Wood grated against my cheek as I came to. Shivering, I opened my eyes, only to slam them shut at the brightness of a midday sun.

“Rozin?” asked Yulia’s worried voice. “Rozin, are you awake?”

The grating stopped.

Feet crunched in snow, then gloved hands cupped my cheeks. Metal forced between my teeth and water filled my mouth, sweet and fresh and so welcome that I pushed up on my elbow and wrenched the bottle away from Yulia.

“You’re alive!” she said, and when my eyes finally opened, I saw my entire squad surrounding me, mounted in a messy pack. They had tied me to a makeshift sledge, a wide board of rough wood lashed behind a horse with leather straps. Breaths curled in bitter wind. No one smiled but Yulia.

I tore back my sleeve, exposing my right arm. Golden tattoos. It hadn’t been a dream.

“Where is it?” I asked, because I could feel the daemon, somewhere deep in the back of my brain, like someone had lodged a stone in my neck. Cold. Hard. Unreadable, but ever present.

Yulia looked to my left.

Captain Shokarov’s horse pulled a second sledge. The daemon lay on it, tightly bound in thin iron chains, her eyes closed. Her skirt, now torn along the hem, trailed behind the sledge, and her bare stomach flexed and twitched every so often from discomfort.

They had not given her a coat, nor covered her in furs.

Yulia must have seen my confusion. “She’s hot to the touch. We tried to put a coat on her, but she threw some kind of fit. Not awake, mind you. Just thrashing around. We didn’t know what else to do.”

I watched the daemon. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her brow drawn, enraged even unconscious. She reminded me of when a wolf had once snared its paw in one of our traps, and once exhausted, how it had huffed into the snow, just waiting for prey to get close enough for a snap of its jaws.

“She hasn’t woken at all?” I asked.

“No. I don’t know why—it’s been two days. We’re nearly at Tahir Vos.”

I sat up sharply. “Two days?” I croaked. I rubbed the back of my neck, expecting a protrusion, or even something hard under the skin. But I only found my spine.

“What do you feel?” Yulia asked.

“Nothing. I got flashes when we bonded, but none since. But she’s there.”

“There’s no connection between you? Can you feel her magic?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t felt any magic. Wherever it is, I can’t find it.”

“Can you determine her name?”

I closed my eyes. At the back of my mind, that cold spot waited, immobile, impossible to crack. I pushed against it, trying to get something, anything, a memory or an image or a sound. Nothing.

Yulia helped me to a stand, her concern badly hidden. I didn’t have the courage to ask her what she thought.

A High Order was new territory. The last humans who had tried to bind one …

I shivered. To most people, High Orders were only legends. They were the masters of the daemons, those who ruled in their savage countries. There hadn’t been a High Order sighted in human lands in decades, and it had been even longer since we’d tried to bond one. Their magic could not be tamed; it burned so bright and strong that it burned away any human that came too close.

“If you feel her taking over,” Yulia said, “I need you to scream. Maybe … maybe Artem can weaken her in some way. Just enough to keep her out.”

We began the trudge to Tahir Vos. Yulia offered me her horse—they hadn’t found mine—but I refused. There was a restlessness in my bones that refused to abate. I didn’t know if it was mine or the daemon’s. I did, however, inhale every piece of dried meat and hard cheese they gave me. I was ravenous, more than I’d ever been in my life.

As we walked, I watched her. She stayed unconscious, twitching from some nightmare. The gold painted on her stomach had smudged from the iron chains, obscuring the patterns of vines and thorns. Still, as much as my stomach turned to admit it, she was beautiful. She had the softness only a life of comfort could give, the curves of a dancer. I wondered what she had been—whether she was from Kaelta, like the flash in her memory.

Her hair had fallen from the sledge, dragging on the snow. Cautiously, I bent down and picked it up. It was so fine, falling through my fingers like silk, and warm—Yulia was right. Heat radiated from the daemon like a summer sun. I dropped the hair back onto her and moved away quickly, heart thudding. This daemon would be bonded with me for my entire life. Every day I would be forced to watch her, feel her in the back of my mind. I could not lose my focus, even if I felt her drawing my gaze.

Yulia came to my side. “I can’t take my eyes off her,” she said. “She’s a bit … unexpected, don’t you think? When I think High Order, I think … teeth. Horns, fur. Something more horrific. From the way people have described them, I never thought they could be so pretty.”

