felt cold. And numb. So numb I couldn't feel at first the sharp coolness biting my skin, the iron we were laying on. But that magic, I had felt it fully. Every blast, every sharp whip that rained on us until the last thing I saw was those red eyes. Red, but not Blake's—not the same shade, not the same wrath in them.

My muscles were sore and strained, my lungs aching with every inhale as I rolled over, eyes greeted by the still darkness. And the flickering magic caging us. We hadn't sensed the man coming, hadn't caught on the first release of magic around us. It was not our land, nothing at all like the world we knew, and it rendered us weak, so easy a prey than a deer lost in the woods.

Those currant eyes appeared again just over my face, glowing irises in nothing but darkness. It didn't take me long to notice it wasn't smoke around them, to make out the armor faintly gleaming, stark against his face. His skin was black, such a black shade it was as though it was made from the night itself.

The ancients had once called them differently, but now, the men with such skin were called the Whisperers, a distinct, fading bloodline. It had been ages since the last one had appeared, our White Troopers looking for them every day for long centuries aback. So rare, so sacred. Old texts claimed they were worshipers of the Sun, whisperers of its tale, powerfully gifted. And loved by the sun so much those legends said Aether had forged them with the black skin for symbolism. Loved from the sun, hugged by its light until that very light had tinted their skin and flesh.

Demons had wiped them long ago, had killed nations and cities of their kind. The scarce number, we protected them, provided shelter.

But there was one here, in a land of corruption.

I didn't allow the weakness of my bones to show as I pulled myself, sitting and reclining my back until it was pressed against the cage. The magic hissed but I didn't do as much as blink.

The man grinned and it was wicked and cold and…old. An evilness festering for centuries, perhaps more. A scar ran across his face, barely visible, cutting through his still functioning eyes, two large mark on each side of his face. As though slashed by a forgotten specie of beasts.

"Already awake.'' His eyes roamed over my body, over every scar, every swirling mark on my skin. They slid to my stirring team, taking in every motion, every flicker of a muscle. A sharpness that only could be acquired by long years of training. "You should have been knocked out for days, not mere minutes."

I still held his stare, the burning interest in them, at how strong we were, at who we were. At the back still pressed against the magic.

Mere minutes.

I allowed my senses and magic to flood around us, eyes skimming along every wall, every corner. A room bathed in darkness. He'd felt my powers, sensed it brush against his as it noted the steel hanging from the walls, as it picked the faint, remaining hint of presence around us.

Not a room, no. But a dungeon, one soaked with blood.

The man, whoever he was, didn't budge as he kept those unholy eyes on us. But his magic did. It erupted in the dungeon cell, swaying and dancing, invisible yet clear. I could sense it twirling around the cage, seeping in around us—around our minds. Long and cold talons brushing past our consciousness, looking for a fissure in the walls built around our minds. For a crack to seep in.

But there was none, I had made sure of that. Still did as I guarded their minds with the magic Sorcha's spell didn't put to slumber.

His magic lunged, swift and sharp and precise. The walls did not crack. Only repelled him and his magic so terribly, so powerfully it knocked back into him. And threw his body across the room, crashing against the opposite wall. The shackles dangling hissed at the impact.

Those wicked eyes seemed to darken, but that grin, it grew. Yes, old. And wicked. And a sadist—a man who would enjoy torturing us slowly and viciously. One who would delight in his prey's screams, in the terror. The Whisperer was fast on his feet, his magic coiling around him like a shroud—it was black, pure immaculate black, stark even in the darkness. It seemed as though it repelled light, as though it was created in a different world, in a different time. It hissed and whispered and swept the dungeon with a ghostly murmur. But it didn't attack this time. No, it—he was to wise.

So I watched him approach, a sconce lighting up with every step he took, the light gliding on his armor, on his feature, at the array of weapons strapped to him. It did not near his magic.

I pushed myself up, fighting the shakiness in my bones as I crouched, ready to lung, to fight, to tear him to shreds. One look at my team told them to lie down, to wait. A tribe obeying its Cohar. My claws grew, each as long a dagger. The ghost of shadowy talons clung to my feet, the darkness of my wings building. He'd noted them, studied them, even when they were nothing but a flicker, a hint to their true form, a shadow.

"Where are we?" Every word was clipped, my voice raw as I waited. Waited for the collision of his magic over mine. For his mind to approach my own.

He only kept staring. The Old Tongue, he didn't understand it. Didn't know the meaning of the words that echoed from wall to wall, that swept over the blood drenched on the iron floor. But he'd picked the accent, the silver-white hair cut short that reflected firelight like streams of gold and amber and scarlet. The Silver-white—color of the Cohars.

