Ceridwen paled further, her mouth falling open. “That could destroy her.”
“It could, yes,” Casimir confirmed. “Or they could destroy us.”
The ballroom descended into strained silence and hushed murmurs. Whispered conversations carried on around Tiernan, detailing plots and plans, worries over strength and survival.
Finally, he looked over at his twin.
“I had the vision again.”Her words shook within his mind.
“Which one?” he asked calmly.“The one with the hag?”
Her jaw clenched.“No. The battlefield. With the Dawnbringer and the Nightweaver.”
Ah. The one where Maeve’s keening nearly broke him. He nodded slowly, forcing himself to breathe.“And? Was there any change in the outcome?”
A single tear slid down Ceridwen’s cheek, and Tiernan’s soul felt as though it had been torn from within him when she shook her head.
“No.”
Suddenly, the mark on his wrist pulsed with pain. He gripped it with his other hand, clutching it beneath the table as a wall of grief and terror slammed into him. The rush of panic left him breathless. Beads of sweat slid down the back of his neck and tension coiled every one of his muscles taut. Whereas the Strand binding him to Maeve was silent, the symbol upon his wrist was entwined with her soul. Her sensations, her emotions, were a force unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. They overwhelmed him. Ruined him.
He struggled to reach her through this new mating bond.
“Maeve!”
But there was nothing he could do to save her. Urgency filled him, desperation devastated him. He poured everything he had into the bond. Strength. Courage. Determination. Love. All he could give, he gave to her. He would do it until there was nothing left, until he was a husk of a soul. But they were being dragged further under, drowning in a sea of despair. Tiernan held his breath, waiting for them to resurface.
Together.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Maeve hurtled forward.
The Stygian Spine closed in on her. Twisted branches reached for her like gnarled fingers, snaring her hair and pulling at her cloak. Overgrown roots jutted from the ground, tripping her as the vines encircling the trunks of the trees entangled themselves around her arms and ankles. They squeezed her, biting into her flesh, hindering her movement. She struggled against them while a rope of greenery curled around her waist, weaving around her shoulders and throat. It tightened, strangling her, making it impossible to breathe.
In vain, she grappled against the forest, but the many vines and branches pinned her arms to her side, locking her into its vise-like grip, like that of a snake.
The tips of her fingers grazed her Aurastone, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t catch the hilt in her grip. She had no way to fight off the Spine.
Her heart thundered, her lungs screamed, set on fire by the need for air. Darkness crept along the outskirts of her vision. The mark on her wrist filled with a sudden warmth, an unexplainable heat. Power barreled into her, filling her, completing her, making her whole once more. Her blood hummed and another soul answered her call.
I show mercy to no one.
Not even a godsforsaken forest.
Summoning the last of her energy and the empty well of her magic, Maeve strained once more to escape the Spine’s fatal clutches. There was a loud crack, a resounding noise that splintered through the woods, as though every tree had suddenly been snapped in half. Blinding light filled the space, spilling out through the leaves and branches, encompassing all of the Spine in a wash of pure gold. Magic permeated the air, raw and powerful.
The vines released her, the rush of light dulled, then faded away completely, and when Maeve could finally see, she was no longer in the Stygian Spine.
She was on a battlefield.
* * *
The chillof death hung in the air.
It was something Maeve had come to recognize, and it followed her like a shadow. Lurking. Stalking. Never quite out of sight.
Gray skies roiled overhead, the clouds moving like specters into the onset of night. Ash fell around her like clumps of snow, brought on by the thick plumes of dwindling fires in the distance. Ravens cawed as they flew in wide circles, another harrowing sign there was no life left in this place. The sharp tang of blood carried on the bitter breeze, masked by the scent of acrid florals. Beneath her feet, the ground was sodden, littered with bodies of the fallen. And they were everywhere, these darkened outlines of corpses scattered across the rolling hills and beyond. A field of death.
