Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Aleksander
Two Order members remained beside Severin, while the others faded back into the forest like smoke. Their target was eliminated—the traitor Severin had mentioned, apparently, though I could only guess at what Orin had done to earn such a fate.
Nova took a few more stumbling steps forward before freezing in place. Phantom circled anxiously around her, his body shifting between ghostly and solid forms.
Thalia was kneeling in the dirt, hands outstretched toward her father. Zayn stood close to her, his weapon still raised as he studied the places where the Order members had disappeared.
And Severin was looking directly at me. At the space between Nova and me, at the hint of violet magic still crackling in the air. His expression was smug. Triumphant.
I clenched my fist, feeling trails of dried blood on my hands. My magic still churned beneath my skin. Hungry. Violent. Wrong.
“Well, this has been a very successful night,” Severin said, his voice quiet but still carrying clearly across the distance. He gave a slight bow. “I’ll be looking forward to our next meeting, Aleksander. Trust it will be soon.”
Rage overtook me. I stepped forward even though I knew it was foolish. One, two, three furious steps and then I was sprinting, sword drawn and glowing with a light that flared through several different shades—from its usual pale golden color to that new, sickening, bruised shade of purple.
The Order members on either side of Severin threw something onto the ground—something that sent up plumes of thick, acrid smoke. Lightning flashed bright enough to blind me for several seconds.
When my vision cleared, they were gone.
I scanned the area for any lingering enemies, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath, to settle the storm building inside of me before I turned back to the others.
Thalia had crawled to her father’s dead body, her eyes wide in shock. She was silent, save for the occasional quiet, agonized sound that escaped her.
Zayn had followed, and now hovered close to her, still watching the shadows for threats. As the sound of too-close voices and footsteps reached us, he urged her to get up, guiding her back toward Nova, who was kneeling with her weight propped up by Grimnor.
Thalia tried several times to turn back to her father’s body, but Zayn stopped her every time, whispering urgently into her ear.
Finally, she turned her back to Orin and bowed her head, body trembling as she collected herself.
A sudden commotion in the nearby trees sent me racing back to Nova’s side, readying my weapon as I went.
The new arrivals turned out to be Finch, along with half a dozen other allies. Or who I assumed to be allies, anyway. But if Orin was a traitor to the Order, then he must have been working for them at some point.
So how could we trust anyone he’d aligned himself with, really?
Whatever side they were on, they formed a protective circle around us for the time being.
Finch’s gaze swept over the scene and landed on Orin’s lifeless figure.
His body went rigid, his jaw working as he struggled to maintain composure.
He bowed his head for a long moment. Then, with visible effort, he forced his attention back to us.
“These woods are swarming with Order members. You need to leave, immediately.”
There was nothing I wanted more than to leave this place.
But Nova was still kneeling, gripping Grimnor like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. She hardly seemed to notice Finch at all.
“We can’t stay here,” I said, reaching for her shoulder.
She threw off my touch, and the unusually violent rejection seemed to trigger that new, devouring side of my magic.
I forced it down.
Barely.
“I could have saved him,” she choked out, glaring up at me. “Why didn’t you let me save him?”
I didn’t answer, still too busy trying to corral my violent surge of power. Cold sweat broke out across my forehead. Phantom’s glowing eyes fixed on me, a low growl rumbling in his chest, as if he knew something wasn’t right.
“Something…” Nova held her hands out in front of her, studying the shadows that flickered weakly around her fingers. “Anything. Why can’t I save anything?”
Before I could find the words to reply, Thalia appeared in front of Nova, wearing her characteristically stoic expression despite the tears staining her cheeks. “You can save plenty,” she said, bluntly as always. “But only if we live to see another day. Now stop wallowing and let’s move.”
Nova opened her mouth to argue but stopped as she seemed to register the raw pain in Thalia’s expression. She rose slowly to her feet, dripping a trail of scarlet as she did. Her arm was bleeding more profusely than I’d realized; the cut that Order bastard had left was deep and jagged.
I caught her as she swayed, and she leaned against me, clearly dizzy from the blood loss.
Finch shifted anxiously from foot to foot.
“We’ve secured and stationed more help along the path to the Nocturnus Road,” he informed us, his voice edged with grief.
He seemed to be trying—and failing—not to look toward Orin’s body.
“We’ll hold off anyone who tries to stop you. But you need to go. Now.”
Nova lifted her head and cast one last look at her fallen mentor. Her breaths came in short, ragged bursts. Her fists clenched into my shirt, her balance still teetering on the edge of loss.
“Now,” Finch urged, and Nova’s broken gaze moved to me. Her eyes were oddly vacant, looking through me rather than at me. The weight of all that had happened over the past days seemed to be catching up and crashing down on her all at once.
It had been far too long since that mental bond between us had worked properly, but for whatever reason, her thoughts reached me now. Scattered, fragmentary, but the message was clear—
I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
With considerable effort, I managed to send a thread of my magic around her and her wound—not the new, corrupted, consuming side of that magic, but something closer to what I was used to controlling.
Something brighter. Warmer. She sank more completely against me.
The bleeding slowed, but the skin around her wound had already taken on a greyish tint.
She would need proper healing, and soon. Healing I couldn’t give her.
You want to believe you’re the hero who will find a way to protect her no matter what, don’t you? But deep down, you know the truth.
You can’t protect her.
You aren’t meant to protect her.
I shook off Severin’s taunts.
For now, at least, I could keep her safe.
I lifted her into my arms and started to walk, and I tried not to think about the blood on my hands or the feeling that something monstrous was waking up inside me.