Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
RHEA
Rhea stares in horror as Finlay screams and screams, his hands appearing to be stuck within the grips of the ward.
“No! NO!” His distant, glazed-over eyes are wide with terror. “Mother… Help! Somebody help!”
Rhea grits her teeth, yanking her hands away from the barrier. Whatever the ward is doing to Finlay, her nullifying magic prevented it from happening to her. So how can she now stop it from destroying him?
She rests her hands atop his outstretched wrists, pouring her magic over his skin. It isn’t enough. Whatever ancient magic this is, Finlay was right—it is powerful. Very powerful.
“Fuck,” she curses under her breath.
Rhea ducks under Finlay’s arms, positioning herself to stand in the small gap between them.
She presses her back against his chest, laying her arms over his.
Then, she squeezes her eyes closed and brings as much of her magic to the surface as she can, directing it outward to form her own barrier.
It covers her and Finlay in a warm, shimmering glow.
His breathing eases, his chest no longer heaving.
She pushes herself further, a heavy strain pressing against her muscles and lungs, body tiring and screaming to not push any harder.
She never has been one for listening.
She takes more from her well. Demands every last drop of her magic.
She feels Finlay stiffen, then the tickle of his hair against her neck as she assumes he shakes his head in an attempt to come back to himself.
“Rhea,” he rasps, sounding confused and alarmed at once. “What—”
“No time,” she cuts in, voice painfully tight. “Break…barrier…” Rhea leans forward and slams her palms into the ward, the magic coursing into her with the rush of a drug’s high.
Finlay follows her lead, leaning forward to press his chest against her back once more. Together, under the protection of her nullifying abilities, they push every ounce of magic they have into collapsing the ward.
It begins to work.
She creates holes in a concentrated center directly in front of her, the gap slowly expanding like a flame eating at a burning sheet of parchment.
Finlay, showing impressive cleverness, takes his magic to the areas Rhea’s isn’t reaching, capitalizing on the weakening points of the ward, weighing it down and eroding its frame with layers of ice that clink and ting as they expand up and over the dome.
The ward flickers.
They push harder, knowing that Draven is doing the same on his side. Until the barrier cracks, then shatters completely.
The force of it sends Rhea and Finlay soaring backward. He takes the brunt of the force, holding her tight against his chest as his back slams and skids across the ground.
Rhea groans, her head spinning. “Are you alright?” Her voice sounds like she’s just swallowed glass.
“Flourishing,” he deadpans.
She sits up. When the world steadies and the stars dim from her eyes, her breath catches in her throat at the sprawling sight before her.
Lush green stretches as far as the eye can see, divided by mosaic walkways and punctuated by a small jungle of trees. There are bushes, vines, and flowers. Glittering streams running beneath stone bridges. The smell of dewy grass mingling with mint and jasmine now trot through the air.
For a time, Rhea merely marvels at it, stunned.
“Are you seeing this?” she asks Finlay. When she turns to face him, still ensconced between his legs, Finlay’s eyes are glued to his opened palms. He looks haunted and miserable.
Rhea drops her head to catch his attention.
“What happened when you tried to break the ward?”
“It tried to break me in return,” he answers, his low voice raspy and hollow.
“How?”
“By showing me my deepest regrets. By making me relive and experience my most terrible nightmares. I–I think it must have been a sort of fail-safe woven into the barrier. Like some activated instruction: break the mind of the wielder before it can break you. Cruel, but clever.”
Pain fills his face, a blemish marring him.
Rhea isn’t sure what to attribute her next gesture to.
She is not a particularly kind person nor someone who offers comfort just because someone is feeling sad—sadness lives everywhere, in all things eventually.
Yet her hand still reaches out to Finlay’s face, cupping his cheek while her thumb glides soothingly across it. “Are you okay?”
His eyes snap up from his palms and onto Rhea.
They widen, then crumble. Wordlessly, he shakes his head, and all Rhea can hear for a moment is his scream, the sound like a desperate boy.
She knows Finlay’s mother died when he was young and that his father blamed him for her death.
Though that was as much as she could ever get out of Draven or Kiran—they would never tell her more than that.
In the past, she only wanted to know what happened so she could exploit that wound in Finlay.
To twist the knife and pour salt into it.
Now, Rhea wishes she knew so she might help him heal it.
“Finlay?” she pushes.
His lips press into a thin line, and he averts his gaze.
For a heartbeat, Rhea is convinced he is about to reject her attempt at comforting him, making her feel ignorant and unwanted—something he is so good at doing.
In fact, she is so sure of it, she soon realizes she has already braced herself against it, dropping her hand back down to her side as she prepares herself for his blade.
What she actually receives is so much sharper.
As if coming to some silent decision, Finlay reaches for her hand and gently returns it to his cheek. He leans into her palm, closing his eyes and releasing a shuddering breath. When he reopens his eyes, there is something softer swimming amongst the ghosts.
Finlay guides Rhea’s hand back down to her lap.
Then he wraps his arms around her torso and pulls her into him, putting her back flush against his chest. Silently, he nestles his chin into the crook of her neck, burying his face into her hair and shoulder.
He holds onto her like she’s his anchor.
His protection. He holds her like he’d fall apart and crumble without her in his arms.
Rhea lets him.
She is surprised by how good it feels—letting him hold her.
Yet the warm, swelling feeling is not allowed to live long as a new onyx dome of magic soon flashes into existence, pervading the air and plunging the sky into an unnatural dark. The hairs on Rhea’s arms rise from both recognition and terror.
No wielder should be capable of such magic. No person should have that much power.
Yet one person does. One wielder is capable of this. And if he has unleashed his magic in such a horrifying way, that means things have gone terribly, terribly wrong.
“Fuck,” Rhea whispers.
Finlay goes slack behind her. “Draven’s lost control.”