the wards down, so I and my people are leaving,” Yonah announced, seeming to speak more to the Leviathan ruler than Ian or me. At his declaration, everyone stopped working with a suddenness that made the new silence eerie. “I will give you our new location when it is safe,” Yonah went on, again seeming to speak to the Leviathan leader alone.
They grasped upper arms in the ancient form of a handshake. Since Yonah didn’t immediately start spewing water from his mouth, the Leviathan leader must not have the same “drown upon contact” limitations that his fluid-formed kinsfolk had.
“Safe journey, Yonah,” he said in his unaccented voice.
“To you as well, Indus,” the former demon prince replied.
Indus. The name of a river not far from my homeland in ancient Mesopotamia. Coincidence? Or had the cradle of civilization birthed much more than I’d realized?
Ereshki distracted me by limping up to our pile of debris. “Please,” she said. “Please, Yonah, do not leave me behind!”
“Rules state that only the most trusted members are brought to a new sanctuary after an attack,” Yonah replied in a harsh tone. “You are the newest, so you are the least trusted. Even if you were not, this place has been a haven for over five hundred years, but less than a month after your arrival, an earthquake levels half the island when it is nowhere near a fault line? No! Dark magic was afoot. I can sense it, meaning this one”—he stabbed his finger at Ian—“is right. Your enemy tracked you here, and I cannot allow him to track you to where we are going.”
Ereshki tried to cling to him. Yonah shoved her away. She sank to her knees, weeping with a hopelessness that caused a poignant stab of remembrance. I knew how hopelessness that deep felt. I wished it on no one, not even her.
“How are you getting your people out of here?” Ian asked, ignoring Ereshki’s tears. “As you might know, our plane is no longer functional, so we could use a ride.”
“Not with me,” Yonah replied curtly. “You can call for help, if you find a working mobile phone. Or start flying. Or swim; the Leviathan will be gone soon, too. I care not which. With the wards down, I can now teleport all my people out of here, even those still trapped beneath the ruins. But that also means this island is now completely unprotected.”
With that, Yonah unleashed a shockwave of power. It threw Ian backward and must have knocked me out, because when my eyes opened, only Ian, Ereshki, and I remained.
Ereshki’s sobs turned into wails as she realized Yonah had made good on his promise to leave her behind. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran, but soon tripped on a piece of sliding debris and fell.
“I’ll deal with you in a moment,” Ian muttered before raising his voice. “Silver! Get over here, mate, we’re leaving!”
I was relieved to see a streak of gray flying toward us. Then all I saw was Ereshki when Ian teleported her over and dropped her in front of me. “Need to make it quick—we have to leave before this island is overrun with Yonah’s enemies.”
For a second, I didn’t understand. Then I did. So did Ereshki. Her sobs became frenzied, and she looked at me with a bleakness that transcended despair.
She expected no mercy. I certainly owed her none. Dagon didn’t merely slit my throat before claiming he was the one to raise me from the dead when I came back to life later. No, Dagon had all the flair of a showman combined with the ruthlessness of his ambitions. The more prolonged the suffering, the more grotesque the method of execution . . . the godlier Dagon looked when I came back from the dead, thus the more power he derived from his worshippers.
And I’d loved Ereshki so much, I begged Dagon to make me the object of his cruelties instead of her. When he did, I was relieved for her sake because until the day Tenoch rescued me, I thought Ereshki loved me as a sister, too. But on that last day, I recovered from a beating faster than my captors anticipated and overheard Ereshki laughing with Fenkir and Rani over how easily she’d deceived me. She wasn’t a helpless captive. No, Ereshki was Dagon’s willing demon-branded acolyte, there only to keep me loyal to him through her deceit.
Finding that out had hurt worse than anything Dagon had done to me.
Now, I