Must . . . hunt. Kol’s words seared themselves in her mind along with an image of him digging his hands into a tree trunk, trying desperately to keep himself from chasing her.
Killing her.
“Let’s go,” she said as she looked over her shoulder for the huntsman who was losing his battle to spare her life. “It will take us at least three days to walk to the Silber River, and we need to get to that bridge before the soldiers find their bearings and become a cohesive unit again.”
Gabril nodded and turned south. “And the boy?”
“He’ll be hunting me soon. Let’s put as much distance between us as we can while I come up with a plan to deal with him.”
Gabril gave her a look that promised he had a plan of his own if hers failed. They started walking south while Sasha circled above them and somewhere behind them, Kol fought to resist Irina’s magic.
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TWENTY-THREE
THE SUN TRACED the stone balcony with thin, golden fingers that did little to dispel the shadows spreading from the gathering twilight. Irina gripped the twisted metal balustrade with both hands and stared at the city—her city—spread out below her like a feast of plump cottages, pretty gabled inns, cobblestoned streets, and cathedral spires that pierced the sky like needles.
The soft glow of lanterns lit to welcome friends and family home dotted the cityscape like tiny golden stars. A gust of wind chased a thread of ice down Irina’s spine, but she refused to shiver.
The sun’s dying glow slid away from the balcony, plunging Irina into shadows. Her gaze followed the remaining light as it sank toward the ground, and her lips pressed together in a thin line when the light lingered in the castle’s garden, sparkling against the white stone monolith that rose from a cluster of starpetals like a sentinel standing guard.
Her heart lurched, tapping against her breastbone like an impatient fist. She pressed one pale fist against her chest in a futile effort to stop the painful pounding and tore her gaze away from the monolith.
She had nothing to grieve for. No one left to mourn. Instead, she had a kingdom at her feet and the ruthless power it took to rule it. Others might say they’d kill to be where she was, but they were liars.
Irina alone had proven capable of wresting the life she deserved from those who sought to keep it from her. She alone had taken the bitter dregs of failure and turned them into triumph. Soon Lorelai would be dead, her traitorous heart in Irina’s hands, and Irina would find a way to renew her heart. All would be as it should. The pain she was pouring into her huntsman’s collar wouldn’t let him fail her again.
Awareness curled along the edges of her power, stinging her veins as magic surged toward her hands.
Something was wrong.
She closed her eyes and focused on the threads of magic she’d laid throughout her kingdom.
To the north. Beyond the Hinderlinde Forest. Over the Silber River and west.
Reaching out, she wrapped her bare hand around a vine of raven’s rose that crept up the side of her tower. The thick, stubby thorns pierced her skin. Ignoring her cuts, Irina said, “Prosnakh. Find what I seek.”
Her magic gathered itself and shot down the thorny plant in a stream of power that sounded like a clap of thunder when it merged with the ground. Irina closed her eyes and envisioned the mountains northwest of the Silber River. Duchess Waldina’s land with its villages, its mines, and Irina’s northern army command outpost.
The queen’s heart pounded unsteadily as her magic merged with the heart of the thorny climbing rose plant and exploded into a vine of its own, snaking beneath the capital city, crossing the Hinderlinde Forest, and burning a path straight into the western mountains, far beneath the sparse villages that clung stubbornly to the mountains’ unforgiving skin.
When the vine reached Duchess Waldina’s lands, it burst into hundreds of tendrils that crawled beneath the ground, seeking answers. In seconds, the tendrils tangled with the lingering strands of Lorelai’s magic, and the spells she’d used were revealed to the queen.
A vise of pain wrapped around Irina’s chest and stole her breath.
Her entire command outpost was gone. Destroyed down to the last stone. Her weapons were buried beneath a lake of hardened lava, her communications towers with their signal mirrors and carrier pigeons were crushed, and her soldiers had fled to the nearest village.
But worse than all that were the threads of magic that wrapped around the heart of the mountain and repelled Irina’s touch with implacable strength.
Lorelai.
Fury tinged with the bitterness of fear swamped Irina. She hadn’t trained the princess to use magic like this—to merge with the heart of something and turn it into a weapon. It had taken Irina years to learn that skill. Either Lorelai had been practicing, training with a rogue mardushka, or the princess had more natural power and talent than Irina had imagined.
Either way, the princess had just declared war, and Irina couldn’t allow that to go unpunished.
Tightening her grip on the rose vine, Irina whispered, “Nakhgor kaz`lit. Find the one I seek and punish her.” Irina poured her intent, every strong-willed, vicious thought she’d ever had, into the incantors. Her arm throbbed, and her heart sent spikes of pain into her jaw as her power shuddered through the vine and then burst into hundreds of smaller threads that moved throughout the capital, the Hinderlinde, and across the Silber into the Falkrains.
Irina opened her eyes and swayed on her feet as the effort it took to gather power from the increasingly reluctant Ravenspire ground took its toll. Gripping the balustrade with bloody fingers, she smiled coldly as she gazed north toward land that were now connected to her as intimately as her own heartbeat.
