I was in the mountains, my magic carrying me through mile after mile of dreadful snow. The sun shone bright above me in a cloudless sky, stretching over endless, jagged grey and white. The wind tore at my hair, at Khalid’s wings. Nothing could fly in this.

Khalid stopped in his step. We listened. Humans, lots of them. Khalid leaned over a sharp cliff, and there they were. Soldiers in grey, mounted on horseback. Bonded followed in black cloaks. At the sight of a man with a plumed helmet, Khalid stiffened.

We argued in a foreign tongue. The humans vanished down a tight pass. Anger clouded Khalid’s eyes, his words. Venom spat from my lips, and I grabbed his arm. But Khalid flared his wings, and he yanked himself away, vanishing into the blizzard.

I screamed after him, but I was alone in the snow. Fire burned over my skin in a wave. Snow hissed to steam around me. I followed blindly.

Snow. A world in white, a world alone. Khalid screamed my name somewhere far away, lost to the mountains, to the cold.

I snapped awake.

My mind, my real name, returned to me. Rozin Kain. Soldier of the Canavar. Not a daemon. Not her.

I was in some small, comfortably appointed bedroom of rich furs and dark wood furniture. Stone, frosted walls, ice along the windowsill. So I was still in the Frozen Keep.

“Rozin? Can you hear me?”

I nodded, forcing myself to sit up. My head felt like it was splitting in two, that hard spot in my brain burning like a fireplace iron.

Yulia gripped my shoulder. Artem pushed a glass of water to my lips. “Drink. Eat. You need strength.”

I did as she said, eating mouthfuls of rich pastry and cheeses as Artem handed them to me. I could barely keep them down. My head spun. My tongue felt like cotton.

“What happened?” I rasped.

“The archon is dead,” Yulia whispered. “The High Order killed him.”

I exhaled slowly. I’d felt the archon die, felt the High Order’s glee, shared it.

“Princess Irina has been named the new archon. I’m told she will be officially crowned once the arrangements have been made.”

“Already?” I rasped. “How long have I been out?”

“Only a few hours. It seems that Irina was already being groomed to rule, so the council decided to install her immediately.”

My stomach flipped, and I leaned my forehead on my knees. I peered at Yulia through a gap in my hair.

“Where is she?”

Yulia didn’t need to ask who I meant. She bit her lip. “After you both collapsed, the Eons chained her. The interrogators have her now. The High Order is … awake, Rozin. But not just awake. She can talk. Remember. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. If not for the tattoo, I wouldn’t think she were bonded at all.”

“What has she said?”

“Apart from a few choice curse words and promises to kill us, nothing much. But I’ve seen her eyes. They are there, like yours or mine. I can see her thinking, hating us, plotting her escape. I’ve never known a bonded who could do that.”

I looked at Artem. He was a proper bonded—his eyes were glass, placid. Behind them was nothing more than the strings Yulia used to control him. So what was a bonded, without those strings?

“Great,” I grumbled, holding my head. If only it would stop throbbing. “Have the interrogators gotten anything?”

“No. They can’t torture your bonded without it torturing you. The head interrogator assured me that it would not come to that unless all else failed.”

My blood ran cold. “Head interrogator?”

“He said he was on order from the archon—previous archon, now, I suppose.”

“What was his name?”

“I can’t remember. Sellis?”

“Seylas,” I said quietly. If I had been able, I would have run from that name, run as far and fast as I could. But how could I, bound to a monster, and floating in this city in the air?

“You’ve met him?”

“Once. I hoped I wouldn’t meet him again.”

Yulia paused. When I didn’t offer more about how I knew Seylas, she stroked my hand. “Perhaps you can try and break her before they do. The Eons said that whatever you did, it’s held true. The High Order has no magic. When she tried to use it, nothing happened. I’m told her fury was terrible.”

Pain tore through my chest.

I felt sharpness sinking in, white hot, carving around my collarbone. I screamed and collapsed forward, clutching at it.

Yulia gripped my shoulder. “Rozin! Rozin, what is it?”

I didn’t need anyone to tell me what was happening. I had witnessed it in others enough.

“They’re hurting the daemon,” I gasped. “This is her pain.”

Yulia froze. “Shit. Shit, that lying—“ Yulia held my shoulder tighter. “Block it out as much as you can. Throw her back, lock her down. Stay awake.” Then Yulia bolted from the room, shouting for the guard to take her to the interrogation room.

