She was sobbing, her face a mask of pain, and he hadneverseen her like this. Not once, in all their days. He sheathed his blade, ignored the snarling wolves, and stepped around her, the wind folding past him as it sensed the Sacred claiming in his blood.
He stopped before her...and put his hands on either side of her face.
“Look at me, Soraya.”
She was so cold, so frozen. Her lips were turning blue.
“He’s dying!” Soraya sobbed, as tears slid down her cheeks.Still,she channeled the gods’ magic. Still, she did not let go. How long, until it ran out? How much more did she have to pull from the well that Avane had filled? He’d never seen a Sacred go on likethis.“He’s dying, and the gods won’t save him!” And then she threwher head back andscreamedat the night. At Avane. “You have power to make me do this!So why don’t you godsdamned save him?”
Arawn gasped.
His body turned to ice. Never, in all his days...had he heard a Sacred speak to one of the Five like that.
And it was instant, the culling of her magic. As if Avane had heard the slight, felt thehatredthat had just poured from Soraya’s heart...
And cut her off.
The wind died in an instant. Behind them, the wolves rose to their feet.
But Arawn spun, an invocation sliding from his lips, his blade already flaming in his hand.
His love for the gods was real, and true, and Vivorr sensed it. They would not harm Soraya, not while he stood in her path.
Three heads landed,smokingin the snow, as the shadows melted around the wolves’ bodies like oil. To the others, he put up a wall of his own magic.
He formed a shield of flames in a blazing circle around them.
“We fight for them!” Arawn said to Soraya, as he turned to look at her, hands still extended on either side of them...holding that line of fire. He whistled for Cyrra to return. “Because that is who we are, Soraya!” And that fire was in his gut now, rising to every part of him. “We fight every emotion. We crush every human instinct we have, every bit of weakness and temptation, so that our gods bless us. So that others canlive.”
She blinked back tears as she looked at him, shaking her head.
“Why?” she asked. “Why don’t they heal him?”
The fire was reflected in her amber eyes, as if her entire soul was burning to ashes within. She loved his brother. He saw it now, more than he ever had. And that love?
It was going to kill her.
It was going to destroy her...just like his mother and father had always warned him.
It was better not to feel. It was better to have magic and flames andloyaltyonlyto the god he served. To hold his heart for Vivorr, and Vivorr alone.
“I don’t know. But I need you to come back to us, Soraya,” Arawn said. The wolves dared to step through his fire, yelping as they did. But soon, he’d have no strength left.
A Sacred’s magic was not infinite.
He lifted his gaze to the sky, where six raphons had come for their aerie, and Cyrra was helping fend them off of her own accord...never one to ignore a challenge.
He whistled again.
“They need you right now, more than Kinlear does,” he said. “I need you, Soraya... my dearestfriend.”
And when he called her that, and she did not object... it solidified the dying hope inside of him. She would never be his. And he would never be hers.
She wiped her tears with a bloodstained hand.
“Okay?” he asked, as his magic dimmed.
Don’t feel,he told himself.Don’t feel because if you do, you will fail.
