The Parancsok leaped to their feet. My mind sharpened like a blade. Years of arduous honing culminated in this moment. I called on the cold, calculating calm that aided me in countless victories.

If I panicked now, my mate would surely die.

“They think this battle will bring them victory over us,” I growled, attention cutting to Olet, then Zurronar and Banand, and finally the other officers. “But it will not. The High Priestess saw us in the streets of Sivy. Let’s beat them back to their homes in the trees. And when we arrive, we’ll burn them alive inside.”

The energy in the room crackled with tension. I turned to the messengers. “Light the fires along the walls. Tell your mates to relay that our position is also under attack. The Hadvezér are to hold their positions at all cost.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said, eyes going vacant as they communicated with their counterparts.

“How can we help, sir?” Zurronar asked, rolling his shoulders back. Dressed in armor already, prepared to fight on a moment’s notice, he was every bit the officer he had previously been.

“Rouse your units. Get to the wall as quickly as possible. It must not fall,” I commanded him and the rest.

“Aye, Halálhívó,” they said in unison. They bolted from the room, their feet pounding a heavy rhythm through the halls and down the stairs.

Assyria remained, grinning up at me like she was winning a game of kazat. “Where do you want me?”

The thought of her on the battlefield stabbed a poisoned blade into my belly. After her near-death, I couldn’t send her out there.

But I had to. It was what she wanted. The world needed to see her fight.

A war waged inside me, ripping me to shreds.

I’d spent months training my mate. Working with her to sharpen her magic into a weapon all its own. The females believed in her. Fuck, the males did too. Scarcely a dissenter remained after her continued success on stealth missions to infiltrate the Angel’s camp.

And she had the Deathveiled to guard her too. None of them—especially not the former priestesses—would let her fall. They’d give their lives for her.

As would I.

“This time, with me. The terrain is too uncertain and we’ll do better together.”

She stepped closer, flattening her palms on my chest. “We’re always better together.”

“Fetch Grem and Zeec and strap them into their harnesses. Then meet me outside,” I instructed her, reaching down and brushing the backs of my knuckles across her cheek.

The heat of her skin seared me as much as the ferocity in her gaze. She truly was a force unto herself.

Assyria leaned into my touch as if she too sensed the gravity of this moment. I wanted to linger in the space of that breath, where she was safe and I was with her. Our bond thrummed with nervous tension, neither of us voicing the fears that laced the backs of our minds.

Three attacks on three fronts. Three chances for the Demons to overpower the Angels and push down through the Skala Mountains to Sivy like Kiira had seen.

Three opportunities for the ice blue eyed Seer’s vision to come true.

I gritted my teeth against the thought.

I was no mere soldier. I was a curse whispered into existence by the Fates. The blade that tread the earth in their name. The Angels feared my coming. And this night, I would remind them who the fuck I was.

The Halálhívó.

The Fates’ chosen with the power to call upon the dead.

Noise rose like a black tide, devouring the silence of the night. The outpost throbbed with the pulse of the awakening battle. With the anticipation of the clash of blades. Of black and white streaking through the sky until only one side remained to wield their power.

I drank my mate in like a dying man reaching for a final sip of water—agonized by the knowledge I may never taste her again.

She was the finest scale. No other liquid could compare. I yanked her close, memorizing the shape of her body and how it pressed against mine. The fire in her devious eyes and how they cradled my heart in their depths.

I cupped the back of Assyria’s head. Tangled my fingers in the silky strands of her hair. Pressed my lips to the curves of hers. Tasted roses on her tongue.

Savored her. Fed my craving. Cherished this last moment of peace.

Ours wasn’t a connection of lust; it was of reckoning.

She broke away first, and my entire being rebelled. I nearly snarled at her to keep going. I needed this. I needed her.

“Go,” she whispered. The word was frayed, like even she knew this was no ordinary skirmish. The Reaper’s eye was drifting straight to us. And that might have been the final kiss granted to us by the Weaver.

I could only fall to my knees and beg the Giver for our magic to hold strong.

A flicker of worry broke through the otherwise steady flame behind her eyes. “I’ll be right behind you.”

An ache bloomed between my ribs. I forced air into lungs that wanted to collapse. The bond shrieked with the primal instinct to protect. “Five minutes. Then I’m coming to find you.”

I backed toward the door, but my gaze never left her. I carved this vision of her into the darkest parts of my mind. Because in the heat of battle, when my muscles burned, when my body begged for a reprieve, I needed to remember why I still swung my sword.

“Because you’ll always be able to find me. Even if I try to run.” Her words, no louder than a whisper, echoed like a final vow. A hidden plea.

“Don’t forget that, mate,” I said, my voice a low, gravelly threat. “You are mine whether you want to be or not anymore.”

“I’d never want to be anything else.”

I tattooed her words on my heart as I turned toward the end of a war.

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61

Iwas alone, and yet noise engulfed me as our soldiers prepared for battle. The ache of Rokath’s absence lingered in my bones, planting itself beside the knowledge that the fight to come would be fraught with danger.

The peaks were far more challenging to navigate than the fields outside Fured. My hands trembled as I braided back my hair. Many, so fucking many, would die this night. The battle at the academy had shattered me. I hadn’t lost anyone since.

Would seeing members of the Deathveiled fall in front of me render me unable to breathe? Unable to continue to swing a sword?

I’d only grown closer to them. And they would die for me.

Tears seared my eyes and throat. I let one fall. Just one. Because I’d chosen this. Chosen to fight for the females to be freed.

And they chose to fight with me.

I secured the end of my hair with a leather strap. With a sniff, I rolled my shoulders back and dried my face.

We could fucking do this. We’d been training for months. Kiira had seen us stalking the streets of Sivy. I refused to believe we’d perish among these mountains.

We would fucking win.

Resolve hardened, I stalked toward our room where Grem and Zeec were snoozing after a hard day of chasing balls. When I opened the door, though, they were already on their feet, tails wagging. Grem yipped and spun in a circle as if the ominous energy fed him rather than filled him with dread.

Zeec followed me to the trunk that held their harnesses. His nose nudged my leg as if he were telling me to hurry up. Grem stuck his head in the moment I cracked it open, snuffing sounds echoing through the space. I shoved them both back, a small, breathy laugh escaping me. Their antics eased some of the tightness in my ribs.

“Stand,” I instructed both of them. They backstepped and stared up at me, tongues panting out of their mouths. One by one, I wrapped the hardened leather around them, securing the buckles and ensuring they were protected. There was no way I’d risk losing either of them again. When we’d found Zeec bleeding on the ground, so close to death, after Rokath sacrificed his battalions for me, I’d been terrified.