The sun dipped to touch the horizon, its rays dimming to orange as I rode the wind, gliding on the tendrils of ice-kissed mists beneath my feathers. Guilt gnawed at me, relentlessly.
Perhaps I had been wrong, perhaps Elain's prophecy had meant something else entirely.
My mind flitted to my son, shame soaking me as I thought of how rashly I'd acted, how furious Cenric would be if he found out. If he knew that'd I risked compromising the Rite for him.
Maybe I should've just turned around hours ago, headed home and put the trust in my son that he deserved.
Something twisted in my gut at the thought.
No, I had to know that he was safe. Just a glimpse, then I would leave and face the fallout that was no doubt awaiting me once I got home. I didn't dare let my mind acknowledge my mate, the bond still taut and silent. I'd apologize to him later.
I had just dipped into a downward glide, considering just winnowing home, when the scent of nightmares assaulted my nose. Blood, fresh and distinct, mingled with the stench of something sharper, fouler.
It was Cenric's.
My instincts roared in defiance against it as my stomach dropped.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Something was wrong.
I nosedived, twisting violently in the air as I quickly followed the scent to where it wafted from a grove of saplings, terror flushing through my system.
It was the gore speckling the ice I saw first, the harsh odor of death washing over me. A still, dark-haired figure lay prone in the snow, crows already picking at him. A finely carved arrow was embedded in his chest, its shaft shadowed in the fading sunlight.
I sucked in sharp breath. No, no-
I soared forward, searching the figure for that beautiful, cobalt gaze—
My breath escaped in a whoosh as I drew closer and saw that the dark hair was indeed much too long to have belonged to my son, the bound wings beneath him a certain giveaway that he wasn't my child.
No relief came to me though as the sickening scent of Cenric's lifeblood still filled the grove-where was he?
My vision snagged on the arrow protruding from the warrior's chest. I suddenly realized it was far too expertly crafted to have been made in these woods, and the shaft . . .
The arrow's pale shaft was a shade and grain I'd know anywhere, the sight like a brand in my memory. Even the fletching was the same color as the one I'd used to fell Andras a century ago.
The world came to resounding halt as I gazed endlessly at that piece of wood. A sharp blaring bell of horror awoke in me, warning filling my mind and darkening my vision.
I couldn't get enough air.
The pieces of the scene assembled in my mind: the strewn arrows, the dead warrior and the acrid stench of poison that entwined with the scent of Cenric's blood.
They'd attacked him with ash arrows soaked in bloodbane.
The same way Hybern had almost stolen Rhysand from me so long ago.
A quiver began to trace its way through my feathered form, shaking my former regrets free and replacing them with razor-sharp will. Flames flickered to life in my veins.
They were hunting him like hounds cornering a lamed fox.
Rhys's panicked voice finally broke through, sneaking through a tiny spiderwebbed crack, roaring in desperation as he tried to pinpoint me, his magic searching. I snuffed him out, drowning him out in an emptiness that I'd honed like a blade over the last decade.
An adamant wall snapped down into place, ten times as thick and as strong as the last.
Only that silence remained.
An eerie and impenetrable silence that flooded my mind: a void. Crawling, seeping, and leeching all that I was. The world around me slowed, sharpening.
They were going to execute my son.
No.
I saw her snapped wings, so very small and fragile, shattered like a porcelain doll against a dark background of blood. Heard their vicious laughter as I held their minds. The suffocating smell of Rhys's tears-
No.
"Long live the King."
No.
The void summoned the beast, the one I'd faced in the ouroboros, kicking it awake and beckoning it to appear. Ice filtered through my veins as its presence filled my being, prowling restlessly, poised to devour all that stood against it.
I shot into the air, the icy wind driving me forward towards the winding scent of my son where he'd fled.
It burned.
Hot, fiery ash seared through Cenric's veins as he raced across the never-ending wasteland of ice, his legs quivering beneath him as he tore through the forest.
Bloodbane.
The fucking bastards had soaked the arrows in bloodbane.
So much in fact he was surprised he hadn't already collapsed from the sheer toxicity, and without his magic to combat its effects-
Cheating, lying, arrogant bastards.
