I hit the ground hard. All the air rushes out of my lungs, and for a second, I can’t do anything but lie there, bracing for the inevitable shout of soldiers.

But there’s nothing. No shouts, no footsteps. Just wind rattling through dead things and waves hitting rocks below.

Pushing up on my elbows, I take stock of my surroundings. I’ve landed in what must have once been a grand garden. Skeletal trees claw at the mist-choked sky, their leaves blackened and curled in on themselves like burnt paper. Statues dot the garden, depicting gods with limbs shattered and heads gone. One has a woman pressed against a male’s chest, her face turned up like she’s begging. Another of a goddess with her wings snapped off at the shoulder blades, reaching for a companion who’s broken beyond recognition. Dark ivy wraps through eye sockets, between fingers, like it’s trying to drag them all down into the earth. Because this? This is a graveyard.

And beyond it all looms the keep.

There’s something eerily beautiful about this place in all its faded grandeur. The stonework is crystalline, like solidified starlight, with spires toppled and broken. Former bridges of sparkling pale rock lead nowhere now. It looks like a palace of jagged glass. The walls have battle scars—places where the masonry is more crumbled than others.

“Just go,” I whisper to myself. “Finish this.”

I push to my feet and pick my way between the statues, trying not to look at their faces. Trying not to think about the lovers frozen in stone and the broken limbs. Was this from the war? Or did someone… do this on purpose?

Stop it. Staying still means thinking, and thinking means remembering that being here is insane.

The windows throw back my reflection as I pass, but I ignore my warped image and spot a gap where a window shutter dangles on rusted hinges.

There we go. That’s my way in.

I press my fingers into the small opening. The weakened wood protests, then yields with a soft crack that might as well be a thunderbolt in the preternatural quiet. I wait, but there’s only silence.

My hands tremble as I work the opening wide enough to fit through. The chamber beyond is dark and empty, but I swear I feel eyes watching me. Waiting.

But it’s too late to turn back now.

In, out. Get what I came for, and get gone.

I lower myself into the room. The air presses close, thick with the scent of mold and decay. My stomach turns. I breathe through my mouth and wait for my eyes to adjust. There’s not much here—a shelf clinging to one mildewed wall with old books spilled onto the floor, some trinkets collecting dust on a few tables, a telescope at the window. But that proof of someone previously here sends a frisson of unease through my gut. They watched the stars. They read these books and walked the bridges in this keep, and probably never imagined it would all crumble like this.

The desk draws me forward.

A scattering of maps peeks through the grime, hundreds of years out of date, but I’d know those borders anywhere—the spine of the Duehavn Ridge as it cleaves the realms. Two sides of a coin.

My breath catches when I spot the sigil marking Hellevig, carved so deep it nearly pierces the parchment. I can almost see the Dark King hunched over these maps, plotting my family’s destruction.

The sensation of a gaze boring into my back sharpens.

I whirl, reaching for my knife, but there’s only darkness. Shadows twisting in on themselves. The curtains move, but it’s only the wind through the broken window.

Go, Bryony. Now.

I ease open the door. The space between my shoulder blades prickles again.

Find the atrium. Get it done.

My fingers trail along the wall as I move deeper into the keep, hurrying past dozens of shadowed doors. It reminds me of the crypt beneath Hellevig’s temple—that same weight that makes you want to hold your breath. Makes you feel like you’re trespassing. The air feels hungry here, too sharp, like a monster’s maw waiting to devour me.

I count doors as I pass. Seven. Eight. Nine. My fingernails dig into my palms, and my shirt sticks to my back with sweat.

Stop thinking. Move.

I round the corner, and—

My breath catches at the vast chamber with soaring columns and a vaulted glass oculus. Even choked in dust, devoid of light, I can see the bones of what this room once was. How it would have dazzled before the war made it a ruin. Every inch of the pale stonework is carved with elaborate filigree, and there are more statues of goddesses standing regally with their wings spread, carved out of dark rock. Ivy creeps up the walls and around the staircase.

My gaze sweeps the abandoned chamber, falling to the table against the far wall with crumbling scrolls and ancient ledgers. Sitting right there is a small chest just as Alexios described.

I stumble toward it. Some last thread of survival instinct screams a warning: Too easy too easy this is too fucking easy. But hope is a cruel master. It drowns out the doubt as I grab the small chest and cradle it.

Then a hand clamps around my wrist, rings glinting. A voice scrapes against my ear, cold as the grave: “I don’t like mortals in my territory.”

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52

BRYONY

I’M YANKED AROUND, and I forget how to breathe.

I’d recognize the Dark King anywhere. He may not be painted on temple murals like Evander, but the stories were clear enough that this god was as devastatingly beautiful as the rest.

He’s gorgeous in that lethal way that screams danger. Indigo hair frames his striking features: storm-gray eyes rimmed in molten gold, high cheekbones, straight nose, square jaw. When he tilts his head, light catches on the delicate silver piercings climbing up his ear. His body is as muscular as the other Eternals, but with the lean lines of a dancer rather than a warrior. His massive wings spread wide, the dark blue feathers scattered with flecks of gold, like starlight against a deepening twilight sky.

“A Devaliant. I’d recognize that fucking skin anywhere.” A slow, wicked smile curves his mouth. “I’m dying to know what made you think trespassing into my territory was a solid choice. Most people prefer to keep their internal organs, you know, internal.”

“I’m here for the chest.” I force myself to meet his gaze. “Nothing else.”

“The chest?” His attention drops to the box clutched in my grip, and recognition sparks. “Please tell me Alexios didn’t punt your fragile human ass into my lands for that. Though I suppose dangling an expendable mortal in front of the death god would be his brand of fuckery. Classic Storm move.”

“I need it,” I say, fighting the urge to step back. “For my Chosen.”

A low, contemplative hum. Then he leans in, crowding into my space. I nearly yelp when he drags his nose along my skin and scents me.

“Here’s the thing about that,” he murmurs against my thundering pulse. “When someone starts throwing around words like ‘Chosen,’ there’s usually a magical signature announcing to the world which pitiful bastard’s soul you’ve tangled yourself up with.” Another deep inhale. “But you? You’re blank. Empty. No mark. No Claim.”

I flinch at the reminder of what Alexios took from me. The place where the bond used to be aches, like pressing on a bruise that won’t heal.

“So now you’re going to tell me what a Princess of the Blood is doing in my territory.” His voice drops, soft and deadly. “Because my demis have been going missing for months, and when a Devaliant shows up uninvited, that’s what we call suspicious timing.”