Veragi faltered in the air, her arms shaking, and Ozik’s body convulsed. Zetyr would not stay down much longer. A terrible peal sounded on the other edge of the bridge, and Vaasa’s heart jumped into her throat.
It was the Miro’dag. It was behind her. Near Reid.
Again.
And she had a choice. She had a choice to win this fight, to get the ring, or to turn around and change the outcome this time. To save him.
“Don’t,” Roman begged.
With one last look at Roman, Vaasa spun on her heel.
Love or power; she knew precisely who and what she would choose.
The Miro’dag took form, Zetyr finding his grip on his power again, and Vaasa sprinted. “Reid!” she screamed as she threw the necklace, the links of it disconnecting from her fingertips,sending him the very thing that could save his life should Zetyr rise.
Agony, wicked and dark, filled Vaasa’s lungs and broke from her in an ear-piercing scream.
Not just pain.
Magic.
It flooded into Vaasa’s stomach, into her veins, drowning her, smothering her. Her muscles tightened as they sewed back together, weaving with the force in her bones, a well inside her filling to the brim like a hole had been dug into the ocean. It was gruesome and all-consuming.
It exploded.
Magic burst from her in tendrils of darkness, the familiar black mist flooding the entire bridge as if someone had blown out the moon. It stole the air, the sound, the light. It stole everything.
And in her mind, Ozik’s voice whispered,You are more powerful than I could ever have imagined.
The stones beneath Vaasa’s feet shook, and magic—her magic, his magic—morphed at her command, following the call of her heart. The commands of her soul. Four legs. White eyes. A howl that crashed into every corner of the continent. Vaasa’s feet dug into the ground. She lifted her arms. The mist enveloped her hands and her wrists. She wasuntouchable. She was pure power. She was a wildfire, a monsoon, a life-altering natural disaster.
Her wolf ran at the Miro’dag, snarling, and Vaasa followed with her steps in tandem and her heart beating wildly in her chest. It chased away the cold, the fear, the longing. The magic filled every empty, miserable piece of her that had chipped away into a chasm these long weeks. Everything she had withstood. Those who had tried to control her. Lord Vlacik, Lord Karev, Roman.
Her wolf grew with each step, reaching the height of the Miro’dag and the size of Melisina’s horse, and just as Ozik had taught her, it struck. The Miro’dag screamed as the wolf sank its teeth into its throat. Metal coated her tongue as if she could taste the blood, taste the rip of flesh and the accompanying tearing of Zetyr’s magic. Vaasa kept going. She lifted her hands and urged her manifestation onward. It tore into the Miro’dag with an unforgiving rage. It remembered, just as Vaasa did, what had been taken from her.
The weight of Reid’s body in her lap.
When he ceased to pull breath.
The wrenching away of her magic.
She wanted it all back.
The Miro’dag extended its webbed wings, and as it had done in the colosseum of Dihrah, it winked out of existence. Her wolf stood snarling. Oil dripped from its mouth, the manifestation clearer than it had ever been. Vaasa heaved air into her lungs. Her knees wobbled. When she stumbled, arms wrapped around her waist, and she fell into Reid’s weight. “I’ve got you,” he promised.
He hauled her to the edge of the bridge, and she took one last look at the opposite end to see Veragi’s eyes dim and her body plummet downward, directly into the water. The same ocean Reid now hauled her toward.
“Jump!” he screamed.
She glanced across the bridge one final time, her gaze meeting Roman’s.
And then Vaasa flung herself off the side.
For a moment, all she heard was the roar of wind in her ears. Her stomach flew up and into her throat. Then the sound of Roman’s scream broke through the air, and the glacial ocean swallowed her whole.
CHAPTER
41
