Eder relaxed, giving Karr’s own magic a chance to breathe.
Azariah sank, hands smoking.
Still the blade remained. “I can’t break it,” she whispered. “I have nothing left.”
The blade was white-hot. “Take it,” Sonara said. “Pick it up, Az.”
The Princess nodded and scooped up the sword.
Sonara turned, practically blind from the intensity of using her magic, as she tried to force another wave of emotion Eder’s way. But the creature only laughed.
“You cannot save the heart,” he growled. “It will be here forever, beckoning the darkness to draw near. Someday, someone will arrive and claim it.”
“Close it,” Sonara said. “Close the earth.”
Sonara could almost hear the world sigh as the ground trembled and closed fully over Eder.
The only sound left was the heart.
Thumping, slowly, as its aura whispered,Save me,that constant background noise that had not stopped since they’d entered this place. Silently, Sonara walked past the bodies on the floor. Past Karr, who lay there, watching, his brother beside him, the Dohrsaran prisoners gone.
“It’s time to end this,” Sonara said. “To put the heart back together again for good.”
Silently, she took the sword from Azariah’s hand. Her palm burned against the heat of it, but she sensed that pain inside of her hand, and breathed it in. So easy, to remove that feeling, the aura of pain that came with it. With a breath, she forced it away.
Her skin smoked as she held the blade and marched across the cave.
With a final bit of strength, Sonara drove the famed blade, with the original piece of Antheon, right into the heart of the planet. Just as a gunshot went off.
As something pinched against her back, and shadow blood leaked from her chest, soaring past her vision so quickly she thought she’d imagined it.
“NO!” Karr screamed.
Sonara fell, catching a glimpse of Cade.
He stood with his rifle aimed at her as the pain from the bullet wound finally hit her.
She’d been shot.
Chapter 42
Karr
Karr screamed as Sonara fell, the sword sticking from the heart of the planet… and yet it had not worked.
“No!” Karr screamed again. “No.”
He scrambled to his knees, but then Cade was turning. Leveling the gun on him next.
Karr held up his hands. “Cade.Please.”
“I want to believe you, Karr, but…” Cade sniffed. There were tears pouring down his eyes as he stalked past Karr. “But all I see is a monster wearing my brother’s skin.”
Azariah and Jaxon moved towards Sonara, but Cade fired another shot. It struck the ground beside Sonara’s body. “Nobody touches the Devil!” he shouted.
They held up their hands.
“Take the blade. Remove it from the heart,” Cade commanded. “Or she’ll die.”
