As the familiars turn and begin walking away, pain throbs in the six separate bond marks spread across my body. It starts with a tingling ache in the center of each of the marks, growing into a searing agony that spreads like wildfire across my skin, eating through muscle and burrowing to the center of my bones. A sob claws its way up my throat as I watch Nya turn and skulk into the shadows, disappearing without so much as a glance back, without warning.

With every step she takes, the bond marks peppering my body begin to fade, the brilliant hues dimming and returning to the color of the surrounding skin. I don’t need to ask to know what it means. The bond is dying.

“Wait!” I scream, my fingernails breaking as I claw across the ice, desperate to reach them before they disappear for good. “Wait! Don’t leave! Please! Please come back! Don’t leave me here alone!”

But none of them listen—none of them care. The tether holding us together has ceased to be, and there’s nothing for them to stay for. Nothing to fight for.

I press my forehead to the ground as great sobs wrack my chest, flooding from me as fast and violent as the tears from my eyes. It’s over. All over. They’re all gone. All but me.

My hands curl into fists, smashing against the ground and breaking my skin apart from the broken shards of ice that line the surface. It’s that brief shock of pain that allows my mind to quiet, allows me to focus.

For a single moment, the fog of panic clears—and I remember. It seems so long ago now, but I can still recall each of his words in startling clarity and remember the story whispered in that darkened cell, when I thought they were the last ones I would ever hear. And I realize they’re the key to it all.

Twenty-one years ago, a demon I never knew was in this same position, tasked with a problem just as great. Varys was able to bring the pieces of Abaddon to life, and if I believe in what I’ve heard—if I believe in the power living inside me—then I should be able to do the same.

But first, I need to take out the heart.

37. Dagny

37

Dagny

I place my palms to Abaddon’s chest as I raise my head, my eyes glowing with desperation as I search the shadowed forest beyond, willing the animals to materialize. If I’m going to bring them back, I need a tether—six, to be exact. The bond marks are all but gone, and if I don’t act fast, their souls will be lost forever.