Her huntsman would be closing in on the princess, driven wild by his need to rip out her heart and end his torment. Any day now, he would complete his task, and Irina would sleep well at night knowing the princess had paid for her betrayal.
But if he failed, the threads of Irina’s power would not. The second Lorelai used her magic again, Irina’s spell would attack, and Lorelai’s foolish game would cost her everything.
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TWENTY-FOUR
KOL’S HOURS WERE a blur of tree trunks, a pale sky that grew dark and star pocked before slowly giving way to dawn, and the torment that poured out of the collar and made him feel like every part of him was an inferno of unendurable pain.
The girl’s voice was a lifeline that sometimes broke through the terrible whispers of his collar, but the longer he stayed away from her, the harder it was to hear her.
By the time the sun rose on the day after he’d left her behind, her voice was gone, and he was alone with the whispers. The pain. And the vicious beat of his dragon’s heart.
He had to go after her.
He couldn’t.
He had to rip her heart from her chest.
He wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t, but it was impossible to remember why.
Near midday, he stumbled, going down hard on his knees as the distance between him and the girl became liquid fire in his veins.
He was going to die.
No, she was going to die.
He wasn’t a killer.
He was nothing but what his queen had made him to be.
The rage pumping through his chest collided with the power that surged out of the collar and became an unending stream of torment. Every breath he took was a razor in his lungs. Every move away from the girl was a knife that flayed him from the inside out.
He clutched his head in his hands and screamed until he was hoarse.
He had to go back. He had to. He was fire, blood, and death, and the girl’s heart was his salvation.
/> Salvation.
His tortured thoughts grabbed on to the word.
He was a predator, and she was his prey. Once he held her heart in his hand, he’d be saved.
He looked up. Ahead of him, the cold, clear expanse of a lake separated him from the vast reaches of the eastern Falkrains. Beyond the mountains, something beckoned him. Something like home, if he’d ever had one.
If he ran, he could be in the eastern Falkrains by nightfall.
If he ran from his prey, the pain would tear him to pieces.
Kol dug his fingers into the ground beneath him, and closed his eyes. Fought to ignore the pounding of his heart and the whispers of the collar.
He would not be a monster.
He already was.
He was a monster, and nothing would change until his took his prey’s heart.
The collar’s whispers skittered through his mind and red-hot pain poured into his veins, obliterating everything but a vicious need to hunt.
To kill.
To finally be free of this torment.
He threw his head back and roared, and the whispers became screams echoing inside his head.
He was fire, blood, and death.
And the girl was going to die.
He found her as the sun reached its midpoint in the sky. She was almost out of the mountains, almost to the open ground that led down toward the rushing river that separated the mountains from the forest that stretched between the north and his queen’s castle. The man was with her, but his blade was sheathed. The bird was hovering, and the whispers in Kol’s mind scraped until he was raw.
Identify the biggest threat.
Kill it first.
Kill them all.
The man’s weapon was a threat, but the man couldn’t run.
The bird was faster, but its beak and talons would do little but slow Kol down.
It couldn’t stop him.
Nothing could.
He was a monster, and he’d come for his salvation.
The girl froze in the act of building a fire and looked at the trees around her. Kol?
His lip curled, and his muscles tensed.
Where are you? I know you’re close. I can hear your thoughts.
Hunt . . . you. The words surfaced from the wreckage of his mind, and he curled his hands into fists. Break . . . you.
You don’t want to do that. She looked confident.
Yes. He did. It was all he wanted. All he craved with every vicious heartbeat.
“He’s back,” she said as she slowly climbed to her feet. “And he’s worse.”
Gabril grabbed his sword as he lunged to his feet.
Hunt. Kol’s voice was barely human. Kill.
I can help you. The girl’s voice was calm. No one has to die.
The collar exploded into a frenzy of blistering pain, and he rose from his hiding place to lock eyes with his prey.
“He’s coming.” The girl glanced at Gabril. “Don’t try to stop him. He’ll kill you. He’s lost control.”
“Lorelai—”
“I never questioned your training methods, because you were the expert. You don’t question me about magic.” The girl lifted her bare hands, palms facing toward Kol. His heart thundered at the sight of her unprotected chest.
Her heart was his for the taking.
His pain was almost over.
“Point your sword toward the ground, take a few steps away from me, and try not to look like a threat,” she said to Gabril. Then she gave the bird a stern look, and it shrieked at Kol as it settled into a nearby tree, its black eyes focused on him.
The man took a step back, pointed his sword to the ground, and looked like an attack dog about to come off his leash as Kol exploded out of the trees and came for the girl.
Prey. He snarled.
Come to me, she said as she lifted her hands.
Kill you.
Come.
Her voice was a balm against the searing pain in his mind, and he shuddered to a stop, his breath heaving, his body shaking. The collar whispered, murmured, screamed. The pain scoured his body until he was nothing but fire.