Artem still knelt at my bedside. As he was still in the Korongorod, Yulia hadn’t let his hood fall since arriving. The law would not allow it.

“What did you see?” he asked. “When you slept.”

The question numbed my pain for a precious few seconds. Bound daemons did not ask questions.

“Yulia?”

“Yes.”

A new wave of pain tore down my back. I cried out, my muscles so tight it came as a croak. I wanted Yulia here, not her words echoed through a daemon’s voice. I collapsed forward on the bed, gritting my teeth against it, only to feel Artem prop me back up.

“I’m sorry,” Artem whispered. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

“I know.”

I wished I could see Yulia’s face. A hot knife sank deep into my palm. Another in my thigh. An impact slammed into my gut, winding me.

Another blow, another. I was close to blacking out again. What were they doing to her?

“Take me to the High Order,” I panted. I tried to pry myself from the bed, but my limbs felt like rubber.

“You should stay here. Shokarov is going to talk to Seylas. Make him call off his interrogators.”

“I don’t care. Pick me up.”

Artem didn’t respond, and I knew arguing with a puppet was fruitless. If it was Yulia’s will that I remain here, then Artem would ensure it.

Pain rocked me over and over. I couldn’t tell how much time passed. All I knew was my sweat, my torture. The sun began to set.

Artem pushed a glass of water beside my hand. I downed it in a few gulps and curled up foetal.

I needed something to distract me. “I saw Kaelta,” I ground out. Artem straightened, but his face remained a flat mask. “I didn’t understand most of it. Just some pictures … feelings. Has Artem ever been to Kaelta?”

“I don’t know. Artem remembers little before our bond.”

Flashes of my daemon’s fury formed my next question. “And how does he … feel about that?”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“He doesn’t.”

“Right.” I bit back another wave of pain. “I didn’t …” They stabbed my daemon through the thigh. “Get much. She saw us in the mountains. With … a friend of hers, I think. A lot of anger. A name.”

“You’ve learned your bonded’s name?”

I nodded, my cheek against the pillow.

Artem was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “I’ve informed the interrogators of your breakthrough.”

Pain blinded me.

I couldn’t stop the screaming. It was everywhere. Sharp and cold, like metal. Cuts. Slashes. Blows.

Artem snapped to a stand. “The interrogators took your revelation as a sign that their methods are working. They’re doubling their efforts. I can’t call them off.”

He grabbed me from the bed and lifted me from it like a paper doll. I barely felt him. We whipped through the halls with unnatural daemon speed. Artem crashed me through a set of double doors and released me into a wide anteroom and into Yulia’s arms.

I heard her bellowing at the guards. The interrogators were hurting Rozin. She was human. She had committed no crime. The pain could kill her.

“Not if her daemon’s alive,” replied one of the guards.

Limp against Yulia’s shoulder, I fought to keep my grip on my consciousness. I heard muffled cries from beyond the next room’s door. My bonding tattoo seemed to pull my arm towards the sound. My daemon. That was her.

The Canavar wouldn’t stop, even if they were hurting one of their soldiers. The information was too valuable. A High Order, alive, awake, with her powers bound. It had never happened, and might never again. Any moment, I could fall prey to the High Order and we would burn away to ash. We had a chance to learn about the daemons. We could find their weaknesses. Humanity could not risk wasting this.

I was fading. My vision was blurred, white.

In the void, I felt that hard stone at the back of my head. I didn’t force against it; I lacked the strength. I pressed against it, begging it to listen. The stone remained impassive. Even under torture, the daemon would not lower her guard.

There was one thing of her I knew; the word Khalid had screamed as the bonding collar closed around his throat.

Andiya, I whispered.

The stone wavered.

I didn’t know how to control a daemon. I didn’t know how to release her powers, or shape them, or stop her from going too far. I begged the stone again. Listen. Please.

Something ancient, wrapped in heat and dense smoke, met my mind. I didn’t push away. I shouted into it. I could not stop the pain. She could. The smoke seemed to rumble like a great beast’s chest, some orange light burning deep within. Fire. That was all she knew; all I knew.

A single prayer tumbled from my lips. “Burn.”

The interrogation room’s door exploded into smithereens. A torrent of fire burst towards us, and Artem snatched Yulia and I out of the way with a hair’s breadth to spare. The door guards met the full weight of the flying shrapnel, hitting the ground motionless.