His fury was cut short as a fresh wave of excruciating pain tore through him so violently that he nearly collapsed, his shoulder pleading him to stop, his heart pounding sluggishly in his ears as though the poison was freezing his very blood. It begged him to stop, to rest.
The thought of the warriors' arrows piercing his flesh flashed through his mind, their insufferable smirks if he allowed them to catch him—
He willed more strength to his legs as he stumbled over a particularly thorny bush, the brambles tearing at his skin as he fell before he righted himself and dashed forward.
He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
One of the Illyrians shot another arrow just to the left of him, sending him veering to the right, narrowly avoiding the projectile. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't slip them.
The forest around him had begun thin out, shifting to red tinted granite boulders that stood out starkly against the pale land of silence that encompassed him. They were pushing him out of the forest, into a smooth rock outcrop.
An inkling idea came to him as he saw the narrow passage that awaited him just ahead - some type of stone formation he might be able to slip through, to climb where they couldn't see him while he figured out how to save himself.
It was his only shot.
He surged forward, death nipping at his heels as he raced through the narrow passage, hoping that once he came out of the other side he could loop around—
Cenric barely kept his legs beneath him as he came to a screeching halt, dread numbing him as he saw what lay before him.
They'd herded him into a death trap.
The passage had let out into a small box canyon, cliff walls rising nearly thirty feet before him on all sides, their sides so sheer it would have been difficult to climb them at the best of times. And atop those walls stood two warriors, their Illyrian bows pulled tight as they smiled knowingly at Cenric.
Behind him, the other warriors began to close in, their deep laughter echoing hauntingly off the cliff faces.
Whirring about, Cenric watched as the three warriors that had been tailing him casually walked through the low natural archway, their bows taut as they inched towards him. Wildcats playing with their prey.
"You gave us quite the chase, little lord," the biggest clicked his tongue as he stepped forward, toying with the bow in his hands, "But now where will you go?"
They'd known this formation had been here, had scouted the pathway before hunting him down, he realized with no shortage of malice.
Bitter, lying assholes to the end.
A sharp pain exploded in his chest and he swayed, gasping for breath as he steadied himself on a boulder. The poison was eating him alive, tearing him asunder. The flecks of darkness in his vision had him seething, if he'd only had his magic he could shatter them all, mist them into blood rain—
But he had no magic, nothing more than his wits and the few weapons he'd managed to craft. He couldn't hold out against the poison, its hold even stronger since he'd been running, his racing heart sending it gushing throughout his entire body.
They'd likely banked on that too, on running him so the poison spread faster.
Cenric hoped his family would slaughter them all, every last one.
But he'd take these three with him before he fell.
He tightened his grip on his spear as he snarled at the warriors with every bit of rage he could conjure. Guilt begin to seep into his chest as he thought of his mother, of her warning words.
She hadn't been wrong.
But he had to do this on his own.
He closed his eyes, willing his sister's face to his mind: her round freckled cheeks and vibrant violet eyes. He released one breath before peeling his eyes open and brandishing his spear, his injured shoulder tucked close, the embedded ash abrasive and stinging.
I'll see you soon, Celeste.
Valka skidded across the frosted terrain, the wind whipping violently across her face as she swatted at the ice stinging her eyes.
Their tracks were nearly impossible to discern, the indentions in the ice so faint.
She growled in frustration. She had wasted too much time.
Faster, you have to move faster.
Picking the direction she assumed their tracks followed, she shot off into the falling shadows.
She had to make it in time, she had no other option.
Cenric's spear flew from his hand as the warrior on his right punched him in the gut, sending him reeling as he tried to counter. The male on his left stopped him mid-strike, kicking him in the kidney from behind.
White-hot pain seared through Cenric, spearing into his limp shoulder, the momentum sending him tumbling towards the largest warrior.
The male caught him easily, his gloved hands digging into Cenric's leathers. His haunting amber eyes burned like embers as gave a serpentine smile and threw Cenric down, driving the arrow lodged in his shoulder clean through the front of his leathers.
Cenric cried out in agony, tears blurring his vision as he senses tried to orient themselves, blackness blotting out his vision.
Get up, he roared at himself, get up and destroy them.
