in the otherwise noiseless corridor.

“Eisheth,” he grumbled.

She stormed up to him and stopped too close. Her dark eyes flashed over him, ire radiating off her. She planted one hand on her leather-clad hip where a thin, shiny black rod—a sobol—hung from her belt.

He cleared his throat, avoiding her glare. “You summoned me?”

“I did.” She jerked her thumb at the door. “Do you see that boy in there?”

“I saw him.”

“That child has broken every collar I’ve put on him.”

“Broken?” he repeated, straightening from his slouch and grudgingly looking at her. “What do you mean, broken? The physical collar or the weaving?”

“Both.”

“After it’s on him and activated?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “I have no idea how. No one has any idea how.”

He flicked a glance at the door, the boy beyond it out of his line of sight. “Who is he?”

“A draconian. That’s all you need to know.”

Ah. The draconians were one of Asphodel’s biggest secrets. Hades wanted everyone to believe that they were just a few more mercenaries earning their pay, but Lyre had heard the rumors. He’d seen the signs. It wasn’t any of his business and he knew better than to dig into Hades’ secrets, but whatever the truth was, he suspected it was ugly.

He shrugged at Eisheth. “Magic-dampening collars only last a few years before the spells begin to deteriorate—”

“Do you think I’m a fool?” She jabbed a finger into his chest, pushing him back a step. “Of course I thought of that. I’ve had new collars made, tested them on other daemons first, everything. He breaks them all.”

He tugged at one sleeve of his lab coat. “Why did you summon me? I haven’t woven a collar in years. You should talk to—”

“The collar weavers only know how to make collars—and clearly the regular ones won’t work on this brat. I need something else. I need something better.”

“You want a custom weaving?”

“Yes. I want …” Her eyes slid to the window and she licked her lips, the small movement somehow obscene. “I want something completely new … not a collar that will control him. I want something that will break him.”

Revulsion crawled up his throat. “If you want that kind of custom work, you need to submit a—”

“Do you really think the regular procedures apply to me?”

He folded his arms and curled his lips in a sneer, done with cowing to her temper. “You might be the bastille’s chief bully—I’m sorry, queen of torture or whatever your title is—but I’m not one of your underlings. I don’t have to obey your orders. In fact, I don’t even have to humor your ego trip.”

“You’re not one of mine, no.” She smiled sweetly. “But Chrysalis belongs to Samael and you belong to Chrysalis. The warlord has already given me permission to commission this new weaving.”

He flexed his jaw. “Why me? My brothers are better.”

“I’m perfectly aware of your limitations.” She patted his cheek and he jerked his face away. “But you’re the most creative. The most inventive. I want you to put that vision of yours to good use and develop a new collar … something utterly devastating. Something that will teach that boy true respect.”

“I’ll pass.”

“You don’t have a choice. I’ve chosen you and you will complete this project for me … or you can take your refusal to Samael.”

He sneered, failing to come up with any plausible grounds to refuse.

She tapped one long fingernail against his chest. “Remember, something that will break that disgusting defiance of his. I’ll check on your progress in a few weeks.”

With a mocking wave of her fingers, she sauntered back down the hall, hips swaying seductively. Swallowing the urge to gag, he stuffed his hands back in his pockets. A collar to break the spirit of a child. How delightful.

Hesitating, he stepped toward the door and peeked in one more time. The boy’s grey eyes stared straight into him. He sucked in a breath but didn’t recoil this time. The draconian couldn’t see him. The soundproofing, aided by weavings, was impenetrable, so he hadn’t heard a sound either. But the way the boy looked at the window, it was like he knew someone was there—and he wanted to rip out that someone’s throat.

With a shiver, Lyre turned away. Perhaps the boy wasn’t such a child after all. Those eyes were too old for his face. Not all daemons aged in predictable ways; he would know, wouldn’t he? But still, a youth nonetheless. Hades played a dangerous game. Who would believe a teenager was a hired mercenary killer?

He strode back down the hall, leaving the draconian’s cutting stare behind. He walked aimlessly, passing through doors and down halls without a thought. His mind spun as his feet carried him through the maze of the facility without any input required. He didn’t focus until he found himself standing in front of the door to his workroom.

He stroked a finger over the smooth steel of the door, his touch unlocking the complex weavings that bound the door closed—weavings that would extract a hefty price from any trespassers. With a hiss, the door cracked open. He shoved it aside and strode in, kicking it shut behind him.

A long steel table dominated the far end of the room, buried in a haphazard collection of crafting and weaving materials. The shelves covering the other walls were equally buried in junk. He crossed the room and dropped into the chair in front of the table. Behind it, a narrow horizontal window offered a limited view of the black mountains beyond Asphodel.

