The ziggurat's highest balcony was a narrow shelf of black stone. Carved so deep into the concavity wall that the fog pressed against it like a second skin. No railing. No guards. Only the drop. Hundreds of feet to the courtyard below. Where the ash of dragons and the opal bead of the Gimorrin still lay undisturbed.

  Anakiel stepped to the edge. The wind was thin here. Laced with the metallic tang of resonance. He lifted the Royal Bell from his belt with both hands and held it level with his chest. The jewels pulsed once. Violet-gold light flickered inside the metal like a heartbeat not quite his own.

  He spoke aloud. Rhyme locking in the instant the words formed.

  “Silent chime, you answer me,

  But never speak what I would see.”

  He rang it once. Soft. Intimate. Almost tender.

  A single violet-gold thread extended from the largest jewel. It drifted upward. Slow and deliberate. Then coiled around his left wrist like a bracelet. The thread tightened gently. Not enough to bruise. Just enough to remind him of pressure. It pulsed in time with his heart. Warm. Alive. Not hers. But close enough to fool the body for a moment.

  Anakiel closed his eyes. The thread traced upward along his forearm. Brushing the crook of his elbow. Then slid beneath the sleeve of his robe to rest against the alabaster skin of his inner arm. It lingered there. Vibrating faintly. A caress he had felt only in memory.

  Anakia.

  The name alone was enough to make the lattice hum louder in his chest.

  He remembered the first time their Bells had rung together. Years ago. In a private chamber far below the palace. No crowd. No ceremony. Just the two of them. Standing close enough that their shadows merged on the stone. Her Royal Bell had answered his without hesitation. Perfect sync. The threads had risen from both Bells at once. Weaving between them. Binding wrists, throats, hearts. The lattice had trembled. Not in fear. In recognition. For one heartbeat the fog itself had seemed to part. Revealing a sliver of naked sky above the inverted rock.

  Then she had pulled away.

  Her chime had sharpened. Her gaze had turned inward. The threads had recoiled into her Bell. Leaving his alone in the air. Reaching. Grasping. Finding nothing.

  She had never rung with him like that again.

  Anakiel opened his eyes. The thread on his arm tightened again. Almost possessive. He did not pull away.

  He rang once more. Louder this time.

  “Echo of her, pale and thin,

  Remind me where the real chime begins.”

  The thread thickened. More followed. Violet-gold strands spilling from the Bell like liquid light. They wrapped his chest, his throat, his shoulders. One slid along his neck. Brushing the gold wire in his red beard. Another traced the line of his jaw. Lingering at the corner of his mouth where four rows of teeth hid behind closed lips.

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  Pleasure-pain surged through muscle and bone. His pulse hammered in perfect time with the chime. The fog outside the balcony thickened in golden waves. Rolling inward as though drawn by his heartbeat. The lattice sang. Low. Resonant. Intimate.

  He let it build.

  The threads tightened harder. One coiled around his ribs. Pressing until breath came shallow. Another wrapped his wrist so tightly the skin blanched beneath alabaster. He did not flinch. He leaned into it. Craving the illusion of her grip. The illusion of her command.

  I can snap a minotaur's spine with one hand. I can unravel dragons into ash without effort. I can make the fog kneel and the sky bow.

  And still I stand here. Letting threads pretend to be your hands.

  Fear flickered. Sharp. Cold. Familiar.

  One day she will look at me the way I looked at the spark below. One day her Bell will ring louder than mine. One day the lattice will answer her first. And I will be the echo.

  The thought should have angered him. It did not.

  It only made him ring again. Desperate now.

  “Absent queen, my only dread,

  Let these threads be your touch instead.”

  The threads obeyed. They tightened until he could barely breathe. Pleasure crested into something sharper. Almost pain. His knees buckled for a fraction of a second. He caught himself on the balcony edge. Fingers digging into stone. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from his grip.

  The threads held him upright. Wrapped around chest and arms like loving restraints.

  He laughed once. Low. Bitter. Rhymeless in his mind.

  Even now I cannot fall without her permission.

  The chime faded. The threads loosened. Reluctant. Lingering. They retracted slowly. Coiling back into the Bell until only a faint violet-gold bracelet remained around his wrist. Humming softly. Refusing to vanish entirely.

  Anakiel straightened. The fog pressed close again. Thick and loving and merciless.

  He looked down at the courtyard far below. The opal bead still lay where he had left it. The ash of dragons had scattered on the wind. The human spark. The one he had spared. Was gone. Vanished into the ranks.

  Anakiel lifted the Bell to his lips. He kissed the largest jewel once. Gentle. Reverent.

  Then he turned and walked back into the ziggurat.

  The thread on his wrist pulsed once more. Soft. Almost tender.

  The lattice remembered.

  And somewhere far below the spark still burned.