In the fire’s wake, I glimpsed the interrogation room. My daemon was strapped down to an iron table, bolted down with chains. If daemons bled, the room would be covered in it—instead, a thousand miniscule cuts laced her body, spilling wisps of thin grey smoke. They’d taken her jewels, changed her into prison clothing of loose black cloth, shaved her head down to the scalp. Welts mottled every inch of exposed skin. Her bottom lip had split.

Still—the interrogators had not fared as well as her. I wasn’t sure exactly what they’d looked like in life, but in death they both resembled charred tree stumps. I should have felt something for them, but I found that nothing came. I had no love for their kind; those who profited from pain. Any sympathy I might have had died long ago.

My daemon fixed on me. We locked eyes.

Though her body was broken, her fury was not. She pushed up as far as she could go, straining against the chains. The metal groaned, but held, and she faced me with her hatred.

“Rozin Kain,” she growled, her canines too-sharp. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. “My new master. If that is the word.”

I crossed my arms, refusing to show any fear, any give. And I could not, for the rest of my life.

“It is. You are now the property of the Canavar Archon, and shall be until my dying day.”

“Is this, then, how you treat your property? You beat it, cut it, bleed it dry?”

“I did not choose torture.”

“No. You chose to serve those who do.”

I felt her magic then. It hummed around her, buzzing against my skin like a pressure. The pressure rose, and Andiya’s mouth split in a razor sharp smile. Fire flared at her fingertips. But something was wrong. The magic felt collared, as she was. As if I held its chain. Andiya blinked in frustration.

“Give it back,” she growled.

“No,” I said simply, and the chain seemed to rattle at my word. The bond tautened, and Andiya’s face twisted in effort, but I knew what to do now—I would not let her in again. Her magic was a part of me now; I heaved it in, caged it. Andiya fell forward as her grip on the bond slipped, and her magic fell away from her.

“You …” she growled, “you bitch—”

“Andiya of Kaelta,” I said. She froze at the mention of her name. “You understand that you killed the Canavar Archon. The only punishment suitable is death.”

“And you are here to deliver it?”

“It’s not up to me. Only the new archon can decide that now.”

Andiya glared defiantly back at me, her chin raised.

“When did you really wake up after the bonding?” I continued. “For how long have you been planning to kill the archon?”

“How long?” Andiya spat. “As if I gave a shit about some stupid king. I planned to kill him when I awoke alone in the mountains, bound to vermin. I planned to kill him when I heard your friends telling you that you were to meet. So I kept my eyes shut. I listened. I waited until I could get close enough to take something from you, Rozin Kain, as you have taken everything from me.”

“Why were you in the mountains?”

“I’m not telling you,” Andiya said. “As I did not tell those sadists you serve. Go on, Kain. Try and force the answer out, just as they did.”

I kept my face flat, but inside my stomach twisted in guilt. I wasn’t an evil person. No matter that she was a daemon, no matter that her kind fed on fear and pain and misery—right now she looked like any woman who had been put through hell. No more fire, no more jewels, no more mane of scarlet hair. Only bruises and cuts, exhaustion and agony. She was at my mercy, and would be the rest of her life. I never wanted this. I did not ask for this blood on my hands.

“I have no intention of hurting you,” I said, and it was the truth.

“Then what do you intend to do with me? Leave me here to rot? Force me to burn your enemies?” I took too long to reply, and Andiya’s head cocked, her smile twisted to a cut. “Ah. You don’t know.”

No, I didn’t. I had no idea what would come next. If the new archon would even let us live.

“It may be a mercy if she does not,” said Andiya.

I took an involuntary step back. Could she hear—

“I can. I can feel that fear, Kain, and I can feel that guilt, that awful conscience. I can feel that you find me to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and I can feel that for it you hate me with every inch of your shattered soul.”

My heart squeezed painfully in panic. “Get out.”

“I can’t. You pulled me in. You asked me to see.”

I couldn’t shut her out. I didn’t know how. Panic rattled my thoughts. And she knew all of them, every shame and fear and hatred—

“Relax, Rozin,” Yulia whispered beside me. “Breathe deep. Let go.” Her hand took my forearm. She stepped between me and the daemon, blocking my sight. “You know who you are. Find what doesn’t belong.”

I closed my eyes and let Yulia coach me through it. I opened my palms, counted the time between breaths. Her voice was like a lullaby, soft and sweet, her thumbs on my forearms stroking in a slow rhythm.

