Reyker dismounted. The black river stirred.
Let. Me. Out.
His blade split their flesh. He caught an axe as it dropped from one of their hands, making use of both weapons. He cleaved a skull, a chest. Every movement was fluid, the black river flowing through him. It felt like coming home.
When it was over, Reyker stood panting, exhilarated. Five men lay dead. His own men—beneath the glaze of blood were faces he knew.
Ishleen stared, terrified, until she recognized him. “You? What are you—”
“Where is Lira?” he shouted. The girl flinched. With effort, he lowered his voice. “She’s in danger. I have to find her. Where is she?”
Ishleen pointed. “Lira went to the cells.”
He’d dreamed of her there, in his old cell, calling out to him. He’d lain in the priests’ sanctuary as the jagged hole in his chest slowly healed, holding fast to those dreams.
“Go,” Reyker told the girl, nodding at the forest. He picked up her fallen sword, handing it to her. “Run and hide.”
“My mother. An invader chased her. That way.” Ishleen pointed in the opposite direction from the cells. “Please. Won’t you help her?”
Reyker could not stop for everyone who needed saving. Not if he wanted to find Lira before Draki did. “Go!” he said, quelling her protests.
She ran. Reyker mounted and rode for the cells, watching over his shoulder to make sure Ishleen made it into the forest safely.
The horse climbed a slope and the cells came into view, bright with fire. He was off the horse before it halted, kicking in the door.
“Lira!” He felt his way to the bars through the smoke. The grates were locked. He knelt, searching the floor of each cell. She wasn’t here. Rain leaked in through a hole in the roof.
Reyker stumbled outside, circling the building. Ashes of clothing smoldered in the grass. Small muddy footprints headed toward the village, and he climbed on his horse, following them.
Once more he closed his eyes and grappled for the cord of blood magic that connected them. This time he sensed it—a tug, a whisper.
It drew him toward the sanctuary. The tower was a gray smear in the swirling storm.
A sudden drumming rose above the thunder. Men screamed. Reyker’s horse reared as dozens of creatures rushed at them, huge and horned, with coats like twilight, eyes like dusk.
Forest demons.
He jerked the horse’s reins, dodging around the demons, but one blocked the way. The forest demon looked at Reyker, assessing. A moment later, it moved aside, bobbing its huge head. Judging him as one who meant no harm—someone who belonged here.
Reyker bowed back and rode on.
When he arrived at the sanctuary, it was surrounded by dead Dragonmen lying among a patchwork of blood and feathers. The men’s throats were raggedly slashed, eyes torn and dangling from sockets, cheeks shredded so the white of teeth was visible through the holes. Giant raptors flitted about, picking at the remains.
In the distance, Reyker noticed a single fishing boat edging out of the harbor, tossed about, taking its chances on the rough seas.
He entered the sanctuary. It was empty but for a charred body and the corpse of a deformed woman, her body blotted by glassy eyes. Blood coated the altar, streaked down the walls. Something terrible had happened to Lira here. He felt it.
A silver disk stuck out of the mud beside the altar. Reyker picked it up, wiped it off. His own blood was still on the medallion, soaked into the carving. Was this her blood on the sliced rope necklace?
Reyker tucked the medallion under the tight leather of his jerkin and stepped back into the squall. His blood whispered, growing louder, more insistent. He let it lead him, chasing Lira’s trail into the forest.
The trees were dense, the rain heavy.
The horse was still stubbornly slow. It stalled at a fallen tree, bucked when Reyker kicked it. The rain loosened his grip, and he was thrown through the air—he landed on the tree, rolled facedown into a puddle, and came up sputtering in time to watch the horse bolt.
“Now you find your speed, you stupid beast?” he called as it disappeared.
A snort made him jump. In the mud beside him was a chestnut-coated mare looking impatient. Like it was waiting for him.
This was Lira’s horse. It had to be. She was close.
“Stuck, are you? Come on then.” Reyker braced his feet against the fallen tree, his back against the mare, pushing with all his strength. The horse’s body moved, just barely. “Are you even trying?” he grunted, muscles straining.