His body wouldn't respond
Do it for her, get up for her.
He managed to roll partially onto his right side, blood oozing down his leathers as he panted around the pain, digging his fingers into the ice.
He had to get up.
Before he could right himself the amber-eyed warrior reached down and dug his fingers into Cenric's leathers again before dragging him upright, holding him like a limp child.
The warriors flanking him laughed, loud and tauntingly.
"Where's your bitch, whelp?" he said as he picked Cenric up, twisting the arrow painfully beneath his grip as he pulled him closer. "Or your sire? That piece of shit half-breed and his bastard-born warriors." The warrior tightened his grip, sending an explosion of burning hell through the wound. "We have rules for a reason, boy, rules that your piece of shit father chose to ignore."
Cenric howled in fury as he tried to pry free from the warrior's grasp, willing his body to respond. He wouldn't die like this, wouldn't let them break him like a helpless invalid.
"Where's your mother now? What will she do when she finds her second pup cut to bits?" Cenric longed to claw his face to ribbons - his fingers twitched at his sides. "Or will she abandon you like she abandoned your precious baby sister?" He dragged Cenric closer to hiss in his ear, "Some mother that can't protect her brood. This is why females belong tending the hearth."
Done waiting for the perfect moment, Cenric shot his hands up, ignoring the slash of fire from his shoulder, and gripped the warrior's face, digging his thumbs into those unnerving amber orbs. He'd rip them out like they'd ripped away her wings.
The male couldn't counter fast enough as Cenric drove his fingertips home.
There was an equally satisfying and sickening pop beneath his right thumb and the warrior screamed, prying him away and tossing him down like a broken, discarded doll before his left hand could drive the blow home.
"You fucking bastard!" he roared as he gripped his face, bending over in agony as he pressed his hands flat against the now empty socket, blood dribbling through his fingers. "You'll pay for this! Shoot him! Shoot him!"
Cenric felt the last of the bloodbane finally take hold of his body and shuddered on the icy ground as the last bit of control over his limbs slipped from him. Distantly, he heard the creak of drawn bows above him as the archers on the cliffs above him readied their shots. He had only seconds.
He closed his eyes, allowing a small breath to slip past his lips.
It was over.
He only regretted he'd let them play him, only regretted that he couldn't have saved his sister when this had all happened in the beginning.
It was a worthy ending.
He felt tears well as he thought of her—he missed his sister, wanted nothing more than to see her.
Wait for me.
Pressing his face into the ice he readied himself for death's embrace, praying that his mother could survive the precipice that would now lay before her. His breath billowed before him as he heard the snap of a bowstring, waiting for the impact.
It never came.
Instead, he heard the guttered cry of the warriors above him, then another bow twanging and dull thuds as arrows flew and embedded themselves. The canyon echoed with shouts as bodies fell, and he found himself once again struggling against the darkness as he tried to lift himself, tried to clear his fuzzy vision.
"You." He heard the blinded warrior growl as though from a great distance, the sound beginning to dampen. Everything was growing cold around him, the numbness leeching.
No, he thought groggily as he tried to raise his head.
With the last of his vision, he caught sight of a lithe figure atop the canyon wall and watched it drop before him, then darkness consumed him wholly.
"Me," Valka chirped as she rose from the crouch she'd dropped into from the top of the canyon wall, the Illyrian bow gripped tightly in her palm.
She was so done with all of their shit.
The idiots had left themselves completely open from the back atop the canyon, their guards so simple to break past. The warriors before her would be just as easy to crush.
She smiled at Durek.
"I like the new look, one eye suits you."
"You fucking little bitch," Durek hissed as his two remaining lackeys dropped back and flanked him, their discarded bows now reclaimed, retreating from the limp form of the lord's son. "Why are you here?"
She'd made it in time, barely, though from the color the prince's tanned skin was turning she wasn't so sure of that.
She cracked her neck as she stepped forward, tentatively twirling the ash arrows she had swiped in her gloved fingers.
"Oh, I thought I'd go for a stroll, see why a bunch of Greenhills were lurking in the forest." She stopped, quirking her head to the side, "Though it seems to me like a bunch of overgrown shitbags were having fun playing with their food."
