Chapter 40
“No!” I cried out, catching Eleanor before she hit the ground. Her body landed awkwardly in my bound arms, and we slumped to the floor.
“No, no, no, no,” I chanted, her breaths coming in short, wheezing gasps.
What did she do?
I patted her side frantically, searching for the source of the gushing blood soaking her dress. Eleanor coughed, and blood spurted from her mouth in a spray of deep red, transporting me back to another time. When another woman with dark curls took her last breaths in my arms.
“No,” I choked on tears and disbelief. How could it end like this?
“Lia,” she rasped, and I found her beautiful hazel eyes, the exact shade as our mother’s.
No. No. No. No.
“I’m not doing this again. You. Will. Not. Leave. Me.” I gripped her shuddering body tight and pressed my hand against the seeping wound, but blood spilled between my fingers, taking my sisters life force with it.
Not again. Not this.
Anything but this.
“Lia,” she whispered, just before her eyes fluttered shut.
There was one final rattling breath.
Then nothing.
A deafening scream reverberated through me, bouncing off my skull and flooding my ears. Agony pierced me in a never-ending stream of sizzling fire, through my chest to tear apart my heart, my very soul. Obliterating my world in an explosion I would never recover from.
Time lost all meaning as I held her close, her body heavy in my lap. Her chest no longer rose, and no sound passed her lips. I stared at her face framed by those wild curls I’d brushed every night. She looked as if she were sleeping, were it not for the deep-red blood coating her lips.
I would never see her bright smile again. Never hear her soft laugh or teasing jokes.
She was gone.
My sweet, perfect baby sister.
The ringing cut off, my throat hoarse and dry. Tears poured hot and acidic down my face, dripping into my still-open mouth but doing little to moisten my tongue. I screamed silently, suffocating in the truth.
After a while, other sounds reached me, registering as distressing.
Shouts. Clashing blades. Cries of pain.
Then another sound, one I would know anywhere.
“Adelia.” He didn’t yell, but I could still hear his voice over the echoing sounds in the chamber. Shade.
I pushed through the darkness swallowing me in pain, blinking through the haze of my tear-filled eyes to find him. He was all I had now. I wouldn’t fail him as I’d failed my sister.
When I found him, another feeling sparked in my chest, igniting a small flame that had been doused by crushing agony.
Shade fought several soldiers at once on the other side of the room.
Sword in hand, he was locked in an intense battle with Gensen as other men attacked him from every angle.
Tendrils of smoke danced around him, and he ducked and swerved and jabbed.
Harkin’s still unconscious form lay several feet away, Wista crouched behind him, using his body as a shield from the fighting men.
I searched the room for another man, the one I would destroy even if it took every last breath in my body to do so. King Terym stood half behind a now-conscious Pierce, who was sitting upright. What caught my attention though wasn’t the distraught cowardly king, but the man in front of him.
Pierce was stock still, sword still sheathed at his side. He wasn’t looking at Shade and the men he fought or paying attention to the king behind him. No—he was staring at me, pure anguish slashed across his features so intensely it rooted me to the spot.
Not me, he was staring at my arms, where my sister lay motionless.
My sister who was dead.
My breathing stalled, and I hugged her tighter to me. Protectively.
A shout of pain drew my eyes in time to catch Shade withdrawing his sword from Gensen’s side. He lined the blade up to his exposed throat, thrusting forward to end the captain’s life, but as the point met his skin, it rebounded and flung from Shade’s hand, clattering against the stone out of reach.
He couldn’t kill them.
He could fight them, maim them, but not make a killing blow. He was bound by ancient magic, unable to take a life in his current form.
But if he was freed from the shackles of the lamp, he could.
My wish would save him. I would save him.
If Terym survived, his wrath would be inescapable, but I had nothing left to live for. Nothing but the man who fought with his bare fists against several men at one.
I wouldn’t fail him like I’d failed Eleanor.
He alone was the last remaining heir in the Emyrdeis line. He could reunite the Galisordis Kingdom and save its people from war.
But most importantly. He. Was. Mine.
I stared up at the hole in the ceiling, facing the sunlight, the beams warming my face.
“I wish—” I could barely get the words out, my throat raw from my agonized screams. I swallowed thickly, moistening my throat just enough to say it. “I wish for Raiden Emyrdeis to be free.”
