Chapter 43 #2
Brand locked his arms around the settee and blocked everyone out. Leaning in to the jagged blasts as they surged from her to batter against him, he gritted his teeth and commanded the stone to rise from the floor and form a protective dome.
Darkness swallowed them as they were encased within. It wouldn’t hold for long—not against this—but it would give the others a chance to get to safety.
His muscles strained as he tried to lift his arms against the sheer force of her. If he could just touch her, snap her out of it.
Prismatic light flashed, near blinding as it poured from her to join the wind and pressure, building and building.
He locked his jaw, calling on the Sisters’ aid, and his rage multiplied.
Red flooded his vision, his body growing even larger, bulkier.
The warm sunlight of his power flared to join with the moonlight of hers, twilight and dawn crashing together to form something else entirely.
Blessed, fucking Solyrian—even like this, he struggled.
It took every ounce of his considerable might to propel himself through the field of her magic, finally colliding with her.
She didn’t seem to notice when he lifted her into his arms, clutching her against the hard plain of his chest and pressing his face to the side of her head.
“Shhh,” he rumbled against her ear. “I am here. You are safe.”
Luna let out a sob and a crack formed on one side of the enclosure, crawling up from the floor to arc over their heads. “No one is safe,” she cried, pebbles crumbling from the rounded ceiling and pattering to the floor. “I’m not safe. You have to get away from me.”
Her skin was hot and cold against him, electricity buzzing from her in waves, and he had the sudden, terrifying thought that she was about to scatter apart. That the pieces of her would be thrown out into the Unknown and lost to him forever.
No, not his thought. Hers.
Brand tightened his hold, whispering little nothings and quiet everythings into her ear. Whatever was happening… “I’m never going to leave you.”
As time passed, her rigid body shaking within the vice of his hold, the tempest began to settle.
Her power dissipated piece by piece, threading itself back into her. The wind died, leaving the tousled strands of their hair to float down in haphazard knots like a blanket around them, and Luna crumbled on a ragged sigh.
Brand took his first full breath as darkness enveloped them, and commanded the dome to melt away—looking up to find every last, idiotic member of his family still there.
With a huff, he used a finger to clear her face, and hooked it under her chin. “Little moon?”
His gasp was sharp when she turned her face up to him, the whole of her eyes a shocking, glowing white, instead of their usual faint and silvery swirl.
When Araxis misted in next to them, they rolled back into her head and she passed out.
Brand’s fist shot out in a blur, twisting into his brother’s tight leather armor. “What the fuck just happened?”
Araxis didn’t even try to fight the hold. Just looked down at her and said, “We’ve found Malachyr’s successor, at last. Your mate is the Keeper of Illamiata.”
Lunara was plucked from her nightmare and thrust violently back into consciousness.
Heart pounding, she scrambled to hold on to what she’d seen. There’d been an urgency to the warping images, the strange, gilded door always just out of reach, but they were slipping like sand through her fingers.
All but one was swallowed by darkness, the one that woke her, and she wanted to scream—a vision of Brand’s naked body, lying broken and bruised upon a blackened stone slab.
She sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to clear the awful sight from her mind. Another.
A dream. Not real. Not—
“Have you finally returned to me, little moon?”
Brand’s low voice settled over her, batting away the last clinging remnants of her fitful sleep, and Lunara’s eyes shot open to find the rugged perfection of her mate’s face inches away.
His unbeaten, unmarred, beautiful face.
The relief that tried to suffuse her bones was blocked entry by the intensity of Brand’s stare. Something about it, about the little trace of fear lacing his words…
Every wretched moment of the cursed meeting came crashing back.
Turned out, some nightmares were real.
Lunara scrabbled backward and hit the headboard, making herself as small as possible, fighting to keep her breaths under control. “You have to go. Now.” There was less force in her words than she’d been trying for, but the sentiment stood.
A furrow formed between his brows when he shook his head. “Seeing as this is my chamber, I’m not sure that’s true.” Spoken like a question.
She finally looked around, only just realizing she was in an unfamiliar, gigantic room.
The light was dim, but she could make out the dark wood and heavy furniture dotting the space.
A huge fireplace darkened one wall beside a sitting area, and a few closed doors led to unknown destinations.
No trinkets, no clutter. Even the gauze curtains hanging from the bed frame and around the open balcony doors were utterly confident in their necessity.
But what truly caught her eye was the domed glass ceiling directly above them, showcasing a perfect view of the night sky.
“This isn’t how I intended you to see my—our—quarters for the first time, since it isn’t the real thing, but I suppose an exact replica works just as well.”
It was wonderful and confusing—and she had to get as far away from it as possible, as quickly as she could.
