Chapter 53 #2
Zadriel didn’t want to die. Not before returning to Arcadia.
He longed to inhale the fresh, Forest air.
To feel the magic on the wind, brushing against his skin while he roamed among the trees.
To lay his eyes on a world full of vibrant color and know he was home.
Most of all, he wanted to right his wrongs, as best he could—he owed it to his people, yet he’d failed them once again.
May the Mother forgive him.
“You’re killing her!” Silas barked, fumbling for his dagger, a curse on his tongue when he realized he’d left it behind.
“That’s the fucking point,” Zadriel spat. She bastardized everything Cillian stood for; a Halfling willing to use her power to harm her own had no right to live. No right to carry the Mother’s sap in her blood. If taking her out was his final act, so be it.
A barely audible squawk bled through Elodie’s swollen lips as she rallied her strength, kicking Zadriel’s shins. Silas joined her, his leather boot slamming into his back. Air wheezed from Zadriel’s lungs, a grating pain throbbing in his ribcage, but he couldn’t allow himself to feel it.
When Silas attempted to grab Elodie and pull her free, Zadriel managed to shift his weight and roll so she was beneath him again.
Pressing harder against her throat. He watched blood vessels burst in her eyes, a sea of red seeping through white.
She slammed her palms against his face, over and over, until she gave up and attempted to push him away.
Warm metal slid across his lips, the ring clacking against his teeth when Silas kicked him again.
Fuck. This.
A low, predatory growl rumbled in Zadriel’s throat. Silas wrapped his hands around Zadriel’s arms and tugged, nearly tearing the Fae free, his grip on Elodie loosening. But Zadriel lunged before he was pulled away, teeth clamping onto two of Elodie’s fingers. Gritty sand coating his tongue.
Silas bellowed, “Let go of her!” Jerking back with all his might.
Zadriel’s hands slipped from Elodie’s throat, but he bit down harder, refusing to let go. Sharp teeth sinking into bone. Elodie screamed between raspy coughs, her chest heaving while a metallic flood spilled over Zadriel’s tongue. Heat emanating from the ring in his mouth.
Time slowed, prickles clambering up Zadriel’s spine, something pulsing in the corners of his eyes. Calling to him. Demanding he look. The boom of Silas’s furious voice was far away—when the brute yanked once more, Zadriel found he could no longer fight him.
A crack resonated in his ears, teeth clacking together. A pulsing ache pounding in his jaw. Streaks of gold flooded his vision and he and Silas fell back, starbursts glinting behind his eyes.
“He bit off my fucking fingers!” Elodie wailed, raspy voice cracking. She sat up, clutching her hand, blood streaming down her wrist and puddling on her knees. Blending perfectly with her ruby cloak.
Everything changed in a blink.
The world quieted. Zadriel couldn’t focus on Silas’s threats as Silas pushed him away and ran to his woman, Elodie’s cries as distant as the ocean’s currents. The briny air barely touched his lungs, his breath catching in his throat.
He was caught in a state of awe. Enraptured by ivory wisps, the color pure as fresh snow, so translucent Zadriel almost wondered if he imagined them curled around Elodie like ribbons of gossamer flecked with glitters of gold.
Stretching toward the blood coating her mangled hand.
Reaching for the brighter streaks of gold within it as if that were the source.
Her well.
Holy Mother, Zadriel could see Elodie’s power.
Power she did not deserve.
Something rumbled in his chest, a furious beast pressing against his bones.
Thrashing behind his ribs until he could no longer deny it.
He gritted his crimson-stained teeth, trying not to gag on the blood trickling down his throat or the press of the ring on the roof of his mouth, Elodie’s nails digging into his flesh.
Then, Zadriel raised his hand and clenched his fist.
It was instinct, somehow, calling to those tendrils of power—to the sap in Elodie’s blood—pushing until it rose to him.
Gilded drops tore free from Elodie’s lifeblood, gathering together until they splashed onto the earth and slithered toward him, a stream of gold.
But he could see more. Understood traces of the Mother Tree’s sap, bits of Herself gifted to all of Her children upon birth, coursed through Elodie’s body.
Careening through her veins with each furious beat of her heart.
He wanted it all.
Pushing harder, Zadriel called to her well. To his birthright. To the power he was meant to Keep and protect.
Gold beaded from her pores, speckling her face like gilded freckles. Silas gasped, his fingers trailing up her wrist to gather it, but the liquid evaded his touch, rushing away to answer Zadriel’s call.
“What’s happening?” A sickly pallor coated Elodie’s porcelain skin, shivers wracking her body. “I don’t feel right...”
Gilded tears welled in her eyes, her cheeks gleaming as they dribbled down her face. Wisps of gossamer glittered as they followed, undulating in the air above the gathering sap. Dancing on their way to Zadriel. Joining the others pulsing around him like an otherworldly veil.
Was this what Cillian meant when he said the ring allowed him to see magic? Had Vehsa experienced the same when she performed her duties as Keeper, or had Brennan created an enchanted connection to the Mother that went beyond even her abilities?
What in the name of the gods was this relic?
Gold snaked along the beach until it crawled up Zadriel’s body, slipping over his aching chest to curl around his arm. It writhed there, covering his bicep, his forearm, warm tendrils gliding over his wrist to twist around his fingers. Clinging to him as if he were its home.
Elodie collapsed in Silas’s arms, gold still spilling from her pores, dripping from her eyes and slipping through clenched teeth. The man laid her on the earth, those dark blue eyes snapping to Zadriel. The promise of retribution flaring within that furious stare.
Zadriel made no attempt to flee when Silas rose.
Didn’t flinch when his boots slammed against the ground with each heavy step.
He pushed his power harder, pulling what sap he could free from Elodie’s blood.
When the brute stood before him, Zadriel snarled, baring his bloody teeth before spitting out Elodie’s fingers, the severed digits splatting on the ground at Silas’s feet.
The wisps were gone then; whatever the Mother had decided to show Zadriel faded away, as if devoured by the dark of night, returning to the inky black depths of the ring’s stare.
It was the last thing he saw, that cursed relic. Its dark eye staring up at him while Silas slammed his boot into Zadriel’s skull.
Then oblivion called him under.