“Still a monster.”

“I guess.” She gave me a pitying look. “We’ve sent word ahead to the archon. The Korongorod will meet us at Tahir Vos.”

Korongorod. Crown City.

The blood drained from my face, leaving in its wake a terrible cold. “And what will they do with me?”

Yulia rubbed her thumb on my shoulder and shook her head. She didn’t know.

By mid-afternoon, we came to Tahir Vos. The small town was surrounded by thick, tall stone walls, around which was a crowd of grey tents flying the Canavar pennant. Due to its proximity to the Teeth, Tahir Vos had long been used as a rest-stop for several neighbouring nations. Traders from Etvia, Bel Arben, Novosk, and Mehrak all participated in pilgrimages here several times a year, finding deep-pocketed customers among the travelling Canavar soldiers. Most soldiers, however, were never allowed to pass through the town gates. There had been enough incidents with the locals that only officers and the like could expect to find a place within the walls.

We paused at the edge of the tents, and one of our riders left to send word to the town council.

“Cover it,” the Captain said, and our riders pulled the High Order from her sledge. She slumped between them, still limp. They wrapped her in thick woollen blankets, covering her head, and carried her like a log between three of them. The Captain glanced at me. “We don’t need another archon getting word of this until we’ve seen ours. He can decide our next steps.”

“So it’s confirmed?” I asked. “We’re to meet the archon?”

He nodded. “Answer everything truthfully. He wants to know why you’re alive.”

I nodded respectfully, but a little voice in the back of my mind whispered so do I.

We marched through the maze of tents. Among the grey and wolves of the Canavar pennants, I glimpsed a few dots of colour. Emerald and dragons for the Drahko Archon, dark orange and hawks for the Vizi Archon, and even the navy and white tigers of Seo Jie Go, the only independent nation that remained.

Once, they had all been independent, but we were forced to change. To band together in defence of a common enemy—the daemons. We had suffered too long, grown too weak. And so the great nations of Itrera made a choice. We would no longer have kings and queens, nor would we stand alone against the daemon threat. Allies fused their armies, formed coalitions. They elected archons to act as their figureheads. And the new coalitions of Itrera declared that there was to be peace among all of humankind, and there would be peace as long as we lived.

Near the gates of Tahir Vos, I felt heat prickle the back of my neck. My head snapped to the High Order. I saw her wriggling under the cover of blankets, and a hint of smoke forcing through the fabric.

“Hurry!” I shouted. We broke into a run, aware of the many eyes following us as we did. Panic wafted from us—from our wide eyes, from our hushed but frantic voices. The gates swung open, and a middle-aged woman in simple civilian robes ushered us inside.

“We have a house ready for you,” she said. She rushed us through the back roads as smoke began to billow from the fabric wrapped around the High Order, holes burning their way through. We broke into a sprint. Tahir Vos was Azherbali in architecture—meaning everything we passed was built of a beautiful, if extremely flammable, pale wood.

We burst into a small townhouse. It was sparsely furnished for temporary guests, only a small dining area near an open-hearth kitchen. The second the door closed behind us, my squad dropped the High Order unceremoniously to the floor. They gasped and panted in pain, their forearms raw with burns.

As Yulia had told me, she was in some kind of fit—clawing at the fabric, her fingers burning the wool, but her eyes still closed. I approached carefully and gripped the fabric, attempting to pull it away.

The High Order’s hand snapped around my wrist, and I was hit not with fire, but fury.

The same anger I’d felt when binding her ripped through me so fast I dropped to my knees. My lungs filled with lava, unable to draw breath. Molten iron poured over my skin, searing, reducing it to ash, forcing down my throat straight through to my heart …

I heard Yulia screaming my name, felt someone grip me around the stomach and pull.

The fury vanished the second the High Order’s hand opened.

We fell back in a heap of limbs. The High Order had gone slack again, freed from the fabric. Yulia gripped my shoulders and forced me to look at her, her grey eyes searching my face.

“Rozin,” she rasped, “Rozin, did she force in? Did you feel her trying to control you?”

“No,” I mumbled, gathering my scattered senses. “Nothing like that. She only hates me.”

Yulia pulled me to my feet. Silently, Artem came inside and handed me a flask of water. He bobbed his head in respect as I took it, then went to stand guard outside with the other bonded, where he would remain until Yulia called for him.