The horse rocked, and Reyker pushed until the animal staggered to all fours. He wasted no time climbing on, and the mare tore through the forest without prodding, as if it knew exactly where to go.
Reyker rode until the mud became too thick for the horse to wade through. “Stay here,” he said, sliding off the mare. “I’ll be back soon.”
The horse whickered, watching him with doleful eyes.
Rain fell in chunks, white marbles of ice. He sloshed through puddles, mud sucking at his boots, slowing him. Ahead, the trees opened onto a glade. The northern bluffs—he had been here once before, with Lira.
The warlord’s voice startled him. “Come, little warrior. I will take you home.”
The black river stirred. Reyker sprinted for the clearing.
He caught a glimpse of violet hair, of green-fire eyes. “My will is my own,” he heard her say. “Until the end.”
Her words strengthened him, and he would have screamed her name if he’d had breath to spare. Between tree limbs, he saw a flash of silver—a blade. Draki laughed, reaching for it. Lira bounded forward. She leaped from the bluff and was gone.
Gone?
The air left Reyker’s lungs in a rush.
He pushed his legs harder, aiming for the ledge she’d vanished over. Not gone. Not yet. He would follow. He could still save her. He was almost there.
An arm slammed into his chest.
Reyker sailed backward, crashing into a tree. He hit the ground and a hand closed around his throat, lifting him to his feet. “I see the rumors of your death were false. How fortunate.”
No, no, no. He had to get to Lira soon or she would drown.
He struggled, but Draki’s grip was unyielding.
“Where have you been all this time, Reyker?” Draki eyed his slave-brand, laughing darkly. “A captive? Such shame you’ve brought upon yourself. Tell me, did you find my fiery little warrior while you were imprisoned?”
Draki dragged him to the bluff’s edge. Reyker stared, searching for Lira in the sea’s mouth—white-tipped fangs snapping from powerful gray jaws. She wasn’t there. Even if she survived the fall, the waves would have crushed her on the rocks.
Gone.
The fallen gods’ prophecy rang through his head: you will chase what you cannot catch. you will love what you cannot keep.
“She kept looking to the forest, awaiting a savior,” Draki said. “She thought you dead, yet still believed you might come for her.”
Prying Draki’s fingers from his neck, Reyker roared at the sea as if she could hear him, as if it did any good. “Lira!”
He’d taken too long to get here. He’d failed her.
But it was Draki she’d run from, Draki she’d died to escape. Reyker turned on the warlord. “You could have stopped her.”
“You hid from me, Reyker. You had to be punished.”
A memory unearthed itself from the dark depths of Reyker’s mind: his mother, screaming, her blood spreading across the floor beneath her. The knife in his own hand. She’d broken through Draki’s control for a moment, begging him to free her by cutting Draki’s mark from her flesh. He’d done as she asked, not knowing what would happen. When he realized she was dying, he’d run to Draki, pleaded with the warlord to save her. Draki had followed him to
his mother’s chamber, held him in place, and said, For your defiance, you will watch the thing you love most in this world die.
“You let Lira die to punish me?” Reyker unsheathed his sword and axe, the black river pounding through his veins. He welcomed it. “I will kill you for this.”
“Go on then, little lordling.” Draki drew his sword. “Do your worst.”
Under the scour of rain and ice, their blades clashed. Reyker was pure rage, weaving one weapon over the other in furious strikes, anticipating Draki’s movements before he made them.
Draki had taught him well.
Reyker’s sword slipped past Draki’s guard and struck the warlord’s neck. Draki’s head should have rolled.
It didn’t.
The steel blade shattered like glass against the warlord’s throat. Reyker dropped the useless hilt and swung the axe at Draki’s heart; it crashed into his chest and disintegrated.
Draki’s heel rammed into Reyker’s stomach, sending him flying. He landed on his back and slid off the bluff’s edge, but Draki caught his wrist, dangling him above the violent sea.
