Burn them, Iseult’s heart said, and this time it was not the Firewitch speaking. She knew what to do here. She had done it before, and she did not need flames to do it. A different kind of fire lived inside her: the power that broke through enchanted ice and Origin Wells.

She lifted her arms, fingers stretching wide. Just as Esme had shown her. Just as she had done before in the Contested Lands.

But when she reached for the Abbot’s bleeding Threads, Aeduan lunged at her. “No.” He knocked her arm, and in that same instant, the Abbot’s sword whistled through the air. Right where Iseult had been.

A wisp of cold wind brushed against her. Then Aeduan was hauling Iseult backward, sideways, out of reach. Until they were the ones standing before the cave—and there was no missing just how fast the battle was thundering toward them now. Half-speed, if not more.

“Run,” Aeduan commanded, pushing Iseult behind him. “Run and do not look back.”

“I can cleave him,” she tried.

“Can … but should not. You do not want his mind inside yours.”

So Aeduan had figured that out then.

“I will handle Natan.”

“No.” Iseult gripped his forearm. “Come with me. I didn’t save you so you could die again.”

“I will be right behind,” he said, and she realized there would be no changing his mind. So she nodded and patted the bloodied coin beneath her shirt. “Find me.”

“Always,” he promised, and for a brief pause in the chaos, he looked into her eyes. So pale, so blue. When she had seen those eyes in Ve?aza City, she had thought they were the color of understanding.

She had been right.

“Te varuje,” she told him. “Te varuje.”

Then Iseult did as Aeduan had ordered, and she ran.

FIFTY-SIX

The cavern had changed since yesterday. An ice-bridge now spanned overhead, cold coiling off it, while a harsh wind blustered and kicked.

How wind could build underground, Safi had no idea, but she suspected it wasn’t natural—and that it had something to do with the voices filling the darkness far across the cavern. Distant, echoing sounds that tangled inside her gut. That seemed to call to her, even as she knew such a thing made no sense.

Nothing in this place made sense.

Beside Safi, the Hell-Bards tried to catch their breaths while Vaness lay limp upon Zander’s shoulder.

“You know,” Caden said between gasps, “we have a saying in the Ohrins. Over the falls and into the rapids. That’s what this feels like, Safi. Where the hell have you taken us?”

“I too,” Lev panted, raising a hand, “would like an answer to this question.”

“Magic,” was all Zander offered, his mouth agape as he ogled the blue-lit door.

“I don’t know,” Safi admitted. “I found it by accident while I was evading the flame hawk, and now…” She shrugged, a helpless gesture—because really there was nothing else she could say.

“Well, where does it go?” Caden squinted into the darkness, inching closer to the cliff’s edge. “Those soldiers will find us eventually, you know. Assuming they aren’t already on their way. We need to get moving.”

“Magic,” Zander repeated, louder now, and pointing at the door. “Magic.”

“Yeah, Zan.” Lev patted his shoulder. “We know.”

Wind thrashed harder, pulling at Safi’s hair, and the distant voices pitched louder—loud enough for her to catch a single word: Threadbrother.

Safi snapped her gaze toward it, straining to see, straining to listen. Because that word had been shouted in Nubrevnan. And it had been shouted in a voice she knew. His voice, even though he’d died in an explosion two weeks ago—

“Safi,” Caden said. “Are you listening?”

It can’t be, she thought, head shaking. It can’t be him. Merik’s dead, he’s dead. And yet, that voice had sounded exactly like she remembered from the Jana. Just like she remembered from that night on a dusty road.

And these winds—could they be his?

“Safi!” Caden clapped a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. “We need to follow this bridge.” He dipped his head until his eyes bored into hers. “We can’t stay here.”

She blinked, confused now. Lost, even. She had been so certain that voice belonged to a dead man.

“Bridge?” she murmured at last, gaze finally latching onto Caden’s.

“That one.” He pointed straight into the crevasse, and when Safi followed his finger she saw only shadows.

While far, far below, a galaxy swirled.

“Magic,” Zander repeated once more, and for the first time since stumbling through the doorway, he moved, striding right off the ledge and into the abyss.

