My power pulled away from me like a wave reeling back from the shore. Only there was no return. It just went farther and farther out into a sea of nothing.
I peered at the sun, now a hand’s width above the horizon, shadows already thick and heavy between the hills. I took my bearings, sorting through the knowledge I’d compiled these weeks.
I stepped northward, swaying. Lucien gripped my arm. “You’re taking a door?”
I slid aching eyes toward him. “Yes.” The caves—doors, they called them—in those hollows led to other pockets of Prythian. I’d taken one straight Under the Mountain. I would now take one to get me home. Or as close to it as I could get. No door to the Night Court existed, here or anywhere.
And I would not risk my friends by bringing them here to retrieve me. No matter that the bond between Rhys and me … I couldn’t so much as feel it.
A numbness had spread through me. I needed to get out—now.
“The Autumn Court portal is that way.” Warning and reproach.
“I can’t go into Summer. They’ll kill me on sight.”
Silence. He released my arm. I swallowed, my throat so dry I could barely do so. “The only other door here leads Under the Mountain. We sealed off all the other entrances. If we go there, we could wind up trapped—or have to return.”
“Then we go to Autumn. And from there …” I trailed off before I finished. Home. But Lucien gleaned it anyway. And seemed to realize then—that’s what the Night Court was. Home.
I could almost see the word in his russet eye as he shook his head. Later.
I gave him a silent nod. Yes—later, we’d have it all out. “The Autumn Court will be as dangerous as Summer,” he warned.
“I just need somewhere to hide—to lie low until … until we can winnow again.”
A faint buzzing and ringing filled my ears. And I felt my magic vanish entirely.
“I know a place,” Lucien said, walking toward the cave that would take us to his home.
To the lands of the family who’d betrayed him as badly as this court had betrayed mine.
We hurried through the hills, swift and silent as shadows.
The cave to the Autumn Court had been left unguarded. Lucien looked at me over his shoulder as if to ask if I, too, had been responsible for the lack of guards who were always stationed here.
I gave him another nod. I’d slid into their minds before we’d left, making sure this door would be left open. Cassian had taught me to always have a second escape route. Always.
Lucien paused before the swirling gloom of the cave mouth, the blackness like a wyrm poised to devour us both. A muscle feathered in his jaw.
I said, “Stay, if you want. What’s done is done.”
For Hybern was coming—already here. I had debated it for weeks: whether it was better to claim the Spring Court for ourselves, or to let it fall to our enemies.
But it could not remain neutral—a barrier between our forces in the North and the humans in the South. It would have been easy to call in Rhys and Cassian, to have the latter bring in an Illyrian legion to claim the territory when it was weakest after my own maneuverings. Depending on how much mobility Cassian had retained—if he was still healing.
Yet then we’d hold one territory—with five other courts between us. Sympathy might have swayed for the Spring Court; others might have joined Hybern against us, considering our conquest here proof of our wickedness. But if Spring fell to Hybern … We could rally the other courts to us. Charge as one from the North, drawing Hybern in close.
“You were right,” Lucien declared at last. “That girl I knew did die Under the Mountain.”
I wasn’t sure if it was an insult. But I nodded all the same. “At least we can agree on that.” I stepped into the awaiting cold and dark.
Lucien fell into step beside me as we strode beneath the archway of carved, crude stone, our blades out as we left behind the warmth and green of eternal spring.
And in the distance, so faint I thought I might have imagined it, a beast’s roar cleaved the land.
PART TWO
CURSEBREAKER
CHAPTER
11
The cold was what hit me first.
Brisk, crisp cold, laced with loam and rotting things.
In the twilight, the world beyond the narrow cave mouth was a latticework of red and gold and brown and green, the trees thick and old, the mossy ground strewn with rocks and boulders that cast long shadows.
We emerged, blades out, barely breathing beyond a trickle of air.
But there were no Autumn Court sentries guarding the entrance to Beron’s realm—none that we could see or scent.
Without my magic, I was blind again, unable to sweep a net of awareness through the ancient, vibrant trees to catch any traces of nearby Fae minds.
Utterly helpless. That’s how I’d been before. How I’d survived so long without it … I didn’t want to consider.
We crept on cat-soft feet into the moss and stone and wood, our breath curling in front of us.
Keep moving, keep striding north. Rhys would have realized by now that our bond had gone dark—was likely trying to glean whether I had planned for that. Whether it was worth the risk of revealing our scheming to find me.
But until he did … until he could hear me, find me … I had to keep moving.
So I let Lucien lead the way, wishing I’d at least been able to shift my eyes to something that could pierce the darkening wood. But my magic was still and frozen. A crutch I’d become too reliant upon.
We picked our way through the forest, the chill deepening with each vanishing shaft of sunlight.
We hadn’t spoken since we’d entered that cave between courts. From the stiffness of his shoulders, the hard angle of his jaw as he moved on silent, steady feet, I knew only our need for stealth kept his simmering questions at bay.
Night was fully overhead, the moon not yet risen, when he led us into another cave.
I balked at the entrance.
Lucien merely said, voice flat and as icy as the air, “It doesn’t lead anywhere. It curves away in the back—it’ll keep us out of sight.”
I let him go inside first nonetheless.
Every limb and movement turned sluggish, aching. But I trailed him into the cave, and around the bend he’d indicated.
Flint struck, and I found myself gazing at a makeshift camp of sorts.
The candle Lucien had ignited sat on a natural stone ledge, and on the floor nearby lay three bedrolls and old blankets, crusted with leaves and cobwebs. A little fire pit lay in the sloped center of the space, the ceiling above it charred.
No one had been here in months. Years.
“I used to stay here while hunting. Before—I left,” he said, examining a dusty, leather-bound book left on the stone ledge beside the candle. He set the tome down with a thump. “It’s just for the night. We’ll find something to eat in the morning.”
I only lifted the closest bedroll and smacked it a few times, leaves and clouds of dust flying off before I laid it upon the ground.
“You truly planned this,” he said at last.