I sway.
Even though it’s nothing compared to the amounts of gold I’ve expelled before, this drain on my power is too continuous, too forced.
“Auren?”
It takes me several blinks before Slade can come back into focus. “I...”
Whatever he sees on my expression or hears in my choked off words makes the blood drain from his face. He whips his head back toward the others. “Get her the fuck out of there!”
“Merewen, get the barrier to drop, or he’s going to fucking kill us,” King Thold hisses as much as his snakes.
Queen Kaila looks torn between wanting to see me die and wanting to ensure she saves her own neck.
But the prince isn’t waking, his body keeps thrashing, the thread tangled between his hands. His father curses and rushes over, tries to snatch the thread away, making Isolte scream. But even that does nothing.
And I...I fall back.
My shoulders hit the poles, and I look down at the gold that’s now splashing around my chest, some of it reaching the puncture marks from the swords. Seeing them springs up the pain that surrounds me from all sides, my blood mixing with the rest.
“Slade...” My voice doesn’t come out as more than a whisper, but he hears me.
He always hears me, even when I don’t say a thing.
Expression full of animalistic fury, Slade rips out the sword from his belt, raises it up, andslamsit down across the fabric. Even though it looks like it shouldn’t hold any hope against Slade’s sword, the threads absorb the blow, the sharp blade completely impotent, the barrier immune to the slash.
But he slashes at it again and again and again.
He throws his brute strength at it, trying to slam his body through it, trying to hack at it, trying to pour so much rot over the barrier that the noxious veins encompass so thoroughly that it nearly blocks my sight of him completely.
“Hold on, Auren! Hold on!”
But my knees shake, legs giving out. I don’t sink down in the gold though, because the black, liquid roots seem to catch me, keeping me afloat.
Panic comes over his face, and that’s when I know there’s no hope.
He can’t get to me.
There’s pure torture in his eyes, and my entire soul justcracks.
My bottom lip wobbles. My love for him drains from me as much as my power, collecting around me, wishing it could reach him.
But it can’t.
Ican’t.
He came for me, but he can’t get to me.
Hot tears score lines down my shaking cheeks. But I try to pull them up. Try to give him a smile. “Find me in another life.”
“No!” The anguish thrown from his throat feels like it tumbles right at my feet.
I blink, head cradled against the bars, and I watch as he suddenly brings up both hands. And then I feel the hair rise on the back of my neck.
In the next instant, magic comes slamming out so forcefully that it steals the breath from my chest and holds it in its fist.
Raw magic blasts from his body and pours into the barrier.
As soon as it makes contact, the entire dome starts to vibrate. Several of the monarchs clutch their heads, cringing back, while the prince passes out, body going still.