"Where?'' I asked once again, but let it slip in our tongue this time.

The man—Captain of some sort, based on how expensive his armor looked—barely arched an ebony eyebrow. "You speak the common tongue?"

Holy Gods. His voice was guttural and cold and rasp, perhaps because of hours of commanding and ordering. And shouting. A voice that might have directed fleets and soldiers through more wars and attacks than I could imagine.

"Where.'' Again. But it wasn't a question this time. He knew that, heard the order limning every letter. Captain to captain, leader to leader.

He took another step closer—something so foolish if he weren't all so powerful. He looked at us—at me, at the silver hair. "I didn't believe the letter when I first read it, but here you are, the last living Fallens."

I snarled—a beast uncovering its fangs. He still did not answer. So I lunged. And had a claw pressed to his neck, just over the throbbing blood vessels. My hands had broken through the magic, my body clinging to nothing, floating in the air, barely carried by a dark wind. One movement of my finger could injure him—not end him, not when he was this strong. And certainly not a fool to uncover such vital arteries.

The captain didn't flinch, only lowered his stares enough to eye the claw. He towered me, I realized, with a strong, muscular body beneath all that steel. But Aedis and Dier and Veidor still stood taller, not bu much, but enough to look down at him the way he did at me.

"Answer mine and I'll answer yours."

There was a heartbeat of silence, a moment where there only was the crackling fire lighting the room in a light that was nothing warm. Answer, whether I spoke their—our tongue.

"Some." The word was clipped, curt. And I tilted my jaw and watched as he didn't move, didn't push the steel at his neck away. Didn’t flinch as he spoke, as the movement of his jaw, as the contraction of his muscles drew blood.

Not black, not red, not green. Even Whisperers' blood had been changed. It was amber, like the color of the world as the sun settled, but it was not warm. Not at all.

I smelled the strength that had emanated from those drops now trailing down his silver armor, had allowed my magic to study it, every essence of strength, every flicker of power, every snippet of his identity.

But I'd already knew who he was the moment he'd tried sneaking into my mind, the moment I beheld the face Sorcha had allowed me to see as we left the Shimderian Forest, the symbol etched on the breastplate.

The Dark General.

"The castle's dungeons."

His focus was unwavering as he waited for a reaction, for any unspoken bit our features would disclose. But it was a captain and a general addressing a queen and not a mere Cohar. He was strong and I was stronger—far, far stronger than what he could imagine. Than what I could imagine.

The castle; that had saved us a good few days of walking.

"Name?"

He arched the same eyebrow as earlier, but his eyes were hard. A general used to ask and being obeyed, not the one being questioned. And he'd caught the defiance in my eyes, noted how the five Windreapers behind me were ready to feast on his guts should he do one wrong move.

Indeed, he was a very wise man, not daring a move on a tribe that was described as the strongest, most brutal of all demons.

"Yenes, the Dark General, Leader of all Eziara's forces.''

Another heartbeat of silence. A beckoning.

"Elayda of the Windreapers, Cohar.''

"I know."

Of course he did with the traitor infiltrating my own home. That Drakal woman had heard mere days after our supposed break out from the Ether Castle's secret dungeons. There were no doubts his words were carried here with the fastest winds.

I faked a moment of thinking, a scrunched face working on picking up fragments of memories, of words. "Does your prince know, too?" Still, I made the first two words roll in the Old Tongue.

"There is no prince, only the Queen."

I howled in a voice that was more animalistic than graceful and lady-like, the sound of it sharp as it rang around us. And it was wickedness painted on my face as I eyed him, hands slipping from his face to grab the long bars of magic. Steel, his face was made of steel, not a bit breaking, not a bit revealing.

"Liar.'' My hands tightened on the bars. "We have our…'' A pause and a tap of my fingers on the magic. He watched the gesture, how my skin didn't burn at the contact. "Ways, too."

He smirked, and it was feral. Brutal. Nothing teasing, nothing mortal in it. "Efficient they are."

I feigned not understanding, squinting at the first word. Nonetheless, he added, "Indeed there is a king. And he wishes to see you."

A game, pushing us to know how much information we owned. How much we'd heard through the castle's walls. Only he didn't know he was playing it with a court that had planned and plotted every lie, every word. A dragon and a phoenix that were elites and ancient players in this game.

The Dark General took a step back, the magic still curled around him, swirling like a storm confined by invisible bounders. And I took a step forward, the bars breaking to shards, the magic being ripped open as a booming sound rang around—through—us. Yenes failed, if only little, in hiding how his jaws had clenched, how his eyes had narrowed on the hands that crumbled his magic to dust.

