It feels like I’m living inside of a nightmare worse than anything I ever experienced at Terrance’s hands as I’m forced to watch helplessly.
She meets them in a frenzy of steel and rage, Devere still swinging, crimson light flashing through the mist in sluggish arcs. The mist coils closer to me, searing the air until my eyes water and my skin prickles, and still she stands inside it, defiance blazing even as the poison eats at her.
“Mom,” I sob, my voice breaking as I think of the pain she’s in.
TheagonyI know it is.
Her body draws closer and even stumbling she swings Devere in wide, blazing arcs that cut down two more guards.
She’s a warrior.
Then, the crimson light of Devere begins to falter and I know she’s losing her connection to her soul sword, her consciousness fading.
“No!” My scream rips my throat raw as I whirl toward the portal, its light still blazing.
I want to shout for help. I want to cry to any god that’s listening to fix this.
But my fathers are already gone, the boys with them, and no matter how hard I shout, no sound will cross the divide. They can’t see me. They can’t hear me. They can’t come back through.
My body shakes with tremors as my sobs come in quick, frantic gasps. I’m paralyzed by what to do.
I can’t leave her. I can’t.
“Briar!” My mother’s voice lashes out, somehow still strong enough to strike me like a command. Her red eyes blaze through the haze as she slashes another suited guard aside, her body trembling but unyielding. “Get through the portal. Now.”
I shake my head violently, tears streaming hot down my face.
“I ca…can’t.” My sobs splinter my voice, my body convulsing with the horror clawing at my chest. “I can’t leave you. I know what they’ll do to you!”
Still, my body is driven back toward the portal as a gust of wind sends the mist closer.
My mother staggers to one knee, still hacking at the guards pressing in on her, but the blade’s light splutters in and out, crimson dying to nothing in her grip.
I see rough hands seize her arms, armored gloves wrenching her forward. She thrashes once, a sound tearing from her throatthat rattles my bones, but another guard drives her to the ground.
“Mom!” My scream fractures as they shove her onto her knees, her body buckling under the weight of the suits closing in on her, steel cuffs snapping shut around her wrists with a finality that makes my vision blur with tears.
“No!” I cry, my own fury bursting loose with the sound, and I fling my hands wide. The familiar weight of my soul daggers solidify, their dark edges gleaming.
The ring around my finger pulses with my conscious split between holding the portal open and my connection to my weapons.
I know the portal could close, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
She lifts her face toward me even as her body trembles. “You are my life, Briar.” Her voice cracks, “I can survive anything as long as you are safe.”
The world wavers around me, everything in me pulling to run to her, to fight beside her, to burn with her, but then a soft voice threads through the chaos.
“Briar.”
Lyra's presence coils warm and certain at the base of my skull.“Drop us and go through the portal. Make a plan with your fathers and the humans. We know where they’ll keep her. We know how to break her free.”
I wait for Kael to tell me to stay and to fight, to bleed every single human to death, but he doesn’t, and there’s something about his silence that threatens to drive me to my knees.
They both think I can’t do this.
My whole body shakes, sobs racking my chest as I back toward the fractured portal’s glow as it crumbles behind me.
The suits are closing in on me fast, faceless and relentless, rifles raised, their heavy boots drumming against the ground asthe mist coils outward toward me. The mist begins to claw at my lungs and prickles my skin.
