“No!” Her hands scrabbled desperately at the air, but the sliver of darkness had already sealed, leaving behind only a faint shimmer that slipped through her fingers.
Frantic, she reached out with her mind, searching the limits of reality, fingers scraping at the unseen fabric of the world. She sought any thread, any fragment of the portal she could latch onto, anything to break open and follow them into the black abyss. But there was nothing. Only silence.
Chapter thirty-nine
Theytookhim.
Rynna stood frozen, barely able to draw air, as the dense forest swayed around her. The air felt thin, laced with the tangy scent of decay, while the sound of leaves rustling above seemed distant and muted, as though the world itself had tilted off balance. Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out everything else as she tore through the clearing.
Where? Her thoughts tumbled over one another, frantic.Where did they take him?
“We’ll find him.”
Kaelith's voice slipped through the madness as he approached slowly, careful and quiet, his usual swagger muted. Rynna didn’t look up at first. Her jaw clenched, her entire body wound too tight to move as she felt him come up behind her.
How dare he be calm now?
“How?” she snapped, spinning on him, flames flaring to life in her palms, casting wavering shadows across the ground. “How are we going to find him?” Her breath came in bursts. “This…this is all your fault! You pulled me away!” She bent over, hands pressed into her knees. “You could have handled Yata on your own, but—”
But I was having too much fun fighting by your side again. And Fenn seemed to have things under control. The realization twisted like a knife in her gut.It’s my fault.
Kaelith’s expression didn’t waver. “We’ll find him.” He knelt beside her, his hand light on her back, the worn fabric of his tattered cloak grazing her skin.
Rynna flinched, and the muscles in her shoulders tensed beneath his fingers. She didn’t want his comfort. She didn’t want to be soothed. She wanted to burn. To lash out. To break something. To hurt someone.
Without thinking, she spun on him, tearing free of his grip. Heat surged down her arm, gathering in her palm, then she drove it into his chest in a crackling burst of fire. The force blasted him off his feet, hurling him through the underbrush until he crashed into a tree with a heavy, bone-jarringthud.
She stalked forward, each step heavy with the weight of an image burned into her mind: Fenn and that spear of darkness exploding through his heart as he was taken into the portal. She fought against the tightness in her throat, forcing herself to believe that Kaelith had ruined everything from the moment she’d brought him back.
Focus on that, she told herself. Anything to keep her from the truth that no mortal could survive a wound like that.
“Do what you need,” Kaelith rasped, blood dripping from his lips, splattering the ground. “I can take it.”
Rynna didn’t stop. She was already closing the distance, one blade rising in her hand. She could feel the fire crackling under her skin, burning at the end of her control. Cut him down. That’s all she needed to do. Turn him into pieces.
Kaelith held her eyes, steady and unblinking. “I can take it.”
Her hand shook, the blade’s point gleaming. Then her knees buckled, giving out from beneath her like a dam breaking all at once. She collapsed before she could stop herself, and Kaelith dove forward, catching her against his chest.
“I’m so sorry, Kae.” Her body quaked, heaving with empty sobs she couldn’t hold back. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine, pet.” His hand slid to the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair with soft, calming strokes.
“I don’t…” She clung to him, her hands fisting into his shirt as if holding on was the only thing keeping her from drowning. “What am I supposed to—”
“Shhh.” He held her tighter. “We’ll find him.”
“But he’s…” She gasped, panic clawing at her throat. “He’s—”
“Shhh,” he whispered again, his lips near her ear. “We’ll find him.”
Rynna pulled back, searching his face, looking for any flicker of doubt. But there was none. Only the unshakable certainty that somehow, impossibly, he would help her find Fenn.
“You’d really do anything to get him back for me, wouldn’t you?”
Kaelith’s lips quirked into the barest hint of a smile. “I think we’ve already established the lengths I’d go just to see you again.”
He inched closer, his nose skimming hers.