The gravity of what I had done hit me like a brick to the temple. The High Order was mine. I would never be rid of her, never feel safe again. I would spend every moment of my life wondering if this was the day she took my mind, burned away my sense of self, and left me a smoking husk as she killed us both to end her suffering.

Yulia could see the terror on my face. I thought I had managed to keep it flat, but she had always been able to tell.

“I’ll take Rozin upstairs,” she said. “She should rest.”

Shokarov nodded. “The High Order stays with me. I’ll watch her.”

Yulia took my arm and led me away, and I glanced over my shoulder. Our squad carefully pushed the High Order onto the stone outer hearth with fireplace pokers. Shokarov sent soldiers to fetch stronger iron chains. Nothing else would help, if a High Order woke up.

We settled in a small room with a wide bed, and Yulia helped me unlace my uniform and boots. I curled under the heavy blankets, exhausted to the bone.

Yulia lay beside me and twined her hand in mine. I squeezed back.

“You’ll get through this,” Yulia whispered.

“And if I don’t?”

“You will.”

I pulled her hand, and Yulia met my eyes. “I need you to promise me. Swear. If I lose my mind, I need you to … If I can’t stop her, you have to.”

Yulia’s eyes hardened. She was a soldier. She was likely expecting this question, and she already knew her answer.

“If your mind is gone, then you are gone. I won’t hesitate, you have my word.”

*

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Cold waves crashed against the black cliffs, the winter air smelling of salt and night-blooming flowers. It was quiet, for El-by-Sea, the palace glowing against the darkness like a den of fireflies. I opened my hand, and a ball of bright flame flickered in my palm, washing heat over me.

A familiar voice spoke. I turned, and Khalid was frowning, his wings twitching in irritation. He began to admonish me for something—but for what, I didn’t know, because I didn’t know his words, this tongue. I shouted back. Words I never learned tumbled from my lips, raged like fire from between my teeth. My hand curled into a fist. Delicate, red-painted fingers. A wrist painted with gold.

Not my hand. Not me. Her.

I shot awake, gasping for breath. Yulia’s hand wrapped my wrist, sleepily pulling me in. So I curled into her chest, trembling in my skin. I refused to fall asleep again.

*

In the morning, the High Order hadn’t moved. Our squad sat around her, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. They’d watched her all night, and apart from a few random twitches, there was no sign at all that she’d be waking up. Part of me would feel relieved if she never did.

Tired to our cores, we bathed and changed into our dress uniforms. Mine was too tight around my arms and thighs, meant more for the slim, soft palace guards of the Korongorod. They didn’t have the build of the field forces, the hardness that went with sparring and trudging through mountains. It wasn’t by merit that one earned a place near the archon, but by birth. The children of lords considered it a great honour to serve where no real danger existed.

I buttoned on a grey wool coat, tying a pale blue sash around the waist. The coat’s sleeves and hem flared like a bell, ending just past my knees. I slid into slim black pants and polished, tall boots. As a bonder, I pinned a silver brooch of a chained wolf on my chest.

“Come here,” said Yulia, and I sat down as she fixed up my hair. She braided the upper edge of the shaved side of my head, and with a dash of fragrant oil, worked through the length down the other side. I closed my eyes as she carefully trimmed the shave, the familiar motion more comfort than I could tell her. When she finished, I did her long, single braid, cutting the ends that had become frayed and wind-cracked in the mountain cold.

“We’re meeting the Korongorod beyond the city’s edge,” Yulia murmured. “The captain’s clearing the way for us now.” She stood, her hands braced on my shoulders. “No matter what happens, Rozin. I’m here.”

I nodded, unable to offer her any words of comfort in return. Field soldiers did not meet the archon. None of us knew what to expect.

We approached the High Order. She lay on the hearth, just as motionless as when I’d left her there the night before. Iron chains held her wrists, her ankles. My fingers prodded gently at the hard knot at the back of my neck. It was her, I knew. But how could I use it? How could I control her, as Yulia did Artem? How could I ensure she never broke me?

I bent down, reaching out carefully. Power seemed to hum from her skin, the air thicker around my fingertips. The High Order didn’t react when my hand rested on her shoulder.

“I kept watch,” said Rafiq. He looked ashen, his eyes drooping from exhaustion. Behind him, Khalid waited obediently, his expression vacant. The bond was holding him well. “She doesn’t seem any different … but we’re not sure how to get her out of here. Not after she set herself on fire yesterday. Tahir Vos is … well, it’s wood.”