Blood.
Death.
He clenched his fists around the collar and tore at it, but it didn’t budge.
“Don’t touch that collar,” the man breathed. “Irina’s magic is in there, and it might be a trap.”
The girl nodded without taking her eyes from Kol’s.
Kol released the collar and closed his eyes as her scent reached him. Evergreens. Snow. Fire.
He was fire. His chest burned with every breath, and only the girl’s heart would make it better.
Come to me, she said again, and his eyes flew open.
He snarled as he lunged for her, dragon talons extending from his fingertips.
She waited until he was almost upon her, and then dove beneath his outstretched arms, crashing into his knees and bringing him to the ground. He kicked out and whipped his body toward her. She elbowed him in the jaw, knocking him back. His talons scraped her shoulder.
He scrambled to get his feet beneath him again, and she leaped on top of him, her bare hands pressing into his chest and sending a bolt of magic straight through his dragon heart.
He threw her off him, sending her spinning into the underbrush. With a snarl of rage, he crawled after her, his heart screaming for her blood, the collar whispering until he could hear nothing else.
She watched him come for her, her hands raised as if to stop him. Foolish prey. He pulled himself into a crouch and leaped. Her bare hands slammed against his chest as he pinned her to the ground, and the brilliant heat of her magic arrowed into him.
He threw back his head, the cords of his neck standing out, his chest laboring with every breath as she sent her magic through him, cutting him off from the rage that lived in the empty space where his human heart had been and softening the messages of pain his body kept sending.
Help me. His voice, broken and raw, rose above the collar’s whispers. He looked at her face and found fierce compassion in her eyes, resolute determination in the set of her mouth.
I am. Her thoughts spun quickly, almost too fast for him to follow. She was thinking of magic, of remedies, of how much pain she could take from him without Irina realizing she’d lost her huntsman.
Grab the tree beside us. I don’t want to cause more damage to the land, but we don’t have a choice. She jerked her chin toward the sickly looking maple. Hold on to it with both hands, and whatever you do, don’t let go until I’m finished.
He didn’t question her. Slowly, he climbed off her. She moved with him, keeping her hands against his skin. He turned, dug his now talonless fingers into the bark, and braced himself.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “Nakhgor. Find his pain. Ja`dat. Send it into the tree instead.”
Her magic flared, his dragon heart pounded, and the collar was a band of agony.
“Nakhgor. Ja`dat.” Her voice rose as the magic surged through her and into him, rushing like a river that refused to be stopped. His dragon heart fought her, but Kol himself wanted to be saved, and the part of him that still survived bowed to the strength of her magic.
The brilliant light flowed through him, gathered the worst of his torment and sent it through his hands and into the maple.
Kol cried out as the tree shivered.
Power was an all-encompassing flood of light inside the girl, and it spilled over from her thoughts to his. It was pain and pleasure—freedom and a chain that bound her to an onslaught of weariness she couldn’t stop if she tried.
He felt her struggle to push the weariness back. To do one last thing for him. Concentrating the last of her energy, she pushed her magic toward the thick gray shroud that kept him from his memories. Her voice trembled with power as she yelled, “Nakhgor. Ja`dat.”
The shroud tore. The maple split in two with a tremendous crack. Kol’s memories came flooding back, and with it the restraint he needed to gain control of his dragon hear
t.
The girl gave him a crooked little smile before she slumped toward the ground.
Gabril called out a warning, but Kol had already wrapped his arms around her. Already pulled her against his chest so that she wouldn’t fall.
His mind was free from torment. The collar’s whispers were muted, its pain a dull ache.
She’d saved him. Again.
He tried to say “Thank you,” but her eyes fluttered shut, and she slept.
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TWENTY-FIVE
KOL WALKED AHEAD of Gabril, who had the unconscious princess carefully slung over his back as they made their way toward the Silber River that flowed from the western edge of Ravenspire to the eastern reaches of Eldr. Gabril said that Lorelai was going to use the river to keep her promise to help Eldr.
Lorelai.
Not the girl. Not prey. Not anymore.
Lorelai.
Kol’s mind was finally clear, thank the skies, and though pain still pulsed from Irina’s collar, though his dragon heart still longed for blood, the warm sense of connection he felt to Lorelai, even while she was unconscious, helped him hold the worst of it at bay.
Seconds after Kol had saved Lorelai from hitting the ground as she fainted, Gabril had lifted the princess away from him while warning him that, dragon or no, Kol was dead the second he even looked like he was thinking of hurting Lorelai.
Kol couldn’t blame him. If someone had treated Brig the way he’d treated Lorelai, he’d have incinerated them where they stood.
Gabril stumbled as they climbed over a pile of loose gray stones that marked the border of a steep, grass-covered slope. Instantly, Kol pivoted, lunged toward the man, and wrapped his arms around the princess’s waist to keep her from falling.
Gabril found his footing in seconds. “Remove your hands from the princess.” The absolute authority in his voice would put Master Eiler to shame.
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