"The witch's dog has no place in this," Durek snarled, the blood leaking rapidly from his eye to soak his face, somehow managing to make him even more ugly than usual. "Go somewhere else, Valka."
"Calling me by my name?" She tutted at him, circling around to step in front of Cenric's worryingly still form. "Well, well, won't you take me to dinner first?"
"I will not spare you, regardless of your allegiance." Finality in his words.
She loved it when males tried to use that dominating, threatening bullshit with her. Loved crushing it beneath her feet and grinding it to dust.
"My allegiance?" He had absolutely no idea. Valka bared her teeth in a wicked grin, brandishing her two ash arrows. "A pity, really, but I suppose I'll have to extend the same courtesy to you."
She struck.
Moving with a swiftness nearly thrice that of a male, she dodged their sloppily fired arrows with ease and broke past the guard of the first warrior, snapping his wrist in the process, before lodging the first arrow in his throat.
Tearing the weapon loose, she pivoted and drove the arrow into Durek's chest before snapping her leg out and kicking him square in his wound. The motion sent him flying backwards, his howl of pain echoing in the falling night.
She couldn't help the smile that broke across her face at the sound.
It faded rapidly, however, as the other warrior snuck up behind and caught her in a chokehold, clamping down on her windpipe with his oversized forearms. She barely resisted the eyeroll as she drove her heel down hard onto his foot and slammed her fist into his sensitive bits.
Because a chokehold was the most creative move the fool could conjure.
She honestly wasn't surprised.
He hissed in pain, releasing his grip just enough for Valka to spin out of the hold and drive the arrow deep into the warrior's heart, twisting the head painfully before shoving him back, watching as his head cracked loudly against the cliff wall.
He did not rise.
Brushing off her hands, Valka turned and swiped up the fallen quiver of ash arrows from the first warrior she'd killed and slowly began to trail her way over to Durek.
She'd never thought she'd get the chance to corner him alone, to deal with him without watching eyes, and with absolutely no repercussions.
The thought filled her with glee.
She was almost glad the lord's son was unconscious, giving her free reign to deal with the bastard before her however she chose.
Hissing, Durek sat up and glared at her, his eye socket bulbous with swollen, torn tissue.
It fit him really.
Disgusting and repulsive in every way imaginable.
Kicking him back, Valka pinned him beneath her boot before standing over him, cocking her head as he glared up at her, foaming through his teeth. His hands were sprawled beside him, wings trapped under his weight. Sweat gleamed on his forehead and he squinted at her, as though struggling to keep her in focus.
The bloodbane was working quickly with him, interesting.
"What's the matter, handsome?" Valka purred, digging her heel into the ash arrow she'd broken off in his chest. He groaned in pain. "Is there something wrong?"
"You've killed four of your own." His expression was murderous, a shame he couldn't move. "You won't get away with this."
"Won't I?" she hummed, putting more weight on the jagged piece of ash in his chest as she slipped one of the extra arrows free. "I don't see who's going to say anything."
"You know what's at stake," he growled, something like fear slipping into his eyes. Pathetic.
"Ridding the resistance of a bastard who can't follow orders," she clicked her tongue, "I'm really not seeing the downside here." Faster than a viper's strike, she drove the extra ash arrow clean through the sensitive flesh of Durek's hand, pinning him.
The male cried out in pain.
"No, I think I'm doing it a favor," she drove another arrow into Durek's other hand, "Besides, don't you remember?" She leaned down next to Durek, her grey eyes flashing dangerously in the fading light. "I've had a score to settle with you for a long time."
"What are you talking about—?"
She drove more arrows into him, puncturing the soft tissue of his belly and then his groin.
"What your father did to my brother, or don't you remember?"
Recognition flared in Durek's remaining eye as his skin turned ashen.
"Don't think for a moment that I ever forgot," she whispered, the sound of the whip cracking in the crisp morning light still haunting her, the way his blood had dripped down his back as he bore the blows intended for another.
For her.
She dug another bolt into his forearm, slicing the sensitive muscle deeply, bloodbane glistening in the wound.
He wouldn't last much longer.