“I’ll do it.”

My squad watched tensely, hands on the pommels of their blades. But even as I slid my arms under her, and lifted her off the floor, the High Order remained unconscious. Her head lolled, warm scarlet hair spilling down my chest.

“Let’s go,” I ground out.

My squad surrounded me, weapons at the ready. We exited the small house to find the road completely clear, soldiers all along the edges. Captain Shokarov waited just outside the door, mounted on his black horse.

“After me, Kain.”

My squad tightened around me, obscuring me from the townspeople’s sight. Their eyes shifted nervously from each other to the High Order. None of us knew what she would do when she finally woke.

We exited the town through the back gates. Soldiers had cleared a path through the merchant tents, giving us a clear way to the wheat fields and pastures beyond. Citizens gathered just along the path, peering curiously at our approach.

A shout erupted from one of the merchants. We stopped in our tracks, my heart hammering. I turned.

The Teeth rose behind Tahir Vos as a wall of grey and white, cutting into the wide blue sky. And from behind them, a massive shape soared out from the clouds, blotting out the sun. The Korongorod, capitol of the Canavar Coalition.

It was as though someone has torn a chunk from the earth and hurled it into the air, where it had since remained. White towers pierced out from the rock, their balconies dripping with icicles. Shining walls rose in a spiral, growing taller the closer they reached the centre. Between them were all manner of impressive structures: guard spires, daemon eyries, great manor houses, temple steeples, guild halls, and pleasure houses for only the favoured among the Canavar elite. And around the main walls, lush strolling gardens and sparring fields perched along jagged cliff edges. A river poured from a garden’s edge, its water vanishing into mist and dispersing into the air.

At the Korongorod’s peak rose the Frozen Keep, seat of the Canavar Archon. It was a ring of spires of carved white stone, cutting into the sky like ragged icicles. Its frost glittered in the sun, shards of ice clinging to its pale blue windows.

Shouts of alarm rose from the camp. Merchants scrambled to shove customers from their stalls, soldiers rushed to fix their armour, civilians clustered together in open-mouthed wonder. I’d glimpsed the Korongorod from afar several times in my life, but I never thought I’d ever be this close. I could barely comprehend the size of it, the impossibility. Each of the archons had a city in the air, constantly roaming their lands to keep them safe from any daemon threat. But we had not built these cities. We’d simply found them. They were remnants of a time before humankind; a time where the Creators walked Itrera.

The Korongorod halted just at the edge of the tents, its shadow covering the fields below. Captain Shokarov whistled us forward, and we approached.

Winged daemons leapt from the Korongorod’s cliffs and dragged cables behind them, anchoring the city to the land below. Rock shot up from the earth, the magic of bonded drawing it forth, and gripped the cables, holding them down. From the belly of the Korongorod, a wide cavern set deep in the rock base, an odd shape came flying towards us. When it got closer, I could make out what it was: a metal platform with a guard rail, cables tying it to four winged daemons. They flapped their wings in unison, their masters standing in each of the platform’s corners.

The platform touched down before us, and we followed Shokarov onto it. The masters followed the High Order with their eyes, but they kept their mouths shut. Someone important must have ordered them to.

“Hold the rail,” said the captain. The masters raised their hands, and the platform took off.

I stumbled in shock, but Yulia caught my shoulders. I could barely feel the wind, barely feel the motion of the platform as we sailed upwards towards the Korongorod. The High Order was still in my arms, the wind taking her hair like breath on flame. I couldn’t feel her thoughts, anything but that hard spot at the back of my mind.

The platform slid gracefully into a wide dock built into the Korongorod’s base. We followed the masters up a winding tunnel, finally emerging onto a wide, open square. Palace soldiers lined it, weapons at the ready. Waiting in the centre was a trio of Eon guards.

My heart skipped. If the palace guards were mice, the Eons were wolves. They were the personal guards of the archon and their family, and they followed orders from no one else. Thick grey pelts sat on their shoulders, their bodies encased in a tight uniform of black leather and elegant wool. Under their eyes, they bore the mark of Eons: two maroon spots, each said to be hand-pressed by the archon themselves.

“This way, Rozin Kain,” growled one of the Eons, a massive woman with a long braid of orange hair. A thick scar carved her face in two, giving her lip a half-raised snarl. A bonded daemon followed at her heels: a furred Bestial that hulked like a bear, its head and limbs fronted by shifting plates of dark bone.

