“What.” I sarcastically laugh. “My own sister can’t watch my death?”
“She has a war to start. She is getting the men ready for battle,” Dixyn says, crossing his arms.
My lips tug together, glancing over my shoulders one last time to see the chosen, Florian, and Koen headed to safety.
“And what about me?” I tease.
“We will bring your dead body to her once we find the Oracles to remove the stones.” Skydance raises his arms, and I hear the archers ready their bows.
I will die trying to live. I can’t go without a fight, what Queen would that make me? Even if my body wants to fall over and just let the Gods wrap me in their arms to take me away.
I inhale deeply, arms outstretched, fire flickering at my fingertips before extinguishing in mere seconds. My mind pleads with the God of Fire.
Don’t leave me now.
My fingers clench into fists, stretching wide once more. My lips part as I steady my breath, tears cascading down my cheeks.
You chose me.
I remind the sky, eyes locking onto the clouds that rumble by. The Gods. As if right now they are my traitors, leaving me here alone to die when I just returned.
What sick game is this?
You chose me. I keep repeating it, as if that might hold back what is to come. As if I believe the God of Fire will scorch me once more and be a shield to my protection.
You chose me. Don’t let me die.
“But you must,” the woman whispers in my ear like the soft wind. Chills race down my spine as my heart pounds wildly.
“Trust the Gods,” the elder's voice resounds, and the metallic scrape of arrows against strings fills the air.
I gasp as the arrows pierce my back, feeling the sharp blades slide through my body. One finding its way perfectly to my heart.
To a broken heart.
My bottom lip drops. The air goes silent. I taste copper, feel wetness on my lips as the slow, salty track of a tear slides down my cheek.
My eyes blur, yet all I see is him.Koen.Flashes of our time together, replaying like a broken record. How I wish his arms would embrace me once more, but he’s gone. He is safe.
Upon impact, I collapse to my knees with a heavy thud, clouds of ash and dust rising around me. My lips part, desperate for air, but I choke on my own blood.
My gaze drops, hands trembling over the twenty arrows embedded in my body, all oozing with dark, raven-hued liquid. The toxin. Forged from the lava of darkness.
A Deskyiara’s weakness.
“Trust the Gods, child.”
I want to spit in her face right now by the pure rage I feel.
How could the Gods allow this?
I want to rise above them and set fire to these lands. Scorch every last one of those who betrayed me. Including the Gods.
I have been trusting the Gods. It is all I have ever done.
How am I supposed to let go when I just got him back? How am I supposed to let death take me when I finally have the man I love?
The world is blurring at the edges. I see Skydance through a red haze, fire burning around me that unleashed from my palmswithout me knowing. And for a moment, the hues of his crimson eye is the only thing I can focus on.