Safi lunged forward to grab him, but she was too slow, and …

And Zander didn’t plummet to his death. Instead, he marched right across the cavern while Vaness bounced upon his shoulder.

“Another glamour,” Lev explained, moving to Safi’s side. “I bet you’re getting real sick of those.” Then with a rakish grin, she too strutted onto invisible nothing.

“Stay close,” Caden murmured, and his fingers laced into Safi’s. “This bridge is narrow, and it’s a long way down.”

* * *

Merik met the Fury head-on. A collision of winds, a clashing of magics. Cold and ice-bound against stars that now sang inside his blood. The two winds plowed against each other …

And stopped. A wall of noise, a wall of storm.

“Run!” Merik bellowed at the Northman on the steps behind. A refrain he’d yelled so often to this man—but that had never mattered more than it did right now. “RUN!”

The Northman ran, vanishing from Merik’s peripheral gaze.

Does he have them? Kullen’s voice raged atop his winds—or perhaps he only raged it inside Merik’s skull. Either way, it jolted the gale in his favor. A sudden lurch of shadowy power that thundered against Merik.

He skidded backward. His calves hit stairs, and his balance was thrown. He fell. Winds pulverized him, and suddenly Kullen was there, sweeping past in a swirl of shadows that aimed for the Northman.

Merik did not think, he did not evaluate. He moved, flying full force toward Kullen. And right as Kullen landed—right as the Northman flung himself through a glowing doorway that led only Noden knew where—Merik blasted into him.

He tackled the Fury in a graceless tangle of limbs. Together, they keeled over the edge, tumbling into the chasm below. They spun, they fell, and for several eternal heartbeats, gravity gripped harder than any magic or any storm.

Then Kullen’s frozen winds pummeled in, and Merik’s swooped in just behind. Now, they shot back up toward ledges, toward glowing doorways half masked by dust.

Where are they? Kullen’s words severed into Merik’s brain. Where have you put them?

“Put what?” he tried to scream, but there could be no out-screaming this storm. And there was no out-flying Kullen either. Every flip Merik attempted, Kullen flipped faster. Every evasion, every sweep, Kullen was there before Merik could twist away.

You took the blade and the glass. But I will get them back, Threadbrother. You cannot hide them from me.

The Fury grabbed, his magic clawed. Twice, ice-fingers scraped at Merik, sharp enough to cut. Cold enough to cauterize. First his face, then his chest. And twice, it would have been Merik’s throat if he hadn’t punched his winds between them.

The harder Merik flew, the harder the Fury flew to catch him—and the more winds they sucked in, forcing the air to thicken. Ice-laden, yet hot with rage. Snow streaking, yet charged and building.

Then lightning cracked. Near enough to singe Merik’s skin. To judder electricity through his chest and veins. And bright enough to startle both him and the Fury.

Merik used that moment. He used the spots flashing in his eyes to thrust away. Aimlessly, yet with every piece of power inside—and inside those stars spinning far below.

It worked. Merik launched high, he launched fast. Kullen roared after him, a bellow to rupture Merik’s skull. A scream that set off more lightning, more winds. But Merik had the momentum he needed, and he catapulted up, up. Away, away.

And as he flew, he ransacked his mind for something—anything—that would help him. Kullen thought Merik had stolen his blade and glass; there had to be a way Merik could use that. Especially since as long as Kullen was here, he wasn’t letting the Raider King inside … and that meant the Raider King wasn’t reaching Lovats.

But Merik couldn’t distract Kullen forever.

Merik’s winds zoomed him to the ice-bridge. Cold quivered off it—different than the ice of Kullen’s storm. It seemed to hum, it seemed to sing: Come, come, and find release.

It was the song from the pond filled with bodies, firmer here. A mother urging her child to bed.

Merik’s flight slowed. The refrain thrummed louder. Come, my son, and sleep. Come, come, the ice will hold you.

His gaze traced the bridge across the dark expanse to where it fed onto a ledge with a tall door, half choked by more ice.

Come, come, and face the end.

Before Merik could fly that way, before he could fully answer that call, Kullen’s voice shattered across his brain: AND WHO ARE THESE INTRUDERS?