The Valkyrie’s gaze grew unfocused. Seeing the future? “I’ve informed the hell king that his mate is somewhere in the universe, ready for the taking, and provided a description of you. He’s already put out a bounty. When the time comes, I’ll make sure you’re captured and safely delivered to him. Of course, you’ll have no idea when, since the capture must look real.”
This plot sounded more and more dangerous. “If I agreed to this, I’d have to wait until I’m fully immortal.” The females in Lila’s family usually transitioned around twenty-three, so she was long overdue. Until that happened, she was as vulnerable to harm as a mortal. Going toe-to-toe with immortals would be idiotic. “Maybe in a few weeks.”
“Events are building with the M?ri?r,” N?x said. “I can’t give you that much time.”
Saetth told Lila, “You’ve been out of the Lore, so you don’t know how bad it’s gotten.”
“I’ve read the Book of Lore, keeping up to date with the M?ri?r’s major battles.” If those one-sided slaughters could be considered battles.
“What goes on behind the scenes is just as important.” Brows drawn, he said, “The cowardly fey-slayer sprung a sneak attack on me recently. He destroyed the Ancestors’ Sword.”
“Are you shitting me?” Lila’s gaze dropped to the scabbard on Saetth’s hip. Looking more closely, she could see he wore another sword—not the king’s blade. This shocked her as much as everything else she’d learned tonight.
The sword that had beheaded her parents was no more.
The M?ri?r had struck home yet again. Was Lila going to hide while they continued their assault on the kingdom?
Never.
She faced N?x. “When would the . . . capture happen?”
“Sooner rather than later.”
Lila’s ears twitched. She narrowed her eyes at the Valkyrie’s blasé expression. “I need to know the duration of my stay in hell and the details of my extraction.”
“You’ll stay until the demon tells you what I want him to, and we’ll extract you as soon as you need us to.”
Lila shook her head. “You have to give me more than that.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Yes.” The soothsayer shrugged, flustering her bat. “Some details are above your feygrade.”
“Feygrade? Did you really just say that?” Do not pop the Valkyrie in the mouth.
Saetth took Lila’s hand, drawing her attention back to him. “You have to trust in N?x’s plan. She knows what’s best for Sylvan. Cousin, I wouldn’t expect this of you if the alternative weren’t so dire.”
“You expect me to go into a M?ri?r stronghold.”
“All will be well,” he said. “Remember, a demon cannot hurt his mate.”
THREE
Graven Castle
The dimension of Pandemonia
I plan to torture her till she begs for mercy,” Sian said as he twirled his great battle-ax. “Make her pay for all her treachery in her past life.”
He and Uthyr, his dragon ally, stood on a terrace high in Sian’s castle. A league below them, demon legions clamored for war.
Sian was feeling just as bloodthirsty. “If Princess Kari’s even been reincarnated.” Merely thinking about the perfidious bitch made his muscles tense. “I have only the word of a soothsayer.”
But he’d always believed. . . .
Uthyr rested on his hind legs and wrapped his spiked tail around his gigantic body. Like all M?ri?r, he could communicate telepathically: —Your female probably doesn’t even know she’s a reincarnate, could go her whole life without remembering a previous existence. She might have no memory of a betrayal. What then?—
Sian hoped she did remember. If not . . . “I have more than enough memory for both of us.”
Uthyr gave a dragonic sigh, a lazy stream of flame tumbling from his lips. —Will you not tell me your mate’s crimes?—
Even after so long, Sian couldn’t speak about her actions without going into a rage. When he gripped the handle of his ax, he could feel Uthyr studying him.
The dragon shifter had decided to take a sabbatical in Pandemonia, saying he planned to “work on his chess game and visit with the local dragon population.” Most likely he was here to monitor Sian’s declining self-control and increasing aggression.
Sian didn’t care what the shifter did, as long as he didn’t get in the way. “All you need to know is that she betrayed me and every demon of this realm.” Because of her, Sian had been left maimed for ten millennia. Inwardly, he’d been scarred much, much worse.
For eons, he had awaited his revenge, not only on his mate, but on her entire hated species.
Uthyr scratched his neck with the claws of a back paw, shedding a metallic blue-gold scale. —You’ve never doubted she would be reborn. What made you so certain?—
Because he’d had no choice. “When I learned of her death, I vowed to live long enough to see her return.” How else could he have gone on?
He would never forget falling to his knees beside the river of fire, roaring and clawing at his chest, grief and hatred blistering him inside.
—No word on your bounty?—
“Immortals are scouring the universe for her. If she retains her species and her unique appearance”—a fey with one amber eye and one violet—“she will be found.” If not, he would take over the hunt between his next two wars.
In the first campaign, he would fight off an invasion of trespassers. In the second, he would launch his own invasion.
Nothing pleased Sian so well as a good, meaty war, and he was grateful to have conflicts to distract him. Otherwise he would’ve gone mad since learning of his mate’s possible reincarnation.
And since he’d been struck by the hell-change curse.
Upon his brother’s recent death, Sian had reluctantly returned to Pandemonia to assume the crown—and all its disadvantages. He’d started to transform from a male of striking good looks into his most monstrous self.
Whoever ruled hell slowly became hell. The last time Sian looked at his reflection—months ago—a hideous stranger had stared back at him.