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“Why are they here?” I gasped.

Tavin’s expression was grim. “Because they’ve been searching every underground entrance for days.”

For me? Or Thorn, or both?

We rounded another corner and nearly collided with three men in ragged farm clothing, sprinting upward.

“Riders breached the north lift!” one shouted. Wingbeats echoed faintly somewhere above the mountain.

Tavin grabbed my arm and yanked me toward a narrow side passage. “This way!”

We stumbled into darkness, broken only by scattered torchlight. The tunnel narrowed sharply until I had to turn sideways to squeeze through sections of rock. Behind us came the unmistakable sound of boots striking stone. Tavin shoved me forward. “Go!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“No.” I couldn’t leave him to face the Riders. They would kill him.

“You don’t have time to argue!” He pushed me, and his expression hardened. “I’ll point them further down that tunnel.”

I had no idea if they would listen to him, but he was already walking away, so I turned down the left-hand tunnel. After hurtling up a long slope, it widened into a dead-end chamber with an iron ladder disappearing upward into the darkness.

The trickle of hope that entered me as I stepped forward evaporated as fire exploded across the tunnel entrance. Heat slammed into the chamber wall, molten sparks spraying across the stone.

A figure stepped through the flames. Tall, wearing black and bronze leather, with a bright red phoenix embroidered on his arm. Draga. The Barren prince, the worst of them all, lowered his burning hand slowly while smoke curled around him like a living thing.

“Well,” he drawled, “that took longer than expected.”

Tavin lunged towards him. I hadn’t even heard him follow me. Fire flashed once, and Tavin hit the ground screaming.

I reached for my knife, but before I could pull it out, a thin chain of fire swept towards me and wrapped around my neck. The newly healed skin seared with blinding pain. Another Rider slammed into me from behind, hard enough to take the air from my lungs. My hip cracked painfully against the stone as rough hands seized my wrists.

Draga approached slowly through the smoke, studying me with a strange look on his face. As if he had never believed that he would truly capture me, or maybe he wasn’t sure I was who he thought I was.

“We’ve been tracking you for days on end. Hiding in the Ruckus were you? I thought you’d never be stupid enough to leave their lands. Must be our lucky Yule. You lot used to pray for that, didn’t you?”

I huffed. Fucking Barren prick.

“I wonder if my father will burn you or turn you?” He closed the distance between us so that his breath feathered over my cheek. These Riders seemed to like this power play. As if they could lean in and kill you with a brush of their lips. “You’ll fucking burn for having me tracking during a Yule when I could be somewhere else. With someone else. And those rogues are more fucked up than normal—they took one of my men earlier.”

I couldn’t help but smile. One less Barren Rider was a true Yule gift.

“Take her and watch her.” He stepped back and shoved me at another Rider. “She’s a Shadow. So stay alert, or you’ll end up like that degenerate Master.”

And then, once again, I was a prisoner, but this time I was on my way to my death.

35

Draga’s gaze narrowed on me as my wrists were being bound, then caught the clasp on my ear.

“If I remove that covering, then it will feel as if your insides are boiling over.” He tilted his head to get a better look at my ear and Thorn’s cuff. I’d expected him to rip it off the moment he saw it, but instead he studied it, then just shook his head. A moment later, his eyes glazed just as Kit’s had done. He was talking to his phoenix.

When his focus returned, he said, “Where did you…?”

Somewhere behind me, Tavin groaned, and my gaze snapped toward the tunnel entrance before I could stop it. He lay twisted on the stone floor, one hand clutching his side where Draga’s fire had eaten through cloth and flesh alike. Smoke still curled from him.

Draga followed my line of sight and sighed. “This old man? He brought you here?”