“You stupid, sniveling bastard. All this over a pretty bit of flesh?” Draki jerked Reyker’s arm, hauling him back over the ledge and slamming a knee into his ribs. Reyker collapsed into the mud. “I tire of your outbursts, Reyker. Next time I might forget you are my brother and cut you into pieces so small not even the gods will recognize you.”
Brother.
Reyker loathed that word, its hateful truth, the blood bond they shared that he wished he could break. “Aldrik was my brother. Not you.”
“Aldrik.” Draki flashed a pitying smile. “You think I’ve forgotten that boy who first trained you to hunt and fight? You live because I remember who I was. But Aldrik was weak. I became what he could never be. I became the leader Iseneld needed.”
“I needed Aldrik. But he left me, and he came back a monster.” Reyker tried to stand, but Draki shoved him back down. “You killed our father. You enslaved my mother, twisted her mind. She loved you like a son and you destroyed her.”
“Your mortal ties only weaken you, Reyker. You could be a warlord, a king. Katrin and Lira made you weak. I’m trying to help you be strong.”
“Do not dare speak their names!” Reyker threw himself into Draki’s legs, taking him to the ground. He broke his knuckles punching Draki’s grinning lips, as indestructible as the rest of him.
Draki’s fist slammed into Reyker’s jaw, knocking him sideways. “Who wielded the knife that killed Katrin? Not I.” The warlord rose, snarling down at Reyker in disgust. “Katrin and Lira belonged to me. Their deaths were your fault—you killed them when you tried to take them from me. You should know by now that you can never take what is mine!”
Draki left him there and stalked into the forest, vanishing amidst the shuddering trees.
Reyker closed his eyes, lying on the bluff’s rim, letting the storm maul him. Beneath the squall came another sound. What cruel madness was this? He heard Lira, singing from the bottom of the sea—the ballad she’d taught him that often drifted into his dreams, chasing away his nightmares. Always in her voice, sweet and clear, tinged with sorrow. As it was now.
He had only just lost her and already his mind was slipping. His blood whispered and tugged, drawing him to the sea. Reyker put a hand over the medallion. Loss tunneled deep through his chest, chilling the fires of his fury. He spoke to her, hoping she could hear him, making the same vow he’d made to his father. “I will avenge you.”
Only one of the Dragon’s own flesh can slay him, Reyker’s father had said with his dying breaths. It must be you.
And the Fallen Ones’ prophecy had confirmed it:
you will chase what you cannot catch.
you will love what you cannot keep.
you will kill what cannot die.
Reyker would kill Draki, for his people, his parents. And for Lira. He would tear off the Dragon’s head, carry it to the afterworlds, place it in her hands. He would comb every realm of the dead, searching for her.
No matter how long it took, no matter where she had gone, he would find her.
EPILOGUE
The sun was warm on my skin, the desert brush rough beneath me. I heard the horses coming, felt the beat of their hooves, from leagues away. They grew closer, closer, and then they were here. Voices trickled over me.
“Zabelle,” I said, opening my eyes.
She lifted a waterskin to my lips, her gemstone eyes assessing me as I drank. “You found trouble once again, I see. Or it found you.”
I gripped her arm. “The prince. Take me to him.”
Nodding, she beckoned to her horse, and I knew it was Wraith even before I saw the smoke-gray stallion. Something in my blood had sensed him, as it sensed the other horses, and the crows flying overhead, the crickets chirping in the brush, the worms burrowing in the soil. I felt their energy, their minds. Their souls.
Zabelle climbed onto Wraith, and the other nomads helped me up behind her. My eyes drifted shut, my consciousness fraying once more.
I woke, sometime later, on a pallet inside a dark room. No, not a room, I realized—a cave, like the one where Ulver had held me hostage.
Garreth sat beside me, face drawn. He wore a glove on his right hand, and he practiced gripping the hilt of a sword.
“Lira?” When he saw I was awake, he put the sword down.
He seemed different—older, harder. “Prince of Ghosts, I presume?”
“So the nomads call me.” Garreth smiled faintly. “I came as soon as I got Zabelle’s message.”
