He and I and Callie—always Callie. I can’t not notice her every movement. Her power sings to me even now, that siren in her calling to me, always beckoning me back to her side. It’s only time and practice that keep me focused on the battle at hand.

I nick Galleghar’s arm, and he grazes my thigh. On and on it goes, blow after blow, one close hit followed by another. Never have I fought a more difficult foe—and never have I enjoyed the challenge so much.

My father is right. There’s brutality in our blood. I’ve always been aware of it, but it’s times like this where I feel the carnage calling to me.

I can hear our labored breaths, and smell the sweat and blood and magic dripping from our skin. The whole room is thickening with it …

Around me, the shadows have fallen quiet. So very, very quiet.

I feel him then. The Thief.

I parry a blow from my father and let my eyes sweep the room.

How had I not noticed?

All of that vile, unnatural magic I’m choking on doesn’t belong to Galleghar or any one of the sleeping soldiers. It’s the Thief’s.

I can feel his life force all around me. He’s not simply an undead king, or a banished leviathan—

I hadn’t realized until now the true nature of darkness. It closes in on me from all sides, one with the magic.

… We’re sorry …

… So sorry …

Cold, bleak certainty washes over me.

My eyes move to Callie just in time to meet her horrified gaze.

I love you, I want to say. More than worlds can hold or words can convey. You are everything that has ever mattered to me. Have faith and strength. You’ll be alright.

The darkness closes in on me, descending on my flesh just as I’d seen it do to so many of my enemies.

I try to speak the words, to give Callie something, but the shadows sink into me, carrying dark magic with them. It feels like fire beneath my flesh, an inferno in my veins.

I’m sorry, cherub. My beautiful nightmare. You will have to save us all yourself.

Chapter 35

I watch, frozen, as Des’s shadows close in on him.

His back arches and his entire body tenses, his muscles straining against his skin.

This is what the Thief wanted me to see.

I clutch my heart. I can feel his pain like a battering ram, slamming into me over and over again. I nearly choke on his agony. If I’m feeling that through our connection, then what must he be experiencing?

And then the blackness swallows him up.

When it clears, he’s gone.

Immediately, the pain in my chest cuts off. At first, I feel a relief; Des is in no more pain.

But then, panic. Panic like I’ve never known.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.

My eyes scour every corner of the room. Where did Des go?

My fingers, still cradling the skin over my heart, now dig in.

The Night King’s magic, though it still dances through my veins, now feels like a shadow of its former self. And with every exhalation, it dims and dims until I only hold a memory of it inside myself.

I grasp at the last tendrils of his power as they slide down our magical connection. Down and away from me. All the while, my gaze searches the room.

What just happened? Where did Des go?

And why can’t I feel him down our bond?

In the distance, someone calls out to me.

I still can’t get enough air.

Why?

Why why why?

My fingers begin to tingle like they’ve been kissed by ice. The sensation spreads, numbing me as it goes. Putting my hands to my head, I bow over myself.

So confused …

Suddenly I feel a presence at my back. Someone grabs a clump of my hair and jerks my head back, placing a blade to my throat. I hear Temper shout.

“Time to join your mate,” Galleghar hisses against my ear.

No sooner are the words out, than another burst of that sickening magic blows him back.

“I told you not to touch her,” a soldier says, their voice echoing off the walls.

A second wave of magic follows the first, this one from Temper. It blasts from her palm, hitting Galleghar in the head and knocking him out.

“Eat shit, motherfucker,” she says.

Everything happening around me barely registers. All I can focus on is the thump of my heart and the sick certainty that something is wrong—that I am wrong.

Where is my mate?

Temper’s footfalls echo through the room as she comes towards me, her eyes burning. “You’ve got about a minute to start explaining yourself,” she commands a sleeping soldier, “and then I begin to fuck shit up.”

“There’s only one human whose words I’ll listen to,” the soldier replies smoothly, “and they aren’t yours.”

This is a dream. Of course. A dream.

Dropping my hands, I straighten.

“Enough with the games.” I’m surprised my words come out as even as they do.

I search the room for the Thief. When I don’t see his dark features, I settle on a sleeping soldier. “Where is my mate?” Glamour coats the words like syrup.

Around me, the entire room is poised, the air thick with promised violence and the Thief’s dark magic.

The female soldier I stare at replies, “He’s in my kingdom now.”

Small death. The Thief rules over small death. That’s how this nightmare is all possible. I’m asleep, and the Thief is screwing with me.

“Wake me up,” I demand.

The look the Thief gives me … if I didn’t know him better, I’d almost say it’s pity. But he’s enjoying this.

“This is no dream, enchantress. If it were, I would stand before you as myself—just as I always have.”

I glance around, at all the frozen faces. Malaki and Janus are sprawled on the ground, their forms unnaturally still, Galleghar hasn’t moved from where Temper knocked him out, and the rest of the Thief’s minions seem content to stay where they are.

The only other person who seems truly alive is Temper. My gaze falls to her just as she closes in on me.

Dear Temper, my best friend. A tear slips from her burning eyes.

I’ve only ever seen her cry twice.

She shakes her head. “Babe, this isn’t a dream.”

This … isn’t a dream?

But of course it is. No one is as they seem and nothing feels as it should.

My heart spasms, and that cold numbness, it’s reached my bond to Des.

I stumble then fall to my knees.

Realization is always described as an instant of enlightenment, but that’s not how it happens this time. The truth comes in slow, icy increments.

I wasn’t dropped into some dream. I can remember the last minute and the minute before that. I can remember coming here, and I can remember every logical thing but that last, final one.

Des disappearing. Des leaving me.

Gasping out a breath, I clutch at my heart.

The darkness will betray you, the seer said.

I heave out a breath.

This is no dream.

It feels … it feels like I’ve fallen into an icy lake and the cold water is seizing up my lungs.

Another breath comes shuddering out.

If it isn’t a dream, that means that Des … Des …

My throat spasms as a cry works its way up.

I’m shaking my head.

No. No, no, no, no.

The cry is building at the back of my throat.

He can’t be—can’t be dead.

I scream, my siren rising within me. My wings flare wide and my scales ripple across my forearms, my skin burning bright, so terribly bright. My fingers throb where my claws have extended.