Page 154 of Fallen Nocturne

Landon’s remaining hand rises weakly and strokes her hair. His eyes close again, but his breathing remains steady.

Relief passes through the cage. Even Rainer seems to breathe more easily. Black veins still stain his skin, and his face remains gray, but their spread has slowed. The medicine might be buying him time, nothing more.

A sharp cry tears from Lucien.

Panic seizes me. I lunge toward him before I even understand what is happening, but the suppressing enchantments make my legs buckle beneath me.

Lucien’s body folds in on itself. The dark cloth falls away as his bones shift and fur races across his skin. Within seconds, the elf is gone and the great wolf lies trembling beside Shade.

“Lucien?” Shade reaches for him, alarm breaking through his usual calm.

Rhianelle turns from Landon and gathers Lucien into her arms. Tears slide down her face as she strokes his fur, trying to soothe the tremors running through him.

“I’ll find a way to help you,” she whispers, burying her fingers in his fur. “I promise.”

Lucien presses his face against her shoulder, a low, broken sound rumbling in his chest.

Rhianelle Wiolant is my queen. I have never wanted to hurt her. Not once, not even during the Archon trial. Yet in that moment, some ugly, selfish part of me wants to pull her away just so I can reach Lucien first.

“Wolf.” My voice breaks on the familiar codename. “Lucien, it’s me.”

Lucien does not come to me. He remains beside Shade and Rhianelle, pressed against them while I stand only a few feet away.

Being invisible to him leaves something raw and aching in my chest, but there is no time to stand here bleeding from it. I force myself to turn away and search the living cage for a weakness, some break in the woven branches that might offer us a way out.

Svenn’s betrayal returns to me with enough force to hollow out my chest. I cannot imagine what Rhianelle must feel. She has not spoken his name since we were taken. Nothing in her expression reveals whether his betrayal has reached her at all. Perhaps she has simply buried it beneath the need to save Landon and Rainer.

I look around the cage. Lucien lies beside Shade. Rainer is poisoned. Rhianelle can barely hold herself upright. Landon has lost an arm and still drifts in and out of consciousness.

We’re broken.

We’re beaten.

The branches beside me suddenly peel apart.

Thormein stands on the other side.

“Cedwyn—Thormein.” I surge toward him, but the suppressing enchantments drain the strength from my limbs before I can reach the cage wall. “You treacherous bastard.”

He does not even look at me. His attention settles on Rhianelle, and he studies her for a long moment.

“Are you all right, Cedwyn?” she asks.

I stare at my queen.

He betrayed us, trapped us inside this cage, and delivered us to Lilith. Yet she is asking whether he is all right.

Only then do I notice how pale the Aeonian has become. His skin has taken on the brittle appearance of old marble.

“I have not taken a sacrifice in a very long time,” Thormein says. “An Aeonian must consume the essence of living souls to survive. Without it, this parasitic body decays.”

He pushes back his sleeve. Cracks of dark light spread beneath his skin, splitting his flesh from wrist to elbow. “I grew tired of feeding upon others, so I fled the other five. Before they died, they would sometimes give me a portion of their gathered essence when I performed some task for them. Now they are gone, and there is no one left to sustain me.”

“Lilith promised you another way,” Rhianelle says.

“She promised I would never need to take another life. She said I could live as others do, without feeding, without stealing years from innocent souls.” His expression hardens. “I want one chance to be something other than a parasite.”

“You know she is lying,” Rhianelle says gently. “She does not grant wishes. She twists them until the gift becomes another kind of prison. Be careful, Cedwyn.”