42
Valen
The ground rumbles, and debris litters the floor. Tania screams and throws her hands into the air.
“Valen!” Suria rushes to my side to steady me as I almost topple over, both of us ducking a chunk of the estate wall.
“Go! Get out of here. Now!” I shove her toward the waiting, open arms of the nearest guard.
She catches herself and dances out of his reach as he makes a grab for her. “I won’t leave you!”
“You will! I can reach her. I’ll fix this.”
She hesitates, then nods and rushes down the hall.
“Go,” I yell to the rest of them.
The four remaining guards hold their ground as Kopic pushes past them. “Valen, what’s—”
A hulking vine bursts from Tania’s room, barrels between us, and knocks Kopic and me apart. It looks like Dreadshade—the fungus I gave her during our trip to Ventin. Except now, it’s massive and especially thorny. I catch myself on the wall, but Kopic isn’t as lucky. He crashes to the ground and stays there, unmoving.
I whirl on Tania. “Tania, hear me!” I roar and point to Kopic. “Look around. Look what you’re doing. Kopic is your friend!”
She says nothing, but when her gaze drifts to Kopic’s still form, there’s a glimmer of recognition. It’s there and gone in an instant.
The remaining guards all fall in line to block her, but she snaps her fingers. That’s it. A single snap. Vines surge from beneath their feet, twisting, winding, and rooting them all in place.
Tania waves a hand, and a wall of lush vegetation bursts from the floor, creating an impenetrable wall. Screams erupt on the other side, and chaos ensues.
I place my hand against the greenery, and it turns to ice. With one kick, the wall shatters and I’m rushing forward. I reach Tania just as she gets to the end of the hall.
“Stop!” I skid to a halt and brace my hand against the ground to keep from teetering over. Tania turns, staring at me like she’s never seen my face before. The magic has her now. She’s in there—but it’s in control. “I know you can see me. You can hear me. You have to…”
“I hear you,” she says. But it isn’t her voice. Not really. There’s an odd sort of rumble to it. An echo that shimmers with power. She tilts her head to the right, studying me. “Do you have something to say?”
Come back to me . I send it out through the link. I release every bit of emotion I have for her. The good, the frustrated, the unchanging. It hits a wall.
Tania laughs. It’s a cruel sound that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. It’s wrong and it’s alien, and in this moment, I hate myself for ever giving her the tear.
“Don’t let the magic poison you like it did Aphelian.”
“The magic didn’t poison Aphelian,” she says. “Servis did. Destiny did.”
“Destiny? What the hell are you talking about?” I take a single step toward her, shaking my head. “I’m not Servis, and you are not Aphelian. She’s trying to convince you that I want to use you, but that’s a lie.”
She tilts her head to the left. “So you don’t want me to destroy Aphelian?”
“What I want is for us to work together to stop Aphelian.”
“By killing her.”
Another step. “If you can come up with another way, then we don’t have to kill her. I just know that we need to stop her before she hurts anyone else. That’s what you want, too.”
“You think you know what I want?”
“I do.” You want me just like I want you. You want this to all work out. You want them to accept you. I don’t know if she can hear me anymore, but I’m desperate. Please, Tania. Purge the druid magic. Put it back into the tear, and I can—
Tania’s expression hardens, and what little light is left in her eyes goes out. She lets out an otherworldly scream. “I am not yours to use!” She spreads her arms, and a thunderous rumble rolls through the estate. “I am not a weapon for you to wield.”
“Wait—” The floor splits. Pieces of plaster and tile rocket in every direction, some crashing harmlessly down the hall, others embedding in the wall. Several pierce my leather, slicing into flesh. I bite down hard to keep from screaming.
“I am not yours.”
I face her, holding her gaze. It’s risky, but I don’t care. “You are mine , just like I am yours .”
Several seconds of eerie silence pass. Tania watches me, and for an instant, an insane second, I’m sure I’ve reached her. Some of the feeling returns from the link, and there’s a spark in her eyes. But as quickly as it arrives—just like before—it’s gone.
The rumbling returns, this time accompanied by more thick offshoots from the Dreadshade. They wind around my legs, squeezing, and I curse. The razor-sharp thorns embed themselves in my calves, my thighs, my hips… They only begin to slow when every inch of me is engulfed, save for my head.
Tania closes the distance and comes to stand in front of me. “Do you still think that I am yours?”
“No,” I rasp out. The vines have stopped, but they’re wrapped tight around my torso. Getting a full lungful of air is impossible. “I don’t think that you’re mine.”
She smiles.
“I know that you are.”
She lets out a howl, and the Dreadshade tightens. Slowly, it begins squeezing until it feels like everything in my body is going to pop. “Tania— Don’t— Ahh!” The involuntary scream that escapes my lips echoes through the hall.
It catches her off guard.
The Dreadshade stops squeezing, and though it doesn’t loosen, it stops progressing. I’m able to draw several shallow breaths. “You don’t—don’t want to do—do this.” Everything hurts, but none of it compares to the blankness in her eyes. The lack of humanity there. “If you keep—keep this up, you’re going—going to kill me—and kill yourself. ”
The color drains from her face, and she steps back. Turning on her heel, she pivots and jumps through the window across the hall. Moments later, the Dreadshade shrinks back, retreating to her room, and I collapse to the floor, coughing.