Her pain.
“What happened to you?” I asked, lowering my voice.
Melanie got up and took a step back, her face twisting with anger. She moved so fast I didn’t have any time to react as she sent a burst of everi right at my chest. It struck so hard I was lifted into the air, my body arching as I was thrown against a column. My back smacked against the marble painfully and I coughed violently, choking as my entire chest and throat became inflamed.
My palms struck the ground and I didn’t move. I stayed there, trying to take a breath, but the pain was so intense. I tore my eyes open, seeing blood dripping into the dirty snow and stone. I coughed again and cried out as the pain tore through me.
I glanced up, seeing Melanie’s glare before she turned and left.
Blake’s everi was already weaving within me, flowing through my veins and lungs, repairing the damage caused by her blast. To do what he was doing would require enormous control of his everi. I doubted I could manipulate my everi well enough to thread a needle and he was using it to repair tissue on a molecular level. It was soothing and allowed my mind to drift to Melanie. I was certain I’d struck a nerve with her. It should’ve been satisfying, but there was one other detail that was ruining it—she’d been telling the truth.
Chapter 32
Crossing the Rift
ANNA
Blake and I stayed on the training grounds until the only light in the sky was the stars shining down on us. He healed my injury and I made him train me.
Harder than I’d ever trained before.
I didn’t have time to be weak like this.
I could feel it—this power, a mage’s power—within me as certainly as I could feel my own heartbeat. You know it’s there but there’s no proof until you can gain control of it. It burned through my veins like molten metal, ready to mold into whatever I wanted it to be, and right now, I wanted strength. My strikes were more brutal and my plated arm guards were reinforced with everi. I could easily block his blade with them. It was nauseating to be weaker than Melanie. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand that she thought nothing could be changed. I couldn’t stand so much being withheld from me still. I couldn’t stand that I still didn’t know who my mom was and why someone took her from me.
Why?
My everi twisted and rushed through my arm, taking form in a white ethereal mist as it clung to my sword. It clashed against Blake’s, thrusting back in shock, his everi flaring to life in the form of crackling electricity. It wrapped around his hand to the tip of his finger like thorny vines in a ghostly blue hue.
My body was tightening and coiling in ways I’d never experienced before. It was like my everi was trying to escape and I was its prison. I screamed as it took hold of me, my body succumbing to the intense presence of energy within.
“Anna!”
Soon, Blake’s presence was at my side but I couldn’t see anything.
His touch, his presence, his everi; it was like cool water pouring over my burning flesh as it enveloped me.
Then there was a stillness within me that took me under.
I awakenedin the torch-lit chamber where the ominous black mass of swirling energy thrummed with radiating waves of intensity. The Portal Room. I was in Blake’s arms, my body heavy, and my mind struggling to process what happened.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, staring into the mass-bending doorway before me. It looked like a molten galaxy of stars and empty space.
Blake’s eyes were lowered as if he’d been asleep where he sat, his back against the wall.
“Anna,” he said, his eyes lifting as he focused on me.
“Your everi was behaving erratically. I took a chance and brought you here, and it seemed to stabilize it,” he said.
I heard him but it made no sense whatsoever—and I was too busy watching the way the ripples churned inward like a black hole.
“Are you really a prince?” I asked, the thought randomly passing my lips.
Blake’s breath was on my neck.
“Unfortunately,” he said.
“Are you related to the same Aryus from the play?” I whispered.
