Maybe?
Fuck, my head hurt like hell. But was that just from resisting the mind-altering effects of the angels or were they actually inside my head, making me see this… even if it seemed like little had changed.
“Rook! Please!” Izzy’s cry drew my attention. I found her amongst the chaos around me and saw how she struggledagainst Valnea. The sylphim must be hindering her mind too, limiting her ability to fight. She should have overwhelmed the false queen long ago. But with her mind being attacked at the same time, it looked like she could barely defend herself.
I ran, sprinting to her, but even as I reached her, Valnea punched through that perfect chest of Izzy’s and pulled out her heart. Izzy fell, dead, eyes wide and vacant, into my arms as I arrived too late.
“Noooooo!” I screamed with raw agony, my heart torn out and shredded at the sight of Izzy, bloody and broken before me. Is this what my mother had felt? It was so much worse than anything I’d imagined. My mother, at least, hadn’t been on the battlefield, hadn’t seen the exact moment, the horror of it. I had.
Valnea laughed as she stomped on Izzy’s heart and I collapsed to my knees, clutching Izzy’s lifeless body close.
“You fools. You thought you could defeat me?” Valnea cackled.
And the cold, dark emptiness inside my chest constricted even more, sucking in everything I was, an implosion of my being. It left behind an empty shell.
A shell, that had nothing left to lose.
“You’ve made a mistake,” I hissed as I let the body of the woman I’d so deeply loved fall away. I rose, drawing my sword, summoning my magic. “I have no reason to live, but before I die, I’ll take as many of you with me as I can!”
Valnea’s shocked expression made me smile, a grim grin.
She fell back as I surged toward her, but I couldn’t reach her. Other elves blocked my path. And they were strong, too strong, I’d never defeat all of them, but I didn’t have to. I just had to cut down as many as I could before they killed me.
I fought with cold dispassion, hacking at the elves like somuch wheat. And yes, they cut me, broke me, made me bleed. But what did I care for blood, since my heart was already gone. The pain didn’t matter, all that mattered was soon I’d find the cold comfort of death, but before that, I’d make so many others feel it too.
MYELAS
I knelt,Izzy’s dead body in my arms as the other men crowded close, hurling curses at me for my failure to protect her.
“She trusted you!”
“Look what you did!”
“How could you ever think you were worthy of her, of being one of us!”
And yet… I didn’t believe a word of it.
This wasn’t right at all.
If Izzy was dead… my soul would be crushed, the bond a void, pulling me toward madness or my own death. Yet, that wasn’t happening. The bond held strong. I felt Izzy’s pain and strain clear as the beating of my own heart.
Izzy was alive.
I focused… and the body in my hand faded away.
As I’d thought.
I pushed harder against this false reality and the men — my brothers — vanished. I stood slowly, flashing out my steel wings. The sting of pain wasn’t as bad as the first time, Iwas getting used to it, and it served to clear my head even more.
The fog faded, and the true battlefield came into view.
“No!” hissed a sylph nearby. “How…?”
I turned to the angel, and what he saw in my eyes made him flinch.
“You’re just a pathetic shifter… how…?”
I stalked toward him. “A shifter, yes, one with a mate bond to the woman you forced me to watch die. ButI knowshe lives, and you’ve made a rather grave error.”
