I stared at him, shock and betrayal rippling through me, but this thing was only an illusion, a disguise. Reyker would never have hurt me.
you will restore what we lost.
Veronis wanted me to free him and his brethren, to reunite him with Aillira, his lost mortal lover. Apparently, he was willing to do whatever necessary to force me to do his bidding. My temper got the better of me.
“Break yourself out of prison. I’m not beholden to you.”
oh, but you are.
Not-Reyker straddled me.
“Get off.” I shoved at his chest, but he didn’t budge. Before I could scream, he clamped a hand over my mouth.
we can take away every memory you have of him. we can replace them with nightmares.
Not-Reyker tore at the buttons on my trousers.
When I dove into the loch in the Grove of the Fallen Ones, I’d felt Veronis’s power, how dark and twisted he’d become after spending eons locked in a cage, but I’d still not expected him to be as vicious as the god of death. That was the point of the Forbidden Scriptures—to show that Gwylor was the villain and Veronis the hero.
Maybe that was a lie too.
This thing that wore my dead lover’s skin was going to ravish me, and Veronis would make me believe it was Reyker.
But I still had the upper hand.
Do this and you lose your only chance at freedom, I said in my mind, knowing he heard. I won’t help you. You’ll rot down there. You’ll never see Aillira again.
Not-Reyker released my mouth but kept me pinned. The life I’d seen in his eyes was gone. He took my hand and pressed my palm to his chest.
There was no soul inside this replica of Reyker. What I saw when I fell into him was a series of images that I knew weren’t memories. These were predictions: Draki, burning village after village on Glasnith. Every Daughter of Aillira, hunted down, enslaved. A mass execution, like the one in Vaknavangur, but I recognized the prisoners being beheaded. Zabelle. Quinlan. Garreth. All while I stood at Draki’s side like a prize, watching it happen—my eyes unfocused, my mind torn away.
our prison drains us. gwylor and ildja feed off our siphoned power, and they use it to aid the serpent goddess’s half-immortal son. as long as they reign and we remain trapped, the dragon will be invincible.
My hand dropped, and the images dissolved.
It was divination, not truth. Not yet. But it seemed the likeliest end to all this. If I refused Veronis, I was gambling with my brother’s life. With the freedom of every Daughter of Aillira. With the fate of my country.
“What must I do?”
go to her temple. find the key.
Her temple—Aillira’s Temple, that had been sacked by Draki and his Dragonmen. “What key?”
the key of the soul-eater. the key of damnation.
The serpent-goddess Ildja, keeper of the Mist, where she tortured and devoured the souls of the damned. She was Gwylor’s sister. Draki’s mother. “What do I do with the key?”
take it to the mountain of fire, in the center of the frozen sun. bury it in the heart of ildja. do not let her take the key from you or all will be lost.
Iseneld—of course that’s where I had to go. To Reyker’s homeland . . . without him. To Draki’s kingdom, where the Dragon would be even stronger than he was on Glasnith.
To fight his mother. A goddess.
I didn’t bother asking any of the hundred questions I had about what powers I possessed and how to control them, how I would free the gods, what would happen to me after I did. Veronis would give me no answers, and there was something else I wanted far more. “I’ll do as you ask, on one condition.”
we do not take orders from vessels.
“Consider it a humble request. After I restore what you’ve lost, you return the favor. I want him back.” I squeezed the moonflower petal in my fist. “In this world, in the flesh, if possible. If not, then in the otherworlds. When I die, you send me to him, wherever he is.” Even if it was in the Mist, to be devoured by Ildja—I’d rather be tortured by his side than spend eternity without him. “Agree, and I’ll put up no more resistance to your commands.”
Silence. I waited, breath held.
we will consider it.
Not-Reyker vanished. Veronis spoke no more.
I buried my head in my hands. There was a glowing ember floating in the cold puddle of darkness inside me, and I curled around that hope, nursing it, clinging to it. Beneath the fading moonlight, my knees drawn against my chest, I whispered the same thing over and over, as if the more I said it, the truer it became.
“I will find him. I will find him. I will find him.”
CHAPTER 7
REYKER
It was morning when Reyker rode into the ruins of Stony Harbor, crossing beneath Draki’s flag—a jagged-armed star the color of blood against a blue backdrop. The Star of the Dragon. The warlord marked his territory the same way he marked the gifted women he enslaved.
The fires had burned out days ago, but the scent of smoke and charred flesh still hung in the air. A peculiar mix of satisfaction and sorrow welled in Reyker at the sight. This was what Torin, Madoc, and all who followed them deserved. But Lira, Ishleen, Quinlan—they weren’t like the others. There was no way to pick out the innocent from the guilty. All suffered equally. His time fighting alongside the Dragonmen had taught him this.
Around him, yawning men rose from their beds, some sleeping in the open, others emerging from simple shelters of cloth and wood, some alone, some with the village thralls at their sides. Some were Dragonmen, and others were Glasnithian mercenaries—traitors to their own countrymen.
Heads turned toward Reyker as he passed. There were whistles, shouts, jeers. He ignored them, guiding his horse to the largest shelter in the center of the village.
Draki knew he was here, as he always did.
The warlord pushed through the pelt covering the shelter’s opening, dressed only in trousers, his exposed tattoos quivering like living creatures as he made a show of rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck, a knife-edged smile spread across his face. “The Sword of the Dragon returns. Did you miss me, Reyker?”
“I’ve come to make a deal.” Reyker dismounted and stood before the Dragon. “I’ll join you. I’ll be your Sword.” The pledge was like broken glass, tearing him to pieces as it left his mouth. “But for each raid, for each kill, you let some of your captives go, unharmed.”
He thought he’d escaped this. When he’d washed ashore in Stony Harbor all those months ago, and everyone believed him dead, he had thought he could start over. Live a different life. Be a different man. Now here he was, back where he’d started, aiding the monster who’d killed and conquered everything he loved.