Nynn flinched. The bronze glow was sharper now. The living entity of Ulia without taking her shape or form. “My husband was murdered. A Dragon King stood by while the Asters’ men ripped us from our home. Caleb was already dead in the kitchen. My son is being tortured. I’m here alone. My family is gone.”

Even in her mind, she cried. The grief was more raw there. No inhibitions. No physical limit to how loud she could scream or how deeply sobs could rock her body. No one to hear her, look at her, punish her for what could not be contained. Dr. Aster had used a scalpel. And he’d handed Hellix a whip.

What do you fear?

Nynn flung hideous images toward the glow that centered just behind her forehead. Worst-case scenarios. All of the nightmares she’d had time to conjure for more than a year. Jack . . . oh, Dragon be. Jack in pieces. How he’d cry for her. He’d think she had abandoned him. He would die alone and so would she.

What else do you fear? There is more. Deeper.

An ancient memory surfaced. Nynn gasped. Struggled. Had she been outside her mind, she would have vomited. Only, in that place, she was the silently screaming witness to an old, old crime. A crime she’d committed.

She’d used her powers. Only thirteen years old. A house demolished. A woman dead.

Some things are too dangerous to set free.

Among the Tigony, she had been suspect because of her mother’s indiscretion with Nynn’s Pendray father. Barely trusted. That explosion had marked the end of even that scant trust. Where had her mother gone then? Gone . . . gone . . .

No . . . dead.

Nynn thrashed against the pain stabbing through her mind, lashing, like that whip across her back. They’d stripped her gift and made her fear it. Made her think it had never even existed. Most had cast her out in all but deed.

Then let go.

“Let go? I have nothing left! Why am I here, if not for my son?”

You are here because you have no choice.

Certainty began to seep deeper and deeper. It slid like molten rock through her veins, arteries, and every pinched little capillary.

“No choice?”

No choice. Let go.

“My son!”

Will be returned to you in one year. Remember?

“One year.” She was slipping. Even Leto’s ethereal presence had faded, as distant now as a man waving across a vast chasm. “I must fight.”

With your powers, Dragon King. Harness it. No distractions. Join Leto in victory. You are Nynn of the Asters.

That name didn’t sound right. She was spinning and falling without moving. Only the most important thought refused to be submerged. “I will have my son back.”

The promise will be kept.

“And I will burn down this hellhole.”

Of course not. This is your home now.

Was it? Nynn was sure she’d hated this place. The gentle lulling of her thoughts, however, set aside images of such violence.

The dull bronze light faded. In its place, a rush of stinging energy burst to life. She shrieked. It surged through her limbs, shot out her fingers and toes. Even the ends of her hair lit and lifted. She ran through her thoughts, hearing bittersweet memories that gouged her heart into crimson strips.

Memories. Deep memories.

The first time . . . she’d exploded. And her mother had been put to death.

Nynn’s gift from the Dragon was a curse. An abomination.

She grabbed at flashes of remembered light. Caught every strand. Formed electric pulses into potent, controlled beams. From her eyes or from her hands, she was in control. A sense of power unlike any she’d known filled her chest and made her laugh. When was the last time she’d had control? All she knew was that it felt good. Right.

Devastating.

She closed her hands, her eyes, and breathed out. Her raw gift was tamed. She coiled it back within her breast. Even among that vacant, formless place, she remembered Leto’s snake tattoo. Now she had a serpent, too. Waiting to strike.

But a trade, Nynn. Put them away.

Ulia’s voice was whip-sharp now. An undeniable command.

At first, the only sound in that infinite space was Nynn’s heartbeat. Others soon joined. Overlaid. And cracked open her heart. She heard her clan’s laughter when a pair of acrobats had performed at a Tigony feast in honor of Mal’s ascension as Honorable Giva. Then fire. Crashing wood. Terrified shrieks.

She felt her mother’s touch across her cheek. “So beautiful, my child. You will not be ignored.” Then . . . that touch was gone forever.

Caleb next. Oh, Caleb. His quiet voice never entirely left her thoughts.

At the bookstore where they’d met. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

At the topmost pod of the London Eye, on their first vacation together. “Will you be my wife?”

At an outdoor altar in Central Park on a sunny spring afternoon. “I do.”

Their first kiss as husband and wife. Gasps of passion. Groans. Awed whispers in the night. So many plans.

And the best. The most perfect. The hardest to hear again. “It’s a boy, Audrey. Our son.”

After Jack took his first breath on a gusty cry, their nighttime whispers had been for him, about him, centered on keeping their little family happy and whole.

Her mind was crying again.

“Hush, now,” she’d whispered while trapped in a cell in Aster’s lab. Jack’s baby-fine hair had smelled of antiseptic and iodine. “Everything will be all right.”

She’d lied to her boy. Nothing was all right.

Everything will be all right. The voices . . . That pain is gone now.

Yes. Gone now. Thankfully gone. The painful weight Nynn had carried for more than a year lifted and lifted. The agony was a bird escaping, flying, disappearing into a blue too bright to follow. It carried away the sharp brambles of her mind.

The space was empty now, quiet now. What had been there? She’d lost something.

Just the pain, child. You’ve only lost the pain.

“What do I do?” she called into the black. “Ulia, help me!”

You will fight for the glory of the Asters. Keep your promise.

Relief washed her like a cleansing rain. Her skin was new. Her mind was clear. Her gift was ready to surge. She would wield it as easily now as Leto swung his mace and circled the Cage with unimaginable speed.

Leto. Holding her.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I promise.”

Although she could no longer remember what promise she’d made.

♦   ♦   ♦

Leto stroked back the sweat from Nynn’s brow and temple. Her body raged with a sudden, fierce fever. Unnatural. Overwhelming. She shook uncontrollably no matter how firmly he pulled her against his body. Lithe feminine limbs twitched without warning. Strong. Punches and kicks to the air. More than a few struck him.

The strangest Cage match of his life.

The consequences extended beyond winning and losing. He wasn’t accustomed to long games.

All he could do was tend to the woman he held. He focused on Nynn. The hair he’d cut short was not entirely blond, as he’d assumed in her cell. It was tinged with streaks of copper. A half dozen strands here and there. Thin as filaments. Ethereal as ghosts. Her freckles covered more than her cheeks. Nape, shoulder blades, and forearms—all touched by a faint dusting of beige color. He traced a line of them up her neck. He didn’t know what caused her to shiver at that moment, but he tightened his arms.

He wanted the cause to have been his touch.

“Promise, promise, promise . . .”

Her chant grew stronger as her body began to still. More voice. Less frantic fighting. Leto exhaled against her damp skin. He forced his muscles to release. Slowly. The adrenaline rush of combat, no matter how strange, began to ebb. First his legs, where hers no longer kicked. Their limbs were sticky with sweat. Locked together. Then his arms—softer now, as she eased back. His chest became her wall, although he remained hyperconscious of the damage done to her back.