“What are you saying? Stop! I’m not the?—”
“Kill her, Sonah! Before she kills us!”
“Lerek, stop!” Terena took a step closer to Sonah, but stopped when her sister raised her bow.
Terena froze.
“Ren!”
Terena spun to see Daris sprinting toward her. He slid to a stop when he saw Sonah with her bow trained on Terena.
“Daris, this doesn’t concern you,” Sonah said, her voice hard.
Lerek pointed a finger at Daris and snarled, “You’ve done enough damage, Liodari.”
“Sonah, please,” Terena whispered, her eyes pleading with her sister. “Listen to me. He’s lying to you.”
“Sonah, put the bow down and listen to your sister!” Daris yelled.
“I’ve listened to her before and look where it got me! Lerek speaks true, Liodari. You dripped your poison in Terena’s ear and now I cannot trust her!”
“Sonah,” Terena’s voice broke and she swallowed, her hands up. “I love you. I —”
“You love me?” Sonah seethed, the hand on the bow shaking. “Youloveme? You left me there to die! You let them?—”
Sonah hung her head, her words ending on a sob.
Shame flooded Terena and she could not speak. Daris’s hand folded hers within his warmth. She chanced a glance at him, but his eyes were on Sonah.
“You chosehimoverme!” Sonah continued in a voice so filled with pain, Terena felt it break her own heart. She deserved Sonah’s wrath.
She’d failed her sister.
“You will always choose him! That’s your fate!”
“No, no, Sonah?—”
“You made your choice. Now face the consequences.”
Terena ripped her hand from Daris’s grip and raised both in front of her, her eyes going wide a second before Sonah released the arrow.
“Terena!”
Terena’s hands dropped from her head where she’d been clutching her hair, and she struggled to breathe. Strong hands clutched at her shoulders. She couldn’t breathe.
Can’t breathe!
“Terena, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
She knew that voice.
Rydon?
Blackness filled her vision.
When she finally opened her eyes, Terena blinked up at Rydon, bent over her. His face was contorted. Angry. Scared? How was he even here?
“Thank the gods,” he whispered, closing his eyes for a moment before he turned his hard gaze on her again. “What the fuck just happened?”