The weight of everything that had happened crashed down on me all at once. I sat up, speaking in a rush. “Garreth, Stony Harbor lies in ruin. Ishleen, Olwen, the Sons of Stone—they may all be dead. Everything is gone.”
I wept then, releasing tears I’d held back since Madoc set the cells aflame. Reyker, my heart sobbed. My wolf is dead.
“Not everything.” Garreth’s arms came around me, and the layers peeled away—the exiled warrior, the nomad’s prince. He was simply my brother. “You and I are still here.”
“Yes,” I whispered, holding him tightly, trying to shut out the feeling of the bats on the cave ceiling, the rats and scorpions skittering inside the rock walls, the disturbing connections forged between myself and every beast of Glasnith by a god whose essence now inhabited my body. “We are.”
And I feared I’d only just begun to understand why.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Getting this book into your hands was a long, hard journey, and I’m so lucky to have had help and support along the way. First and foremost, I have to thank two amazing women at Writers House to whom I’m eternally grateful: Genevieve Gagne-Hawkes, who picked my messy manuscript out of a slush pile and put me on this path, and Beth Miller, who patiently read revision after revision and walked through submission hell with me (twice!) until we made it to the other side. I would never have gotten this far without the both of you.
Thank you to everyone who had a hand in the revising of this book. To my talented editor, Madeline Hopkins, who pointed out what was missing and helped me fix what was broken, polishing this manuscript until it shined. To Jocelyn Davies, who took the time to share her ideas with me, and whose advice helped shape this book in the best possible ways. To the diligent Writers House interns who read through versions of this book, catching errors and offering suggestions that helped make it better: Ilana Masad, Eleanor Embry, Melissa Nezhnik, Stacy Shirk, Erica Buchman, and Sara Stricker.
Thank you to my awesome publishing team at Blackstone. To Rick Bleiweiss, who picked my book and made my dream come true. To Kurt Jones, whose work never fails to impress me, for creating a gorgeous cover that exceeded all my expectations and designing the perfect warrior-mark graphics for Reyker and clan Stone. To Mandy Earles, who patiently taught me how to navigate the rocky te
rrain of social media. To Ember Hood, for her insightful and diligent copyedits and for helping me through my colon and semicolon addiction. To Sean Thomas, for my amazing book trailer. To all the other fantastic people at Blackstone who worked so hard to get this book out and make it a success: Jeff Yamaguchi, Lauren Maturo, Greg Boguslawski, Josie Woodbridge, Stephanie Stanton, Ananda Finwall, Tom Williamson, Kathryn English, Keith McFarland, and all the unsung-hero copyeditors and proofreaders who caught and fixed my mistakes.
Thank you to the following people for your influence and expertise. To Erin Beaty and Jessica Leake who generously read an early, unedited draft of this book (over the holidays) and offered kind and thoughtful blurbs that made me feel like a real author. To Juliet Marillier, Jaqueline Carey, and George R. R. Martin, whose brilliant books inspired my own. To Mallory Lass, who wrote a rejection letter so kind and supportive it gave me the strength to keep going. To Hafsah Faizal of Icey Design, who helped create my badass author website. To Mindy McGinnis, who forced me to become a better writer than I ever realized I could be. And to the creative writing professors at UCF who taught me so much: Susan Hubbard, Terry Thaxton, Lisa Roney, and Jocelyn Bartkevicius.
A heartfelt thank-you to my various friends and family who have encouraged me all along. To my parents, for reading to me as a child and letting me read as much as I wanted, even at the dinner table. To my sister, Julie, for not getting too mad when I borrowed her books and not telling Mom and Dad when I read books I wasn’t supposed to. To Katla, for pulling me away from the computer and reminding me of all the joy life has to offer.
Thank you to Brock, for making all of this possible—for keeping me well fed and sane, for doing far more than your share of chores and child-watching, for arguing with me about grammar rules, for believing in me despite my empty-glass attitude. For being a good father, a good husband, and a good man. No amount of thanks will ever be enough.
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