"And since he's not here to extract his revenge, I'm happy to do it for him."
"Fool got those lashings for trying to protect your worthless hide, each was well deserved—"
She twisted the arrow in his gut harshly, snapping the wood off in the wound. He didn't deserve to live, none of the sorry bastards who had surrounded her in her childhood did.
Durek panted in agony.
"You're supposed to be loyal to the resistance, you bitch, it's not your call—"
"The only person I'm loyal to is-" she snarled slowly, her braid swishing over her shoulder as she slipped the final arrow in the quiver free. ". . . Actually, it's none of your business. Fuck off and die."
Drawing back, she drove the last arrow clean through Durek's remaining eye and through to the soft cranial tissue beneath. He thrashed beneath her, lunging and twisting as his body fought against death before growing still.
With a sigh, Valka straightened and turned her attention to Cenric, unnervingly pale and still.
Truly surveying her predicament for the first time, she screwed her face up in annoyance.
She was going to have to carry him the whole way out of this damned canyon. Striding over, she knelt beside him and removed her glove before tentatively pressing her fingertips to his neck, praying for a pulse.
It flickered, faint and irregular.
At least he wasn't dead.
Evaluating the wound through his shoulder, Valka hissed as she noted how the ash and poison had already eaten away at the flesh, the edges beginning to turn dark. She'd have to remove the arrow then cut away the infected bits and cauterize them.
She glanced upwards noting the rapidly darkening sky, she couldn't do it here.
Working her hands underneath Cenric, she pulled him upright, the poor male groaning even in unconsciousness as she righted him. She'd need to be quick and efficient.
Wrapping his good arm about her shoulder she glanced around, calculating the likelihood of encountering other warriors. Given their distance from Ramiel and their direction the chances were slim.
Still, it brought her no ease. She was in no mood to have to patch up the boy and slaughter more egotistical goats.
For now, though, the twilight was silent and still, save for a beautiful white-tailed hawk landing on the canyon wall, watching her with brilliant eyes. Valka narrowed her gaze at the bird as it considered her, then took off and flew upwards, slowly circling above.
She could only roll her eyes as she made her way out of the canyon, grunting as she carried the deceptively heavy Cenric beside her.
This was all bullshit.
I had arrived too late.
Nesta's young lieutenant had already slaughtered all of the warriors who had cornered Cenric by the time I'd sailed over the box canyon, poised to shift. Their bodies lay strewn inside the canyon, the largest of them peppered with ash arrows.
The sight left me uneasy.
But not nearly as much as seeing my son pale and unmoving, his chest barely rising with an arrow clean through his shoulder.
My entire being screamed in panic as I prepared to soar to him, to reach him, to check him—my blood could heal him, and with the bloodbane-
I was prepared to shift and winnow him back to camp when it occurred to me that Valka would know that I had followed and intervened, immediately disqualifying him from the Rite.
When Cenric awoke he would never forgive me for my intervention.
If he survived.
The thought nearly had me attempting to wipe the Illyrian female's mind and taking my son regardless.
The memory of his bellowing voice echoed in my mind.
I did not know what to do.
So I landed silently and watched, pacing on the tree branch as I strained to see signs of life from my son.
I watched in absolute turmoil as Valka strode towards him and kneeled down, tentatively prodding at his wounds and assessing him.
Would she know how to pack it? How to dress it so that the limb would not become permanently immobile?
I ruffled my feathers in agitation, contemplating, gauging.
As she pulled him upright I heard the groan that escaped his lips and relief washed through me. He was alive.
But for how long?
Rising, she adjusted his weight before glancing around and looking straight at me, her stone-grey gaze nearly as unnerving as my sister's. She held it for a time before rolling her eyes and making her way to leave the canyon.
An idea struck me.
I could not help Cenric in my fae form, but I could lead Valka, show her where to find shelter, where to find the herbs that could heal him—
It was then in the fading light that I saw what she had woven into her disheveled braid: red-tailed hawk feathers standing bold against the inky shade of her tresses.
The pieces of Elain's prophecy fell into place.
Without the hawk the wolf will die...
I immediately took off and circled. I could still help, I had to. It was the only thing keeping me from rushing to my dying son.