I follow that invisible tether, passing through the canopy to the shadowed forest below. The pads of my feet touch down on the ground, but it’s not the familiar chill of ice that greets me. I gaze downward, shocked to find myself standing in a still-warm pool of blood, spreading out across the clearing in a slippery halo.

I gaze around the clearing, trying to discern where the life source is flowing from. My gaze cuts to the space over my shoulder, drawn by that charged cloud of swirling energy that first captured my attention in the sky, and I find it.

My lips part in shock as I take in Zairn—Slaine’s torture master—lying on the ground, his back arched and mouth wide as an agonized scream tears from his throat. But more astonishing is the sight of the small female demon straddling his chest, her lips peeled back in a horrific snarl as she shoves her thumbnails deep into Zairn’s eye sockets.

A demonic shriek pierces the air, burrowing beneath my skin and rippling my spine with the amount of rage and power contained within. The female’s forearms quiver, her skin beaming with the light of the silver sun as she uses all her strength to rip Zairn’s head from his shoulders. Blood, flesh, and tendons splatter across the ice in a fantastic display of wrath and carnage, coating the ice and staining her arms in slippery, dark fluid.

Chest heaving, she looks to the side, her beautiful wings draped over her shoulders like a majestic feathered cape, partially covering her face from view. The tips of her plumage rustle gently in the wind whipping through the forest, forged by the wild tendrils of magic swirling from her outline, beaming from the center of her silver-ringed eyes.

Mate.

The woman stares unblinking, tossing Zairn’s head to the side with an expression made of stone. His skull rolls across the clearing, shuddering to a stop directly next to the headless body of Zairn’s soul-crazed demon “pet.” So that’s where the first puddle came from.

Before I get the chance to speak, a rattling cough breaks out to my left, drawing my attention to the twining branches directly above my head.

“Slaine?”

The false demon king gazes downward, his blood-slicked hands curling around the welwig branch impaling the center of his chest. “Abaddon…” Slaine’s blood-coated mouth spreads into an eerie smile, his milky eyes gleaming with a look of triumph despite his current predicament. “You’re too late,” Slaine chokes, each vicious word causing blood to spew from his mouth and land at my feet. “I’ve called them… all of them… you won’t… won’t be able to stop them.” He tips his head back, a maniacal laugh exploding from his blood-filled mouth. “No one can stop them all. Not… not even her.”