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every instinct for survival was on high alert just from his nearness—
    The plateau suddenly split open like halves of a log chopped in two. She screamed as a gorge yawned between her and Thronos.
    When the motion stilled and she could clear her vision, she saw they were on opposite sides of a brand-new chasm.
    Those rising mountains were making all the earth around them shed away, like chunks from glaciers. “You’re going to get me killed up here!” she yelled, but Thronos was already in flight.
    The ground disappeared beneath her feet; before she could fall, he snatched her close as he took to the air once more.
    “Ah, gods. This is happening. This is actually happening. ” She buried her face against his chest. I hate this, I hate this. . . .
    “Your fear of flying inconveniences me. When did this develop, sorceress?”
    “When one of your knights took Sabine high into the air—then dropped her. She was fourteen.” At the memory of Sabine’s head exploding, Lanthe heaved again.
    “What lies are you telling now? No Vrekeners attacked your sister.”
    She fell silent. Was he lying? Or did he truly not know his knights had hunted her and Sabine? As prince of the Air Territories, Thronos was the Lord General of Knights, in command of their staunchest warriors.
    Did some of those men have their own secret agenda?
    If Thronos forced her back to his home of Skye Hall, then what was to stop those knights from pitching her over the side?
    When he slowed, she cried against his shirt, “Yes, not so fast!”
    He turned in place, inhaling sharply.
    Curiosity demanded that Lanthe raise her head. “Oh, my gold.”
    That new mountain jutted from the center of the prison, sloughing off the structures. Each chunk of concrete that fell was swept up to circle the peak like a tornado. Portia’s work. How much she must be enjoying this!
    Ember’s towering flames wreathed the entire thing. The sorceress’s fires burned so strong, they grew in the rain, heating the drops to steam.
    They were two of the most powerful Sorceri ever born. Their abilities were in a league even with Sabine’s illusions.
    Part of Lanthe couldn’t help but marvel, as she might at a work of art.
    “Offendments,” Thronos hissed near her ear. The Vrekener word for wrongdoing. “This is the work of your people. Your . . . ilk. And you wonder why Vrekeners were entrusted to battle the Sorceri?”

    The mortals’ former prison was now a picture of hell.
    Thronos didn’t regret the defeat of the Order—he’d found thesehumans contemptible—but now a greater evil reigned. As he watched the flames climb higher, the show of Sorceri might called to him.
    To vanquish it.
    For now, their actions would serve as a timely reminder of what he was dealing with. Melanthe’s sorcery wasn’t awing, but hers was more insidious. Everything about her was. Already she was trying to sow dissension, lying about Vrekener attacks.
    He turned away from the spectacle and swept forward, gritting his teeth against the pain.
    “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” she chanted, her face tucked back against his chest.
    He hated it too. The only Vrekener in history who despised flying—and it was because of his own mate.
    During those four childhood months he’d spent with Melanthe, he’d once encountered a crazed sorceress who’d told him, “Melanthe will never be what you need her to be.”
    At the time, Thronos had thought that he and Melanthe would prove her and everyone else wrong.
    How naïve he’d been.
    His mate couldn’t be more unsuitable for him. In addition to all their history—and all her offendments—Melanthe was a Sorceri, a species that confounded him with their counterintuitive ways.
    They covered up their faces with masks, calling it ornamentation—instead of concealment. They didn’t trust their own kind, had no unity. They loved to revel with other Loreans, but if they possessed something of value, they would hole up in faraway keeps