“No!” Shade’s terrified shout sounded as the final word left my lips.
My wish echoed around us for a moment, then a strange pressure built in my ears until all noise ceased to exist. A glance around the room showed others were experiencing the same thing. Hands covered ears as the sensation filled mind and body.
Then sound came back in a rush, and a deafening explosion rocked the ground.
The floor of the room vibrated and shook beneath us until the stone cracked, a large fissure opening in the ground.
Rock crumbled from the walls and dust flew, giving the air a hazy hue.
The tall walls caved in, blocking out the shining sun and darkening the room. We were lucky not to be crushed by it.
The crack splintered directly toward me, and I scooted backward, dragging Eleanor to safety along the granite wall. A victorious holler sounded, but I couldn’t see where it originated, not when my gaze was fixed on the horror unfurling before me.
From the large hole in the earth, rose several flames of heat and shadows cool as ice. They darted around the room in wisps of orange and black. Some escaped up the steps while others bounced around the walls and ceiling, dancing in an almost-excited nature.
A figure emerged through the dust, a dark silhouette against the gray room. With their features shrouded, it gave off a haunting vision. More wisps escaped, and as an orange flame glided past their face, it was highlighted enough to see their features.
That was all it took to realize exactly who emerged from the earth, who escaped the prison he had been trapped in for over a thousand years, because the man was almost identical to Shade.
He raised his hands, and the ground ceased shaking. Another wave and the dust coating the air dropped to the ground, clearing the haze. Then an orb made of pure light formed in his palm and shot to the caved in ceiling, hovering there and bathing the entire room in light.
Magic. He was using magic.
So different to Shade’s, who was restricted by my wishes and manipulation of his smoke. This was more controlled. Intentional.
In the brightness, the carnage of the circular room became clear.
The soldiers Shade had been fighting off were dead, eyes open and unseeing, faces frozen in pure terror.
Walls had crumbled and fallen stone scattered the room.
Wista no longer crouched behind Harkin’s body, now covered in rubble, and I prayed to the Gods she moved in time and wasn’t crushed under the weight of the stone.
And Shade.
Shade knelt on one knee, palm to the ground and face etched in pain. Smoke poured from his body, absorbing directly into the ground beneath him.
He was hurt.
Before I could act on the impulse to go to him, swirling silver eyes met mine. The slight shake of his head a clear command. Don’t move.
It was only the unbridled fear in his eyes that stilled me.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I needed to trust him. Every decision, every step I made, led to this point, and I had gotten it so clearly wrong. Shade would get us out alive.
Wisps of orange and black darted around us, circling the room instead of escaping up the steps.
A shadow flew past me, terrifyingly close, and the icy air wafting from it seeped deep into my bones, as if it hailed from the coldest part of the Demnocollis Range.
The next orange wisp to pass gave the complete opposite sensation, a heat radiating hotter than a fire and reddening my skin.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” A deep voice clicked, and I turned toward the man who had risen from the earth.
Shade’s brother—Bastian Emyrdeis.
He sneered down at Shade, and with them so close, the slight differences in their features were obvious. Bastian’s nose was slightly wider, chin jutting at a different angle. His blond hair was cut short, cropped close along the bottom and growing longer at the top.
But it was Bastian’s expression that showed the true difference in the brothers, full of hatred and malicious intent. He glared at his brother with eyes so dark they were almost black, full of evil. The very sight sent ice through my veins, freezing me in place.
Terym stepped up to Bastian, the sight of him igniting that kernel of fire again. I had hoped he didn’t survive the ordeal that destroyed the room.
“I have freed you from your prison. Now you will help me to conquer this land and others across the sea!” His words were laced with entitlement, and he smiled wide in triumphant glee.
Bastian was slow to face the king. Head tilted, he looked him up and down.
He didn’t respond to Terym’s claim but made a strange gesture with his hand.
It must have been some kind of instruction, because one of the black wisps landed in front of the king.
It moved and stretched, solidifying into a creature so terrifying I wished it weren’t real.
My heart pumped at an alarming rate, every inch of me thrummed with the need to run, to escape the monstrous creature before me. I could do nothing but stare in wide-eyed horror.