A weapon to destroy the boy. A collar to break a child.

His eyes slid across the table, from the metal discs and round gems to the steel marbles and arrows with dark fletching. Papers, books, tools, dials and compasses, contraptions that measured magical signatures—everything he needed to weave magic, to weave ugly, lethal spells for a greedy, warmongering caste.

A weapon to destroy a child. His lips contorted, disgust rising in him until he could almost feel it oozing out of his pores. How had his skin not turned black from the filth he wove?

Shoving his chair back, he stood and swept his arms across the table. Everything crashed to the floor, gems and marbles bouncing across the white tiles. He pressed his hands flat to the tabletop, head hanging between his shoulders as he breathed deeply. Dropping to his knees, he reached under the table for a tile near the wall.

He tapped a finger against it. The spells sealing it were subtler, and far deadlier, than the ones on the door. A foolish person could get himself killed if he came into this workroom and started messing with the works in progress. But if someone discovered this, it would be his own life on the line.

The tile popped up and he set it aside. Beneath, a hole in the floor was filled halfway with black-fletched arrows, various lodestones, and several fine silver chains holding assorted gems. He lifted one of the chains out and sat back on his heels in front of the table. The gems sparkled in the harsh white lights above, bright and innocent. He wore a similar chain around his neck, its gems loaded with self-defense spells—all having been studied and, where applicable, unapologetically copied by his siblings.

This set of spells was different. He brushed a thumb across a gem, imbuing it with a tiny touch of magic. Golden sparkles burst out from it, coalescing into the shape of an eagle. The glowing bird soared on silent wings above him, gliding around the room. He watched it, jaw clenched. Beautiful. Free. How he envied the creature.

He could have happily spent his entire life weaving beautiful, inspiring spells. He loved to create. He loved to face a problem and search for the answer, weaving and testing and failing and weaving again until he found the perfect solution. Instead, he wove weapons of war and torture. Each time he gave a new spell to Hades, he handed over a little more of his soul with it.

Touching the gem, he dispelled the eagle illusion and watched it fade with an aching heart. Now, as if anonymous weapons weren’t enough, he had to create a collar specifically to torture and destroy a draconian boy. It sickened him. This wasn’t what magic was for. This wasn’t what his magic was for.

His eyes lifted from the gems in his hands to the pile of half-completed work scattered over the floor. How far would he go to survive? Was he willing to destroy a kid guilty only of defiance to protect his own skin?

He didn’t have a choice. If he’d had a choice, he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. Desertion wasn’t an option. His brothers had seen to that.

His gaze drifted back down to the gems in his hands. You’re the most creative. He was, wasn’t he? His brothers were better, more gifted, but they were like brilliant mathematicians. He was the artist. He was assigned the most impossible weavings, the ones that required an unorthodox approach. He was good at the unorthodox and the unconventional. He had a gift for taking crazy ideas and turning them into functional spells.

Escaping this place was the craziest idea he’d ever considered. It was impossible … but so was breaking a magic-dampening collar. If that draconian boy could accomplish an impossible feat, perhaps he could too. Making the impossible happen … that’s what he was good at, wasn’t it?

His lips curved in a slow, frozen smile. Dropping the chain back into its hiding place, he replaced the tile, rekeyed the protective weavings, and stood. On one side of the table, an arrow lay half off the edge, balanced perfectly with the fletching hovering above the floor. He picked it up and twirled it in his fingers before closing his hand around the arrowhead.

He clenched his fist. Blood trickled over his palm as he closed his eyes and began to weave.

To be continued …

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Acknowledgments

I can’t believe the Steel & Stone series has come to an end! It’s been such a crazy ride from the release of Chase the Dark to today. The series could never have achieved the amazing success it has without the support of my fans. I offer my heartfelt appreciation to every reader who bought the books, who rated and reviewed on Amazon and Goodreads, who followed me on Facebook, who emailed or messaged me, who recommended the series to friends, who blogged, tweeted, or shared their praise with the rest of the world. Thank you!

Thank you as well to Breanna and Sever, for your unfailing support and encouragement, and for all your time that I monopolized when you probably could have been doing something more useful (or at least more fun).

Thank you to my editor Elizabeth, for your hard work, dedication, and insane levels of patience. Every writer has her weaknesses, and you’re a saint for putting up with mine—not to mention doing your best to fix them.

Lastly, thank you to my wonderful husband. I’m running out of ways to tell you how amazing you are, so let it suffice to say that I couldn’t do any of this without you. You really are the best.

About the Author

Annette Marie lives in Western Canada with her husband and their adorable, hell-raising cat Caesar. She decided one cat is probably enough, but she did get some fish. They and the cat are coexisting peacefully … so far.