The flames tighten around the void cuffs, settle into the metal. A small line appears, a fissure claimed by my root—and then another. Another… until the cracks spread like crimson spiderwebs over the iron.

The cuffs fracture, then fall to the wooden planks.

“Briana, don’t fight me,” Erebus calls, and his voice is directly underneath our feet. “Whatever you’re planning in there—”

Sel gasps, head thrown back as my aether climbs up his forearms, spiraling around his elbows. For a moment, it feels like I’m wrapped around him. His eyes snap open, and then he’s on his feet, bringing his hands together so the flames spread faster.

FWOOOM!

We explode, together.

41

SEL’S EYES GLOW the color of my root. Not demon-dark irises, red streaked with black, but the shade of fresh blood, pulsing and alive. We inhale together as one, and exhale as one. Inhale again, deeper. Exhale—and this time, he breathes out two streams of smoke. A dragon in the night.

We walk to the edge of the platform together, flames stretched between us in a fiery link.

Erebus is down below, eyes wide and hands outstretched, blue-white aether swirling in a cloud around him. When he sees our flame, he growls. “What have you two done?”

“Leave us alone!” I shout.

“I can’t do that,” Erebus says, eyes sliding back to me. “A power like yours… can’t roam free. An anchor to the Spell of Eternity who can generate aether to this magnitude? The Shadowborn would love nothing more than to destroy you. The Morgaines would hold you hostage. We—”

“You held me prisoner!”

“Better with us than the others.” Erebus throws out his palms, casting a crackling net of aether over us and drawing it down. His fingers claw at the air, bending his trap. It folds around us, a sphere closing us in.

In response, Sel shoots one palm out to create our own sphere. A red circle of protection on all sides, pressing back against Erebus’s, burning through his construct as fast as he can cast it.

“You’re safer with me than him, Bree.” Erebus’s voice is closer than before. My head twists toward it. He’s just outside of the warring constructs, thirty feet in the air, on top of a shining blue column cast beneath his feet. “Selwyn is already succumbing to his blood; I see that now.” Sel grits his teeth, focused on holding Erebus back, but hearing every word.

“What you’re doing now, giving him your power… it will only push him over faster. All of that aether?” Erebus takes a step forward on crystal. “All of your aether?” Another step. “No cambion can take that in without craving it forevermore.” Erebus stands outside of the warring spheres of blue and red, eyes boring into mine. “If you run with him, you won’t be any safer than if you’d been on your own.”