Drothiker

Faolin wasn’t sure she was breathing.

Hemvae—hemvae.

Her duce … a legend …

Even as her grip remained indefatigable on the dagger on Deisn’s neck, even as all her wits were being fiddled with by the darkness encasing her, Faolin did not take her eyes off the grinning sorceress, could not help but notice the amusement that seemed to be leaking off her in tendrils.

She’d known. Deisn had known—

Azryle Wintershade lifted to his feet—Faolin tried not to muse over the panic she’d glimpsed on the prince’s face when Syrene had plunged the Sword in her chest. As if his world was crumpling down before him, as if a loss he would not endure was taking place.

Syrene stepped forward—towards Faolin and Deisn—and Faolin straightened at the pure domination in her gaze.

The look of a queen, a ruler.

Faolin managed to bring her free hand’s fingers to her brow and bowed her head to her duce. “Czar.”

Syrene’s chin jutted out.

Arena had fallen utterly silent, each’s face bone-white. Fear—it was fear flowing from them.

Syrene was no mouse trapped amid the lions.

She was the lion come to feed on them all.

The Prince of Cleystein fell a step behind her, and then Levsenn and Vur. All geared up to take down the world for one person.

One life worth a hundred.

But they all stopped short. Gazes flicked to something behind Faolin.

Levsenn’s face leeched of all color. “Faolin …”

Faolin heard it then—the snarls so near her ear, the otherworldly darkness looping around her, squeezing her. Her blood went cold. But—

She whispered in Deisn’s ear, pressing the blade in her neck, “Don’t think for a second that I will not slit your throat should they even near my duce.”

“Oh, but Rene does not want me dead,” Deisn drawled. “Do you, Syrene?”

“No,” said the duce, her voice high. Then—

The prince flinched, as if he’d been struck by an invisible force, just as Deisn bristled. Then the latter was grinning.

Syrene looked over her shoulder at His Highness.

But it was Deisn who spoke. “Now is that a way to speak with a lady? Trying to get in her mind, Your Highness?”

“I’d hardly call you a lady,” Faolin hissed, her gaze on Syrene and the prince.

His Highness just shook his head at the duce.

“Fine,” sighed Syrene, bringing a hand up. And it took everything in Faolin to not flinch as lightning looped around her duce’s fingers. “There are other ways to have you speaking.”

Deisn stiffened beneath Faolin’s touch. “Your petty mejest will not work on this power running in my veins, Syrene.”

“No, my mejest won’t.”

There was the barest smirk on Syrene’s lips as the sky overhead began rumbling frantically, only a second before Faolin’s each bone seemed to have rattled as lightning struck too near behind her.

All her training—it took all her training to keep her grip on the dagger, even as Levsenn fell to her ass and Vur recoiled two steps, eyes threatening to pop out.

There was a thud, declaring that a baeselk toppled.

The prince remained inexpressive, but Syrene was smirking. “Unfortunately for you, that’s no mejest.” Her face grew hard in a heartbeat. “Where are the Kaerions.” A pure command.

Deisn began struggling, earning a hiss from Faolin, and a painful jab in her back.

Deisn’s snarl was no human, not of this world at all. Then—

Syrene hissed, her hand going for her chest. It was only when she trailed it with her fingers did Faolin notice the thinnest chain on her neck. She tugged out a bronze locket with an emerald embedded in the midst—looking like an eye—from behind the chest plate.

Prince’s gaze landed on the locket. Then snapped to where he’d been whipped only minutes before—to the queen.

But Her Majesty wasn’t there, neither were the Jaguar and the firebreather.

A yelp from Levsenn had the prince bracing and reaching for his weapons, but the duce and Vur lunged for the siren on her knees. Levsenn began clawing at her temples, at her whole face, grunting through her teeth—in frustration and in pain.

“Brave, indeed.” The voice seemed to be sounding from everywhere in the arena. “To bring every beloved so near me.”

Then Vur went to his knees, as if kicked in the back of his knees.

Syrene exclaimed, “Vurian.”

He gritted his teeth against pain, face saturating a dark shade of red. Blood flowed from both Levsenn’s and Vur’s mouths.

“She’s heating their blood,” the prince observed, stepping closer to where they knelt. “Burning their insides.” He looked skyward, as if he would find the queen there. “Using Vendrik’s fire.”

Syrene turned to him. “You can save them.” A request, a question, a command all at once.

His Highness seemed to consider as he met Syrene’s gaze again, jaw working. Then he shrugged. “I can try.”

As he bent slightly to kneel, the ground shook.

Deisn slid out of Faolin’s grip—

Before Faolin even had a chance to breathe, darkness seeped into her like water in cracks.