Thena slumped against him as he urged the horse into a trot. “You should. I need to go to the wolves, Nyx. You can’t fight the future.”
“You’re delirious.” Nyx wrapped an arm around her middle to keep her upright. Alarms were sounding at the gates, and he could hear voices in the street as more lights snuffed out throughout the city. “But you did well. The dragons will protect them, you said?”
“Forever.” Thena groaned. “I can’t… do any more magic for a while. It’ll kill me if I do. I was… drawing on my life.”
“What?”
Thena smiled up at him. “Always knew I’d die young. Took thirty years off, at least, with that. But I’ll be fine. You’re the fool, coming back for me.”
Nyx figured that was exhaustion talking. He’d never paid much mind to how witch magic worked, but he hadn’t heard of them drawing on their own life force. It seemed reckless, desperate, hardly the kind of behavior Thena was known for.
As they reached the city gates, Nyx let out a shout, which was answered by one of the guards at the top of the gate tower. Fire flickered in the dark before it was snuffed again, Thena’s dragons swarming any sign of heat or light. But the guards knew someone was riding out of the gates, and that’s what Nyx needed.
What he didn’t need was the sound of approaching hoofbeats.
“I thought we cleared out the fucking stables,” he muttered as four—no, six—mounted guards peeled away from the gates and came thundering across the grass. He drew his bow, but Thena started slipping off the saddle, and his horse screamed as an arrow struck it in the side. It reared, and Nyx only just managed to keep Thena from sliding to the ground and being trampled.
“This is why you should have left me,” she hissed as the guards approached, bows drawn, encircling them.
“You’re sure you don’t have any magic left?” Nyx asked. He could take out one or two of them, but not before the others riddled him with arrows. It struck him, then, that he would be breaking his promise to Kelta and Nadia, and to Azaiah—who he knew had only been doing his duty, who’d sounded so lost when Nyx sent him away. Poor Azaiah. Perhaps he would find another mortal to love, one day.
Nyx drew Thena to his chest and pressed his hunting knife to her throat. “Touch me and the witch dies,” he said. If they thought she was a hostage, perhaps they would spare her.
One of the guards laughed, and Thena sighed heavily. “That’s Rune,” she whispered, and Nyx cursed. Rune was the head of the emperor’s guard, and he was fiercely loyal to Lamont. He hated witches and had barred them from joining the guard a few years before. He wouldn’t mind killing one, traitor or no.
“Prince Nyx,” Rune said, an arrow trained on Nyx’s throat. “Aren’t you leaving home rather quickly? His Radiance the emperor thinks you haven’t enjoyed our hospitality nearly long enough.”
“Can’t call him radiant if he can’t keep the lights on in his own palace,” Nyx said.
Rune glanced up at the dark palace still swarming with dragons and scoffed. “A trick. Bind them,” he ordered, and one of his soldiers dropped down from his horse. “The witch can go to the ships, but His Majesty has plans for his brother.”
* * *
There were no dungeons in the Palace of the Moon. Instead, Nyx was dragged to the Crypts, where he was thrown into an abandoned schoolroom and shackled to a post. The schoolroom looked like it had been cleared out in a rush, with scrolls upended everywhere and a single shoe tipped on its side by the door. He wondered how many witches were left. Whether Nadia and Kelta had made it out. Whether Thena was alive.
He was left to wonder for some time. With no windows to mark the rising and setting of the sun, he estimated time by tracking when guards left him food and water. Days turned into weeks, and the emperor still hadn’t come.
Neither had Azaiah. The first night, Nyx screamed himself hoarse, calling out for Azaiah while guards eyed him through the door and murmured to each other. He lost his voice by the time they came in to check on him.
Finally, when Nyx was done gasping Azaiah’s name in his sleep and had taken to kicking his food plates away, Lamont dared to enter the room.
Nyx surged up, straining so hard at his bindings he could feel the shackles cutting his skin. “You.”
“Hello, Brother.” Lamont pulled a chair from the side of the room and set it down just out of reach. He was dressed immaculately, all in white, and he leaned forward with his arms on his knees like a friendly instructor talking to a favored pupil. “Acclimating well?”
“What do you want?” Nyx didn’t bother tempering his dominance, and Lamont blinked, momentarily thrown. Good.
“Nothing but your company,” Lamont said, but his voice didn’t have the same silky smugness as before. “I thought I might catch you up. Keep you informed. You are my brother, after all.”
“You killed your own son, you toad,” Nyx said, and Lamont this time didn’t blink.
“No, I did not. I killedyourson.” Lamont leaned back in his chair. “You think I didn’t know? Of course those were your brats—I wouldn’t have sired a sniveling, weak creature like Andor. I was doing the world a favor, in any case. If the boy were on the throne, he’d barely manage to get a few words out before—”
Nyx lunged at him, and Lamont jumped as the post groaned, metal grinding against stone.
He recovered his composure quickly, though. “You really… ah. You should do something about that temper.”
“I never fucked Nadia,” Nyx said. “Andor was your blood, you leech. Iwishhe were my son—he and Kelta deserved better than you.”