My court rose behind me, six Windreapers fixing our attention solely on him, on every shift of muscles. Yenes's face remained high, his shoulder squared, his features hard when I demanded in a tone that irked him to the bones, "Then take us to him."

And I wasn't truly sure what it was that lingered in his eyes, what had momentarily flickered in the ripples of magic swallowing him before the darkness swallowed us whole and the dungeon room disappeared.

The history of Eziara had been carved into the very throne room: on every column, the arches expending into the edges of the vaulted ceiling, the stained glass, the shadows stretched on the marble floor. Everywhere. A glorious, brutal past, a story of victories and defeats. Legends and myths. Mesmerizing in a way, fearful in many.

A reminder of what they were, of what they aimed to be.

Monsters had been carved into the walls, mighty beasts angled toward the far end of the room, obeying and observing. Each had been more horrific than the previous, creatures forged from Apocalys's breaths, born from the darkness he'd claimed. It was no small mercy that they were all dead.

But the gleaming rubies sculpted into their eyes, it seemed to watch, to note and assess everything. How the black shadows swirling on the slate marble graveled to the same end of the room, stretching until they bowed to the feet of the dais. How the light seeped scarlet and crimson and grey from the painted glass forming the high ceiling, how they swept every corner, every nook, how they shimmered on the expensive stones forged into the stones building this castle—rubies and Nightbleed and musgravite and fire opals.

All directed, all leading to that far dais made of pure Nightbleed, high stairs perfectly crafted and forged with hands whose skillfulness was not seen anymore. And on that dais, the twin thrones sat. Pale against the colors of the room. Bone-colored. But it was that lingering stare I spared those thrones, the fast sweep over the details of the seats shaped like folding wings shielding their rulers, the glimpses on the intricate details and textures as though they were real, gigantesque winds rendered stone, told me that they were not only bone-colored. But bone-made.

Two thrones forged of bones that might have been their victims or the fallen during the First Red War, perhaps even their own kin.

But it had been what was behind the thrones that had pulled the strings of my attention, that had washed my blood with ice, that had made this hall nothing but a blur.

An eighteen foot tall shadow of Nightbleed and something else molten together, spearing toward the ceiling, erupting in a mass of flickering darkness. And what it was fashioned as was no mere beast, but a monster I'd seen its shadows in the pages of the Book of Astazan. I hadn't dared wonder back then what—who—this was, if it had been Dearcious or Apocalys's darkness or something completely remote. I was thankful of that as I stared at the massive, clawed hands, at the thin streaks of gold lining it, the only stark color in this room.

But that monster, the thing it was made off, it whispered. Crooned and cawed and hissed and chanted all at once. Yet, it still called for me, still stirred my magic.

Small, so small we were compared to it. And if that thing ever emerged in the upcoming war…

We were doomed. For good.

It had been the sudden tightness on my flesh that had my eyes drifting back to my wrists, to the black manacles securing them, the magic appearing as Yenes had pulled us from the dungeons to this room. To this maze that was almost as big as the one back home, and everything its dark twin.

I hissed at the Dark General, fangs baring. They did little, those manacles from tying me down—from tying any of us down—should I unleash my magic. And I might have done it, might have shattered them as I had done with the cage when I sensed the flicker of power emerging around us.

It lasted a heartbeat, perhaps even less, before fifteen mass of shadows spewed one another in a row, darkness hissing in the wake of the fifteen warriors steeping out of them.

Blake and Lysithea's guards. The warriors we were to claim their positions so we could infiltrate our enemies.

All clad in black, all armed to the teeth, all mighty fighters bred to destroy. But it had been the female standing at the farthest right, the one whose armor was ornate with a blood-colored cape flowing down her shoulders that had made something within me surge back to life. First Female, it was obvious. But that pale face turned sun-kissed after long hours under the sun, the hair cut short to her shoulders, each strand crimson sprouting from her scalp. I knew those features, knew the dark, up-tilted eyes, the unforgiving harshness in them.

I'd stared at them—at her before.

My blood was raging in my veins, thundering in my ears. And every lick of magic within me throbbed, aching to be released. So familiar, yet different. Older and stronger and far more demon than she'd ever been.

But it was her voice as she barked her order that sent me month flying back, forgetting the prince, the continent, the entire mission. I found myself, for a moment, standing beneath a blaring sun, sweat-covered with a poor, wooden sword in hand.

She'd been there, too. With Blake. And who knew how many more of them had been living with us, in our schools, eating and drinking at our tables.

Clair.