He flicked his hand.
A sickening crunch filled the air.
My two friends fell to the floor. Rissa shifted back to her human form and clutched her ankle. I stifled a gasp when I saw sharp, white bone jutting from the skin. Nearby, Lark’s elbow bent at an unnatural angle, her face screwed in agony as finger by finger, the bones in her hand snapped.
Another crack split my eardrums, and Rissa’s shoulder hung limp.
Her scream…that scream would haunt my nightmares.
Another crack. And another. They kept coming, over and over. The sound was ingrained in my mind, the sight of their torture overwhelming, blinding.
I remembered the image of my father in front of our fireplace, his choked gurgling, blood gushing. The all-too familiar frenzy shivered up and down my spine, trying to take over—but I couldn’t retreat. Not again. Not now.
Everything went numb. My panic receded, and in its place was a steady resolve. I dusted off the cloak that once buried my emotions, the one Leo and my friends had helped me hide, the one that still kept the darkness of my past from view.
I spent too much time covering the depths of my pain. Locking away the trauma of my father, the loss of my mother, the resentment of my province. I’d thought anger and vengeance and pride made me strong. I’d thought getting close to others, letting them see the truth of what was beneath my surface, was weakness.
I took that cloak and shredded it.
Piece by piece, I collected every horrid image from the last month. Every dark memory. Ragnar, the second trial, Callista’s death, Chaz, Alaric’s body beneath my blade, Leo stuck behind the portal.Horace.
Instead of shrouding them under weathered layers, I used them. Molded them. And found that in my pain came courage. In my weakness came strength.
It was with that pain and weakness that I would end this. With my father’s help, I would end this.
I rose. Bloodcurdling screams and cracks of bone resounded in the chamber and in my mind as I faced Gayl once again. Each snap brought me a step closer. Each groan narrowed the space between us.
He stood within my grasp, not a single ounce of mercy in his eyes.
“Let them go,” I snarled.
With a light scoff, he said, “Ah, you must feel so vindicated. You have seen me as your villain all this time, and now you want to be the brave one, thegoodone, the one who saves them. Have you not learned, Rose, that people like you and me…we’re destined for greater things?”
“I never said I was good.” My jaw twitched as my fingers dug into the cut on my palm. “I just have to be better than you.”
Catching his outstretched hand, I swiftly yanked off his black glove, exposing beads of blood blooming at the end of each of his fingertips. He had installed some sort of sharp needle at the tips of the fabric, something that would allow him fresh blood in an instant. Constant pain, constant blades in his skin, all for the sake of his neverending magic.
“This,” I hissed, “is for my father.” I crushed his fingers into my bloodied palm, the mixing of our blood sending lightning up my arm.
I uttered the spell Leo and I had found. The one from my father’s Grimoire. My last chance, my last hope.
“Dravenia.”
Recognition raced across his features at the siphoning spell. “What have you done?” he whispered.
Finally.Fear.
“Making sure you and your curse will never hurt anyone again.”
A tremor wracked his body. Shockwaves rippled through me, one after another, like something was pulled, sucked, drained from his spirit and set loose. Power hung in the air, so thick I couldseeit swirling around us. Silver and gold whorls pulsing with each breath, carrying with it a strength of magic I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams.
Convulsing, he pulled away, his face growing paler by the second. “There is…always a price,” he choked, falling to his knees but still holding my gaze. “Can you pay this one, niece?”
He collapsed.
Before my eyes, his skin slowly turned gray and ashen. Wrinkles deepened as his entire body shriveled and shrank, as if the magic siphoned from him had also taken his life.
His head hit the ground. His body was a husk, an empty shell. Dead.
