My stomach turned inside out, the air torn from my lungs like I’d been gutted. When Scarven pulled the blade out again and rammed it into Nox’s chest, all sound vanished.
I forgot how to breathe. I forgot how to do anything except scream. The world dimmed around me, and I barely saw the cloaked figures emerge from the shadows behind Vera and Everett, stopping them from racing forward.
My body wouldn’t move, wouldn’t run, wouldn’t do anything but shriek uselessly at the sky. My magic, however…
Shadows flailed inside me, a tidal wave of despair unlike anything I’d ever felt. They swelled and collided against my ribs, and I no longer cared about holding them back.
Magicexplodedfrom me in a blast of energy, so strong my hair whipped around my face, and my chest caved in from exertion. A ripple of shadows coursed over the ground. It trembled beneath the dark wave, kicking up dirt and sending weapons flying through the air.
But the power was short-lived.
Something cold and hard bolted around my wrist, and as quickly as it hurtled from me, my magic died. The shock of its loss sent me reeling backward into a cloaked figure.
My head snapped to the black cuffs on my arm.Fatesprig.
Not again.
I can’t lose him. I can’t lose him. I can’t?—
My stifled magic made my chaotic, raging emotions claw up my throat, trying to get out. They were going to flood me. Drown me.
When Scarven heaved the dagger from Nox’s chest, the blood glinting off the steel practically blinded me, making my vision go gray at the edges. I felt myself struggling against the cloaked man holding me, but it was as if I was watching it from afar as a soundless scream escaped me.
Scarven moved the dagger to Nox’s throat, and I lunged forward with all my strength.
When my assailant grabbed my waist to yank me back, something in my pocket shifted. I blinked, thoughts racing as quickly as my pulse.
The fatesprig serum.
I dug in my pockets for the cool metal cylinder and hauled it out, needle tip glistening in the moonlight.
Nox’s gaze met mine as he stumbled to his knees. Even in his pain, even facing his own death, he didn’t attack. He didn’t defend himself.
He was protecting me, as he always did.
My fault.
Nox’s eyes widened. His lips curved around my name, his blood-stained hand reaching for me.
I didn’t think. As I watched Scarven put the blade to his throat, I plunged the needle into my heart.
The last thing I heard was the deafening, soul-wrenching roar of a dragon.
78
Nox
Icould taste my own blood, a sharp, metallic tang coating the inside of my mouth. The blade had partially slid across my neck when Scarven froze, eyes wide.
He looked down in shock. He gritted his teeth and dropped the dagger as the veins in his neck and temple bulged, then slowly darkened to a thick, green sludge. The toxin Devora had injected herself with was also working its way throughhissystem.
But I couldn’t care less about him.
Behind him, Devora crashed to the ground. Her body spasmed as she cried out my name.
All thoughts splintered. There was only the pounding in my ears and my heart ramming into my ribs. Even the immense pain from my wounds dimmed as I watched the agony of the fatesprig injection consume her.
I let out a roar as my dragon took over. My back arched at an unnatural angle, blood spurting from my neck and rolling to the ground before the wound could fully heal. Scales burst from my skin, and my wings ripped out of my back, lifting me into the sky.