The guards parted for the Eons, and we passed through the Korongorod’s hulking main gate. Icicles clung to every overhang, sharp enough to tear into anyone who dared get too close. Statues glittered with coatings of frost. Fountains were still, the water from their spouts frozen in glittering cascades. But it wasn’t cold—the wind was a barely a light, warm breeze. That was no natural ice.

A staircase cut straight up through the spiral wall, passing under archway after archway until it hit the Frozen Keep. As we walked, I felt eyes on me. Behind the rows of palace guards, wealthy guests peered at us. They all wore colours to impress the archon: pale greys or deep blacks, accents of dark leather, rough furs, gowns edged in silver piping. True patriots, if the eyes were to be believed. Come to see what their darling archon was making such a fuss about.

I ignored the curious whispering and chatter. With the High Order unconscious, she easily passed for any common Elemental. I could already feel the speculation starting.

My thighs burned by the time we reached the Frozen Keep. The gates opened, and I took a sharp breath.

It was a massive receiving hall, but it seemed carved completely from ice. Intricate patterns of wolves, winter-blooming flowers, and mountains wrapped the pillars and vaulted ceiling, the lanterns casting everything in a cold blue. Chandeliers hung above me, ice dripping down from their arms, pale greenish flames flickering from their candles like trapped spirits. And at the end of the hall was a throne of what looked like bone—massive tusks protruded from its back, the seat draped with a pile of luxurious furs.

I dropped to my knees, and I heard my squad do the same behind me.

Archon Volkov stared imperiously from his seat. He was an older, strong-jawed man with silvering hair and small, hard eyes. A full wolf pelt sat on his shoulders, its head open-jawed on his chest. When he stood, layers of silver and grey followed him; embroidery told tales of conquest across his body, thin plates of leather armour shifted on his arms. But my eyes fell to the White Crown, the thing I had only heard of in legend. It was a ring of sharp icicles, fused together in an uncanny resemblance to the keep, each point a needle. It glittered as he moved, catching the light like the clearest diamond.

“This is the High Order?” Archon Volkov rumbled, and the Eons parted with a bow.

“Rozin Kain and her bonded High Order, Your Eminence,” said an Eon.

The archon looked me up and down, slowly, a low sort of hatred in his eyes. I forced myself to stay completely still, rigid. My heart slammed. One wrong move, and the archon could order my death. He would be smart to do it.

“On the table,” he said dismissively, and a pair of bonded rushed a slab of marble in front of me. I lowered the High Order onto it, and the Eons motioned for me to step back.

“Remove your coat.”

I took a steadying breath, and did as I was told. My gold and ruby tattoo shone against the lights, and the archon stopped in his tracks.

“It gave that to you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I croaked. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

“How.”

“When I bound her, Your Eminence. I do not know … what it means. She has not woken since.”

“Curious.”

Archon Volkov walked in a slow circle around me, transfixed on my tattoo.

“Your captain told me of your bravery, Bonder Kain. How you chose to risk your life to save those of your comrades, in spite of the overwhelming odds against your survival. You have the gratitude of your coalition.”

“Thank you, Your Eminence.”

“It is my understanding that you are not able to see any of this daemon’s memories. Is this still true?”

“It is. I have … felt some visions, Your Eminence. I cannot determine their meaning, however.”

“Then you shall work with our scholars to determine their meaning. This is an opportunity that will not be wasted.”

Something shifted in the balcony to my right. A young, striking woman leaned against the railing, flanked on either side by a pair of Eon guards. A diadem of white ice rested on her long, silken black hair. Her gaze was the coldest thing in the room, backed by a pair of eyes so blue they seemed carved from the sky. The princess, if I had a guess. Irina Volkov.

“Why was it in Canavar lands?” said the archon.

“I don’t know, Your Eminence. I can’t see her mind.”

“Not even its name?”

A flare of heat spiked in that hard knot dug into my skull. I flinched. I could feel the indignation in that spike—her indignation, not mine. It didn’t appreciate being called so. I glanced at my daemon, but she hadn’t even stirred. Could she really hear us?

“No, Your Eminence. She hasn’t woken since the bonding.”

