Page 188 of Ashes to Ashes

The magical restraints around my wrists prevent any attempt to channel power—when I reach for my thorns, it’s like grasping for something that was never there. The ambient enchantments make clear thinking feel like swimming through molasses, each thought requiring twice the effort it should.

Even simple movements feel labored, as if the air itself resists my presence, growing thicker with each step I take toward anything that might represent escape or rebellion.

I try every escape technique I know. Test the walls for structural weaknesses, the windows for stress points, the door for any gap in the magical sealing. But my hands move slowly, clumsily, like they belong to someone else. My tactical assessments keep dissolving mid-thought, replaced by vague contentment that terrifies me precisely because it feels so reasonable.

They’ve turned luxury into the perfect cage.

I try one more time to reach for the bonds that should connect me to three men who promised they’d come for me. Orion’s protective fury. Kieran’s calculating precision. Finnian’s steady determination.

The silence in my head where they should be feels like death.

I’m alone.

Truly, completely alone in a way I haven’t been since before I met them. The isolation doesn’t just hurt—it’s erasing me, making me forget what it felt like to be chosen, to be wanted, tobe loved. Making those memories feel like fantasies I invented to cope with loneliness.

Maybe that’s the point.

The chamber’s enchantments press against my mind like suffocating velvet, encouraging compliance, discouraging struggle. Everything feels distant, unimportant except the growing certainty that the Trial of Power is designed for one outcome: my complete failure and subsequent dependency on Davis.

I move toward the massive bed, planning to at least try to think clearly, to find some way to fight back against the magical conditioning. Some way to reach the bonded souls Finnian said I’d need to survive what’s coming.

But when I try to remember Finnian’s face, I find only shadows where the memory should be. When I reach for Kieran’s name, empty air fills the space where recognition used to live.

They’re stealing everything that matters, leaving me hollow and compliant.

I’m losing myself piece by piece, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

That’s when movement near the window catches my eye.

Davis steps out of the shadows wearing civilian clothes that make him look younger, less threatening. More like the partner I once trusted than the obsessive manipulator revealed at the trial. But something in his posture—the way he positions himself between me and the door, how his weight shifts to the balls of his feet—makes what’s left of my survival instincts recognize the predator who’s been hunting me all along.

“Hello, ghost,” he says with that gentle smile I remember from three years of coffee and conversation.

The suppression magic makes even terror feel muted, distant. My hands try to shake but can’t quite manage the full tremor. My pulse tries to spike but feels dampened, artificial.

But somewhere beneath the artificial calm, something primitive and unbreakable recognizes danger.

“Miss me?”

36

FINNIAN

“We have to tell her,”Orion snarls, his boots wearing a groove in the archive floor as golden flames flicker around his shoulders. “She’s walking into that trial blind while we sit here debating political consequences.”

“And if we reveal the treasures publicly, she becomes an even bigger target,” Kieran counters from where shadows pool around his boots, frost crawling up the walls in jagged patterns.

“Your father can go to hell,” Orion interrupts, amber eyes blazing as his massive hands clench and unclench.

“You think I do not know that?” Kieran’s voice cracks like breaking ice, carrying an edge I’ve never heard before—raw, desperate, barely leashed. Shadows writhe around him with barely controlled rage that seeks targets no longer within reach. “You think watching her get dragged away by Amarantha’s guards did not destroy me?”

I close the ancient tome I’ve been consulting, my knuckles gone white against the leather binding where nail marks score permanent indentations. Six hours of research since they took her, and I still don’t have answers. Still don’t know how to save her.

“Fighting each other will not save her,” I say quietly, though my voice comes out hoarse with strain.

“Then what will?” Orion demands, finally stopping his restless movement. Heat radiates from his massive frame in waves that make the air dance. “Because every hour we spend planning is another hour she’s alone with that psychopath Davis.”

Rage locks my throat until swallowing becomes effort. Three years of systematic poisoning, manipulation disguised as care, and now he has her trapped and isolated for three entire days. The knowledge burns through my veins like acid—seventy-two hours to condition her for tomorrow’s slaughter.

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