My hands won’t stop shaking; every step I take is harder, faster, heavier than the last. The others fall behind, scattered along the paths of Elisia’s tangled architecture. Amber veers left, Grim right, William slows further back. Only I drive forward through the center.
The estate is no simple square of walls. Streets coil around it like a web, bending and branching, twisting into countless routes, a maze built by centuries of nobles who thought themselves clever. I cut straight through, not caring for precision, not caring for the cracks beneath my boots.
William is slower. His blue blood cannot pump the air fast enough, cannot push his body to match mine, and I do not wait. I cannot.
Adrenaline seizes me. My sight fractures into sparks of green and orange, my world scattering into constellations of color. Brown streaks spiral before my eyes, hexagonal patterns spinning until I can barely focus. My jaw locks, teeth grinding until they ache. Each step dents the rooftop harder, breaking tile, snapping wood, and stone. Beneath me, the houses shudder, groaning under my passage.
The wind cuts my ears like knives. Ravens shoot past me, their wings beating, their bodies moving in what seems like slow motion. Yet I know it is me—I am too fast. My blood howls, my vision narrows, the edges of the world blur into nothing.
Faster. I need to be faster.
Veins bulge across my skin, swollen and throbbing as though they could leap free of my body, bursting through the fragile cage of flesh and bone that barely contains them. Only my skin holds me together, a thin and desperate wall halting the collapse that claws at the edges of my being. My breath shudders, lungs laboring in a frenzy that leaves my chest burning. My clothes whip against me, catching the wind like a turbine, working not with me but against me, fighting the relentless pace of my sprint.
Heat pours from me in waves. I am not cold, not under the pale fog of the golden moon, nor numb in the absence of the azure sun. I am burning—burning from the inside. Every vessel shrinks and expands with the hammer of my heart, each beat striking over two hundred times a minute.
My calves cramp. My hamstrings ache, screaming from the sudden surge of speed. Still, I run. I cannot stop. Miles vanish beneath my feet, swallowed in a minute. I weave through the jagged sprawl of rooftops, my path broken by sharp angles where a straight line would fail me. The world blurs into a storm of feathers and shadow—the buildings around me cloaked in raven-black, their spires like talons, their edges as cruel and sharp as the wings of the black-blooded.
Through this blur, I see them.
Harmon, Arthur, and Vis.
Three figures hunched on the rooftop ahead, their wrists braced against their knees. One blue. One green. One orange. All gathered and waiting. Their silhouettes cut hard against the brilliance of the golden moon.
I push harder, lungs tearing, each breath a violent rasp. Harmon lifts his head, and his eyes catch me first. The shadow of a smile flickers at his lips—a gesture so alien to him that it carves a shiver down my spine.
I do not shout my coming words under hasty breath. I cannot—too many ears may listen in the night, cloaked by ravens. Too many false gods, too many enemies, too much risk. So when I finally stand before them, no more than seven feet away, I force the words from my throat, each one raw and edged with breathless fury.
Harmon’s gaze holds mine steady. His calm unsettles me more than any panic could.
“A false god is here!” The words nearly tear free as a scream, but I bite them down, veins straining at my neck as the blood rushes through me. I expect shock in their faces, fear widening their eyes. They must feel it, too.
Arthur and Vis look to Harmon, waiting. Amber, coming from the side, watches him as though ready to lunge, her brows knotted, her thick neck taut with muscle. But Harmon—Harmon does not flinch. Not a twitch, not a shallow breath. His mouth twitches, the faintest ripple. A smirk? No, he doesn’t smirk. He never smirks.