Shae backed up against the wall as her eyes searched desperately around. "GUAR—“
Nyssa grabbed Shae’s throat.
Shae pulled for air, hands hitting Nyssa's outstretched arm. She noted the wife going for something on her side, and Nyssa grabbed her arm. Shae screamed as Nyssa's fingertips burned her skin. Shae released the blade.
Nyssa threw Shae to the ground and grabbed the knife in one move.
Shae crawled towards the hall.
Nyssa's hand wrapped around the hilt. Rough leather filming beneath her fingertips, she twirled it in her fingers. She kicked Shae sideways. Shae fell and scrambled to her knees.
Nyssa curled the tip of the knife beneath Shae's chin.
"My name is Nyssari Eaglefyre," she stilled. "I am the exiled Princess. The eyes of Haerland. The last of my line—“ Her head tilted as she watched a tear fall down Shae's cheek. “—Born into shadows and fire for a war taking everything from me."
She deliberately crouched, her knife settling beneath the wife's jaw. The sight of the terror in the woman's dark eyes and noise of her trembled sobs made Nyssa's head tilt again. Deep within the grasp of the shadows possessing her, Nyssa's anger should have shaken her bones. It should have had her every nerve quivering. It should have had her quaking beneath the weight.
But every breath that left her was as even as the last.
"You willnotbreak me."
—A guard at her back.
Nyssa's free hand shot out. Flames grabbed his throat. His neck cracked beneath her shadowed grasp. The thud of his body crashing on the floor made Shae jump. Obsidian flames moved from Nyssa's feet and wrapped around the broken guard.
Nyssa hadn't even looked behind her.
She lifted a softly flamed finger to Shae's chin, her face a breath away, and she whispered, "Shhh..." just as the wife had done to her.
Tears jerked down Shae's cheeks. "Please," she pleaded.
The involuntary smile that rose on Nyssa's lips solidified the still in her chest.
"I'll make sure your husband knows how you begged when I cut his throat too."
Her blade slipped through the woman's throat like cutting through water. A last gasp of surprise shrouded the woman's features, and Nyssa let Shae's body fall to the floor.
Standing, the flames swelled around her. The tent cracked. Every piece of furniture caught fire.
Nyssa stepped through the black and amber fire to the outside.
Noises of men shouting and women screaming were echoes in her ears. For a moment, she paused, closed her eyes, and reached out. Something had tugged at her core, and she knew it wasn't her eagle.
This was something big. From the depths of the ocean. Such a pull on her made her chest hurt. It was the first pull she'd felt since the Noctuans, and she wondered if the void her flames were pulling her into was breaking down that barrier she'd put up.
Let go, a voice told her.
A soft, melodic voice. A voice she'd heard only once before.
Let go, Nyssari.
Her eagle screeched overhead.
Nyssa took one more look around the camp...
And then she surrendered to her powers.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
