Chapter Fifty-One
Rion
Rion stared at the female before him.
He hadn’t imagined the world brightening around him. His entire surroundings had shifted. He wasn’t on the battlefield anymore. He was in some sort of afterworld, as if he were in the sky, only there was no ground to sit upon, just a white floor that shifted like mist. More cloud-like than solid.
Rion glanced down at Arianna’s bloody, still form before looking back at the female.
Was she here to take Arianna? To lead her into the afterlife?
His heart beat just a little faster. “Who are you?” he repeated.
“You know who I am.” That familiar voice again.
“You were in Ashling. In my head.”
“Actually,” she glanced down at Arianna, “I was in her heart, but she has no further need of me.” A lump formed in Rion’s throat. No. He didn’t want to face it. Accept it.
“Laoirse,” he said the name without much meaning, and though despair threatened to drown him, Rion still forced himself to ask.
“Can you—” his voice cut off, the lump in his throat too large.
“I don’t care what happens to me, but—” Gods, he just wanted Arianna safe. Away from pain and grief and darkness.
“We are here to help, Rion of Alastríona.”
He dared to look up again. “We?”
Laoirse gestured behind her, to another figure outlined in white. “Only one of us succeeded in our task. The first of us. I—well, I did not experience things as they should have been. But this,” she gestured to Arianna. “This is what should have happened from the beginning.”
Anger coiled through him like a viper. “What,” he snarled, “is that supposed to mean?”
“It means she was always meant to fall.”
Rage and grief boiled over, but Rion wouldn’t release Arianna. “She is not your sacrifice.”
Laoirse gave him a small smile, but it wasn’t sad. “Sacrifice? My dear, she is no sacrifice, but sometimes greatness must burn before it can rise from the ashes.”
He stared at her, unmoving, still clutching Arianna’s lifeless body to his chest. Laoirse stepped forward, the mist forming around her feet like ripples in a pond.
“Rise,” she commanded.
“I’m not leaving her.”
Laoirse approached without fear and bent down beside Arianna’s lifeless form. He didn’t know why he allowed Laoirse to reach out, but the female pushed a few stray strands away from Arianna’s beautiful face.
“Rise,” she whispered again. She wasn’t speaking to him.
Something pulsed through Rion’s chest. He grabbed at the area, feeling as if his soul was being torn from his body.
The bond.
Gods above, the bond. It was—
“Quell your fear, Rion of Alastríona. This is not the end of your story.”