Rohen saw the wraithblade dagger. He saw Father give it to the King. And then later, he saw it on Thedric’s corpse after the Chol attacked. But when he searched the corridors for the Lord Protector, my father was nowhere to be found. It doesn’t make any sense!
Jessara slammed her palm down on the bedframe, causing the acolyte to jump in his boots. Her father had told her that he’d narrowly escaped the slaughter, and he’d insisted that he had searched long and hard for Rohen to no avail. But Whitefeather Hold simply wasn’t that big—there was no way in the bloody void that both Rohen and her father could be telling the truth about what happened.
The difference was that Edmund Kraythe was the Voice of the Guardian. He had sacrificed everything to defeat the Chol during the last Culling, and he had risked his life a thousand times in a thousand battles since to defend Darenthi from the abyss. The gods themselves had chosen him as the avatar of their rebirth!
Then there was Rohen, a pale-blooded orphan who had stood alongside the Usurper King. He had concealed his love for the Whitefeather girl from Jessara, and he had concealed her heretical powers from the Keepers. He had committed treason against the very gods, and now he somehow possessed his own inexplicable abilities…
Jessara vaulted off her bed and glared at the acolyte now cowering by the door. “Is the High Artificer still in the infirmary?”
“Uh, y-yes, Inquisitrix,” the man babbled.
“Good, because I still need to have one last chat with him,” she said. “In the meantime, I want you to head to the Foundry. Gather all the sorcerer volunteers and ensure the forges stay hot.”
Jessara glanced down at her hand and squeezed her golden claws into a fist. “Our work here has only just begun.”
***
“You shouldn’t have let them out of your sight,” Inaril said in the same scolding tone he had been using all day. “You should have brought them here yourself.”
“They will come,” she said, bracing herself against a snow-covered boulder at the edge of the summit. “And they’ll have my brother with them.”
Inaril scoffed and turned away. She was still surprised he wasn’t already back in Nelu’Thalas—she had found him waiting for her after she had escaped the Keepers in the Deadwood. The two rangers had been here on Farumat’s Perch all afternoon, and it was entirely possible that they would still be here long into the night. Gûl Ostaraad was almost twenty miles away, and between the winding hills and the frozen lake, approaching Dragon’s Reach wasn’t easy. Despite her experience, it had still taken her several hours to reach the summit. Rohen and his comrades would probably take twice that long.
Assuming, of course, that any of them were coming. Or that they were still alive.
“Once again, your youthful impertinence has become a liability,” Inaril said, crossing his arms. “If you had simply listened to me before, we could have—”
“You didn’t even want me to follow them south!” Yria snapped. “If I had listened to you, we would have gone straight home empty-handed!”
“Instead we shall go home empty-handed several days later,” Inaril countered. “Days that could have been spent on far more important matters.”
She snorted and glanced back down the path leading up to the summit. Thousands of years ago, Avetharri pilgrims had come up here to worship at the shrine of Farumat, one of the first and most powerful Wyrm Lords. Now the giant dragon statue in the mountains was old and broken, and his once glorious temple had been buried by rubble. Almost no one dared to venture up here anymore. The humans believed these mountains were cursed, and the elves of Nelu’Thalas thought that the statue and shrine were idols of a distant era best forgotten.
All of which is about to change once Rohen comes home. His power will prove the Vin Aetheri right. And our combined might will change everything.
“If they aren’t here by sunrise tomorrow, we are leaving,” Inaril said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Yria murmured. “Not without my brother.”
“Queen Malareth needs our help, girl. We cannot afford to waste any more time on this nonsense! The Sarodihm and their allies will be soon be ready to strike.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
Yria sighed and glanced back out across the vast frozen wasteland beyond the mountains. “Nelu’Thalas is in grave danger,” she said. “And only the children of a Wyrm Lord have the power to set things right.”
To Be Continued
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Also by Sarah Hawke
The Amazon’s Pledge
The Amazon’s Pledge
Mark of the Huntress
The Black Mistress
Daughter of Destiny
Legacy of Winter
Wrath of the Inquisitrix
The Amazon’s Vengeance
Blood Legacy
Ascension
The Dragon of Highwind
Conduit to the Gods (TBA!)
Wings of the Seraph
Wings of the Seraph
Outcast
Spider Zero
Spectre
The Last Blade
The Elf Slave Series
Slave to the Empire
Unbound
Unchained
Unbroken
Unleashed
The Spider Queen Collection
Web of the Spider Queen
Slaves of the Spider Queen
Bound to the Spider Queen
Vengeance of the Spider Queen
Wrath of the Spider Queen
Dirty, Filthy Fantasies
The Priestess’s Gratitude
The Headmistress’s Punishment
The Ranger-General’s Submission
The Ranger-General’s Submission
Knightfall
About the Author
Sarah Hawke lives in New England with her two cats, a horse, and a car that actually functions now thanks to the generosity of her readers!
Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue