“Is in the Abyss.”
“Good,” I said, feeling Casteel’s eyes on me.
Seraphena’s head lowered. “She is still your mother.”
“And she was a horrible monster,” I said. Seraphena looked over her shoulder at me. Words bubbled up, and for once, I didn’t stop them. “I used to struggle with who she was to me, how she treated me, and who she actually was. I no longer do.”
The moment I said that, I realized how true it was. It felt like an immeasurable weight had been lifted from my chest. Shewasmy mother. She had been kind to me once, and maybe, on some level, she loved me. But she was also a cruel creature who had killed Ian in a fit of anger. Who’d tormented Casteel and Malik. Who’d overseen the torture of Preela and so many others. I truly hoped her soul spent an eternity drenched in nightmares of her own making.
“I’m glad you have come to terms with that,” Seraphena said quietly. “Though I also wish you never had to.”
Nodding, I drew in a shallow breath and glanced at Casteel. He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Unfolding my arms, I walked forward, and he followed close behind. As I approached, I heard Seraphena whispering to Jadis. I knelt on her other side.
“When you touched Nektas and woke him, it’s because you carry the embers of life and death in you,” Seraphena said, running her hand over the bumpy stone. “A draken feels that kind of power, even at rest, and even if they don’t fully understand what they are feeling.”
“And here I thought it was just your penchant for touching things,” Casteel said, closing in behind me.
Seraphena smiled at that. “Jadis would’ve felt it when you tried last time, but she was likely…afraid and didn’t understand what she was feeling.” She closed her eyes. “She’s awake.”
Reaver’s head lifted as I looked at her. “How do you know?”
“I can feel it through thenotam,” she explained. “Place your hand beside mine and summon the essence.”
I did as she instructed and put my hand beside Jadis’s wing. Closing my eyes, I willed the essence to the surface. It responded at once in a heady rush and flooded my veins.
“Jadis, baby,” Seraphena called softly. “Come back to us.”
I could feel Reaver shifting his weight toward us when nothing happened. “Sera,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Give it time,” Sera whispered.
Panic began to swell as desperation filled me once more. I pushed harder, my heart pounding. If this didn’t work, would she ever return to them? I didn’t—
I jerked as the stone beneath my hand heated. My heart leapt. I felt the vibration of a faint tremor. “Something is happening.”
“What?” Reaver exclaimed. “I don’t see any—”
Stone cracked like thunder, silencing him. I pulled my hand back as a chunk of it fell away from her talons, revealing worn-down black claws with dull edges.
Thin fissures appeared along her torso, spreading over her wings, limbs, and head. Her stone form shuddered at the same instant I felt Casteel’s arm around my waist. Lifting me onto my feet, he drew me away as Seraphena leaned back. Reaver had frozen, his mouth open as if still caught in the middle of what he had been saying.
Sections of stone slid to the ground, revealing thin, leathery wings. They drooped at her sides, one hanging at an unnatural angle. Greenish-brown scales appeared along her tail, her torso, and across her slender neck. A serpentine head lifted a few inches as she drew her head back. Her horns—oh, gods. They had been sheared off, cut in the middle, leaving ragged stumps behind. Jadis turned her head past Seraphena, past me—
A fine layer of stone slipped from the side of her face as she opened her eyes. Vibrant blue eyes locked on Reaver, and he…gods, he dropped to his knees. Or fell, losing his grip on the torch. Snapping forward, Casteel caught it.
Reaver pitched forward and barely caught himself with his hands.
A wave of shimmering, silver light swept over the draken as Jadis shifted, becoming even smaller. Her wings retracted, and her tail disappeared. The scales along her hind limbs gave way to legs that were a shade of copper tinged in gray and without the luster of her father’s coloring. Her skin was stretched tight over bone and riddled with…scars left behind by claws and teeth—like the marks left on my body. Wounds that hadn’t healed properly.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat as Casteel turned his head away.
The bones of her hips jutted out as if they sought to break free of the skin. Her stomach was sunken, and her arms were no bigger than twigs. Tangled strands of black hair streaked with crimson covered her face and chest.
She was so…godsdamn thin, emaciated, her arms trembling under the weight of holding her upper body up.
“Jadis,” Reaver rasped.
I clasped my hand over my mouth as the female draken scrambled back against the wall, her feet slipping on the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest, and a noise escaped her: the dry, hoarse, unintelligible croak of unused vocal cords.