A flash and she heard the breathy choke of her mother’s voice. Saw Malachyr looming behind her. Clawing. Groping. Demanding her gift.
No, no, no.
Lunara leapt off the bed and ran for one of the doors, ripping it open—just to be confronted with an absolutely humongous washroom.
The next door was a closet.
The next one went up. Where the stone staircase led, she had no idea.
One left. One door between herself and everyone’s safety.
Get back to Straelon. To Lyriat and the deal he promised, and you can hide away.
Her heart sank like a rock when she turned and found Brand stationed in front of the last door, arms crossed, the fabric of a new tunic stretched tight over his muscled chest. “Are you done?”
Power lurched in her fingertips unbidden, a rawness there she’d never felt. It seemed to count him as a threat, spiraling out of her control.
No, no, no. Not him, of all people.
“Please, Brand,” she begged, hands clasped in front of her. “I need to leave.”
“Luna—”
“Move. Now. For your own good.” She failed to sound commanding, the desperation in her voice doing nothing to help her.
“You would hurt me, mate?” Sisters, he sounded so—
Another flash and Lunara’s knees threatened to buckle, her father’s growling voice assaulting her. “Would you touch another’s mate thus?” A blink and Malachyr’s answering, unapologetic smirk was there, the Tear Stone’s glow highlighting the demented twist of his features.
Tears sprang forth and Lunara shook her head, trying to dislodge the memories as she backed away. “Never,” she whispered. “That’s the point. Don’t you understand? I’m trying to protect you!”
“Protect me from what?”
“From myself!” she snapped.
The glass dome rattled as a wave of power battered against it, and she tried—blessed moons how she tried—to rein in her panic.
He reached out, taking a step towards her. “Your eyes…”
“Stay back!”
Lunara only threw a hand up to keep the distance between them, but Brand was suddenly plastered to the door, grimacing and unable to move. She gaped at the tendrils of white-hot magic snaking from her fingertips and snatched the traitorous appendage back with a gasp. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She kept repeating it as Brand hit the floor with a groan.
Hit the floor… Hit the…
Flash. The wet slap of sundered flesh. Her father hemorrhaging, Malachyr’s fist buried in his chest. His manic grin.
The mangled mess of her father’s heart hitting the ground beside her mother’s throat and face.
Malachyr’s laughter shrieking above the din of the screaming and screaming and screaming.
“No, no, no, no, no…”
Lunara’s back hit a wall. A frantic search showed her the open doors leading outside. The night sky beyond them. The promise being offered.
Oh, no. What are you doing?
Saving him. Saving everyone from the abomination she was.
“Please, forgive me, Brand. I didn’t… I never meant… I’m so sorry.”
She waited only long enough to check that his chest was rising and falling, before sprinting for the balcony.
Climbing the balustrade, scraping her hands and knees as she struggled, there was nothing of herself anymore. She barely felt the stone beneath her bare feet once she was finally poised on top, didn’t sense the icy breeze.
The only thing that mattered was him.
Fionerys had said she’d make Lunara wish she’d never been born if she hurt him—this would save the Empress the trouble.
Because Lunara would hurt him. Maybe not right now. Maybe not in a week, or a month, or a year. But eventually, she’d be like the others. Would ruin his life in ways that didn’t bear consideration.
You don’t have to do this. Get to Lyriat and demand your payment.
She didn’t know where to go or how to get there. Argoph was a maze, almost as large as the whole of Starkeep.
Mist, then. Picture the great hall and mist there.
Her stomach turned at the thought. Lunara couldn’t stop the rise of bile, bending over and heaving.
A monster. She was a monster.
That’s when she made the mistake of looking down.
They were in one of the outermost towers of the palace. The mesa dropped off beneath her, one of the falls plummeting down directly below. The world swam, stretching further and further away, before snapping back to its true position.
Fucking shite, it’s a long way down.
A cold sweat broke out across her brow. She didn’t want to harm herself, she just couldn’t think of any other way to protect him. She couldn’t think at all.
Flash. Brand’s naked body, lying broken and bruised upon a blackened stone slab. No rise and fall of breath in his chest. No life beneath the caked blood and shattered bones. Naked. Broken. Gone, gone, gone.
“No!” Lunara sobbed, looking out over the Weeping City to replace that sight with anything else as she inched to the edge of the heavy railing.
Maybe…
Maybe if she kept the image of his smiling face in her mind instead, alive, she could do it. For him, she could do it.
Just one step. One step to save him—all of them—from her very self.
She couldn’t be the Keeper of Illamiata if she was dead.
“Forgive me,” Lunara whispered to the wind, hoping it would carry her pleas to Brand.
And stepped off into nothing.