“So I’m told.” The archon jerked a finger, and I extended my arm for him to examine. I kept my face flat as his fingers trailed along the golden tattoo, tracing the ruby-red berries and miniscule blossoms. He paused at the stag, brow curling. The archon went still. He barked at a bespectacled man across the room to come closer. “Lionel! What do you see?”

The thin, reedy man leaned close to my arm. He focused on a spot between the stag’s horns, and I noticed something I hadn’t before—a tiny flame above the stag’s head, disguised by the horns’ pattern.

“Kaelta,” said the bespectacled man.

“Not just Kaelta!” the archon growled, low enough that the rest of the room couldn’t hear.

“I’m aware of that, sir, but the audience …” He looked at me.

“Do you realise what we could do with this? The leverage it gives us, Lionel, if we were to—”

Like a coiled serpent, my daemon struck.

One moment, she’d been lying fast asleep on the marble slab, the next, leaping from it with her fingers extended as claws and her lips curled back to reveal a set of sharp canines. I could only watch as her nails sunk into the archon’s chest.

The hall erupted into pandemonium. Guards swarmed us, their winged daemons swirling around like a cloud of bats. Flames burst from the High Order, blasting Lionel and I back, shielding the archon from the guards. Iron arrows sunk into my daemon’s back, but she didn’t even flinch. Grey smoke poured from her wounds.

It felt as though I watched it all through glass. I stood silently, struck dumb. Something held my thoughts back, kept me placid like a dog being patted on the head. Why did the guards have such a problem with this? The archon was an enemy to all daemon-kind. His soldiers had enslaved countless of us. He deserved to die.

No.

A glimmer of myself protested. Not us. Them.

The daemon had forced her way into my mind. I’d been too distracted by the archon to feel her burrowing through. She’d made this calm, this glass. I had to break it. I didn’t know how, didn’t know what might free me—so like I promised Yulia I would, I screamed.

The high note became an anchor—I latched my sense of self onto it, pulling. That was me. My voice. My terror, fury. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out, get out, get out get out get out get out get out—

The daemon’s concentration flicked to me for a moment, enough for her toss the archon to the ground, watching me like a predator over prey. Her nails were tipped with blood. I felt the small heat behind my head explode into fire. It burned down my spine, sending me to my knees.

Searing heat blasted through the hall. Flames took the banners, the chandeliers, the furs on the throne. The High Order stepped towards me, and a wave of fire exploded from her step. It struck the guards and their bonded, threw the Eons against the walls. The guards’ daemons seemed turned to stone. They dropped from the sky, one by one, and collapsed on the icy floor. A tendril of flame snatched my boot and dragged me towards the High Order.

My daemon stood alone in the hall, the archon beside me.

“Stop,” I forced out.

Blood seeped from the archon’s chest, staining his front in red. He tried to crawl away, but his train was trapped under my daemon’s step. She raised her arm. Fire burst from her palm, and it tightened, twisting and writhing, to form a single spike of white-hot flame.

She drove it through the archon’s gut.

A wave of alien glee shot through my body. I felt the archon’s heartbeat through the flames, flowing up to my hand—no, damn it, her hand. Slowing, slowing. Stopped. Dead, dead. The bastard was stone, cold, dead.

My daemon straightened, letting her head fall back and her eyes stare up at the icy ceiling. A small smile wound up her mouth, her arm slack at her side. The fire raged around her, waves of heat blowing on her scarlet hair. Guards bellowed, knocked their ironbows. My demon’s eyes slid coolly at them. She flicked her finger. A spike of razor sharp fire impaled a soldier through the heart. Yulia stepped forward with her ironbow. Artem was unconscious by her boots.

My panic exploded through the fire that held me down.

I felt my voice ring through our bond like the thunderous rumble of an earthquake. “Not her.”

My daemon froze, her finger halfway risen to kill Yulia. Her jaw clenched, her face flushed. But she couldn’t call her magic, because I held it in my grip.

The word forced through my bared teeth. “Stop.”

The bond tautened and I pulled it with all my might, heaving her power towards me, digging myself deep in my mind where she couldn’t pull it away. The heat wavered. My daemon’s fire raged against me, burning up my spine and in my eyes, but I forced it back with a wall of cold, unforgiving black.

My daemon’s eyes twitched. She gripped her hair as though to pull me out through her scalp. Her arms jerked violently. Then, as the bond turned to an iron cage, she collapsed to her knees. A savage cry tore from her throat.

The wind died. The fire winked out like a mirage.

Black clapped my vision shut.