It smoldered into a pile of ash.
Ojore ran toward Seren, and Roya quickly shifted her form to block him, preventing him from going further. “No! Do not touch him! The poison is all over his body.”
“I have to see!” Ojore yelled in her face and pushed Roya roughly to the side. He lunged forward onto his knees and bent down toward Seren’s lifeless, blistered body, avoiding contact.
Ojore let out a guttural roar that echoed through the surrounding trees.
Seda scrambled out of Cahir’s arms and ran next to Ojore, ignoring the pain that tore through her ankle. She stared down at Seren’s unrecognizable body and softly placed her palm on Ojore’s back.
He stiffened, leapt to his feet, and shouted, “This isYOURfault! You aresoweak,sofucking helpless. We’re all out here trying to helpYOU. And so far we have lost two of our friends, two ofmyfriends.” His voice caught on the last words.
“Do not speak to her like that,” Cahir seethed as he stepped in front of Seda, blocking her from Ojore.
“Or what, Cahir? What will the big, bad Fae do to me that they already haven’t? My people have suffered because of your kind… Because ofyou. And now here I am, pretending to get along with scum like you, to save… To savethis thing.” He pointed at Seda. “Some magical creature she is. She can’t even protect herself when a fucking flower attacks her! We should be out there searching for what the Rising is supposed to be doing! We need to find theDarkened instead of helping this thing get to the Wisps and dying in the process!”
Elco stalked behind him, letting out a menacing growl at Ojore as smoke billowed from his nostrils.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, you overgrown, disfigured cat! Why didn’t you blow that fucking flame where it was needed sooner? Whatever it was scared of, it wasn’t you!” He stomped off into the distance, leaving everyone else behind.
Seda dropped to her knees beside Seren.
She looked down at him and watched in horror as his bubbling skin rippled.
He was gone. He was dead because of her. Why didn’t she tap into her power? All she felt was fear. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to use her power to protect herself or others. All she thought was that she was going to die.
I only thought about myself.
She let out a cry as tears started streaming down her face.
How useless and selfish she was. Her mind flashed back to the night when the Jotnar attacked the dome, and she was alone, feeling so hopeless that she curled up into a ball on the shower floor and did nothing. She would have let the monsters eat her back then, just like she would have today.
She was a fraud, powerless, and weak when she had the power not to be.
She cried for Seren, who would still be alive if she had just acted and not halted in the face of danger. His gentle nature and kindness were ripped away from this world, all because of her, all because he was trying to protecther.
Elco stepped forward and wrapped himself around both her and Seren’s bodies, making sure not to touch the poison. He blocked everyone else’s view so she could cry without anyone watching. Sheburied her face in his mane and screamed as loud as she could, her throat throbbing from the strain, but she didn’t care.
She deserved the pain.
Another agonizing scream tore from her lips as she unleashed her anger, sorrow, self-loathing, and outrage at the unfairness of this cruel world.
Dark clouds formed over the clearing, casting a shadow over the area. It started pouring rain with such intensity that Seda gazed up at the darkened sky, letting the rain mix with the tears on her cheeks. How fucking perfect, her first time experiencing the rain was in misery, so ideal for her awful, fucking life.
She held out her palm and watched the drops patter against her skin.
She clenched her fingers into a tight fist.
Purple lightning snaked across the sky as thunder shook the ground. Seda pressed her face back into Elco and screamed. Filled with anger over Seren’s death at her weak hands and her lack of courage, she screamed again and again and again.
A giant bolt of purple lightning tore through the area, bursting into hundreds of fragments and scorching the nearby carnivorous plants.
Exhaustion enveloped her, and thunder shook the ground as Elco pulled her closer, allowing her sorrow to pierce him with a sharpened sword he didn’t resist.
Chapter 35
Roya
The beauty she saw in front of her was unlike anything she had ever experienced in her long life. The magical lightning flashing across the sky, frying hundreds of plants repeatedly and turning them into smoking piles of dust, took her breath away.