And I found it. That dense, ancient smoke. That orange glow. That was Andiya. Something too powerful and complex to understand. I pushed it away, slammed it back with that black wall.

“Ah,” Andiya sighed. “Silence.”

With my mind closed, I could feel the difference between us. I could feel Andiya, there but away, as if separated by a sheet of silk. I knew which pain was which; each bruise, each cut, each burn. A fresh sting grew on my skin, insistent. It crossed my body in thin bands: one across my shoulders, one my stomach, two across my thighs and shins. Slowly, I opened my eyes and realised what it was—the iron chains, forcing my bonded to the chair. They were burning her.

I stepped away from Yulia and approached Andiya. Her eyes tracked me like a scorpion’s tail, just waiting for me to be close enough to strike.

“I’m going to remove the chains,” I told her.

“Rozin, I don’t think that’s safe,” said Yulia from behind.

I took another step closer. “I can handle her. If she attacks anyone again the archon will retaliate in turn. Neither of us want that.”

“I would be glad to bear pain if it meant you shared it,” Andiya snarled.

My voice turned to steel. I knew that Andiya could feel my words were truth; I knew that if she lied, I would feel it too. We were one. She knew I would mean every word.

“In that case, let me make this clear. I will not allow you to hurt anyone else. There will be no interrogation next time. If you step out of line, I will kill us. No mercy, no hesitation.” I forced the next words like a punch. “I have nothing to lose. I expect you do.”

Andiya’s eyes widened, and a flash of fear shot up the bond. Rage burned it quickly away.

I leaned over her, meeting her deep red eyes head on. “I’ll do it,” I whispered. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

Andiya’s breathing came a bit faster.

“Yulia,” I said. “Get her a cloak.”

Yulia nodded, and Artem vanished out the door.

I reached under the iron table and released the latches on the chains. One by one, I pulled them away from Andiya. Carefully, she slid herself to a sit. Her arms were half curled as it to block. A flash of trepidation shivered down the bond before the daemon gripped it back. Was she waiting for me to hit her?

I reached for the bond between us, lacing it with my words. Feel the truth.

“I offer you a bargain, Andiya. I will never hurt you unless you force my hand. Are we understood?”

"You will not hurt me, even if I give you reason. I've seen your mind. I know who you are. You are weak, Kain, weaker than anyone knows."

I faced her defiantly, refusing the rise to the slight. "You will harm no one. You will follow our laws. Know where you stand. Do you accept?"

She snorted in derision. “Be your pet, and you won’t beat me?”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Do your laws allow me to say that you are an iron bitch, Rozin Kain? Or shall you strike me down for it?” She leaned closer, and I knit my brow in confusion. Her emotions flickered by so quickly I couldn’t understand them. Anger, loss, anticipation, curiosity, fury. Her tone lowered almost to a purr. “Or shall I fill you with compliments, to stay your hand? Shall I tell you how strong you are, how domineering?” Her feet swept off the table, and she crossed a leg slowly over the other in a manner that couldn’t be mistaken. “Shall I tell you how soft your bed looks, or how cold? We both know what I can do for that.”

Revulsion twisted my face. I knew what she was doing. Her beaten face and soft words were a horrifying, stomach churning combination. Why did she have to look so human? So vulnerable?

“Why the fuck would I want that?” I snarled.

Andiya’s eyes narrowed at my reaction, confused. The bond fluttered with her surprise.

Andiya’s gaze slid over to Yulia. “Shall we ask your friend?” Yulia held her breath. “Shall we ask her what her little daemon does, when she’s feeling lonely and unwanted?”

“Shut up.”

“Is that an order, master?”

“It is.”

“Pity that your word is not a law,” Andiya said with a sneer. “Or I might have been honour bound to heed it. But as I am not, I say this; you have my body, Kain, but not my mind. And I shall speak it until my dying day.”

Artem returned with the cloak.

“Put that on,” I ground at Andiya. “Cover your head.”

She did as I said, and her deep red eyes peered out from underneath the hood.

“The Eons are waiting for us,” Artem said.

Through their bond, Yulia continued for him. “They’re going to want to know—do they need to contain her?”

I glared Andiya down. I let my words drip with warning. “Do they, Andiya?”

For a moment, I thought she was going to challenge me. But she shook her head, never letting me free of her eyes.

“I accept your bargain, Rozin Kain,” she said dangerously. “And if you break it, there will be hell to pay.”