“Venustas,” I said. “That’s the city that was lost when the Realm was cursed, right?”
Blake nodded.
“Are there ruins left?” I asked.
Blake’s arm tensed around me and I tore my gaze from the heavens.
“What is it?” I asked, as he sat up, breaking the safe and warm embrace I had been nestled in.
He stretched his hand out, catching one of the petals.
“It is not snow. It is ash.”
Chapter 44
Under the Starlight
ANNA
Istared at the crumbling piece of charred gray soot in his hand. He was right. There was ash falling all around us now.
“Why don’t we smell the smoke?” I asked.
“It is the Anienlasator,” he muttered. “It overtakes the sense of smell.”
Flashes of lightning streaked horizontally through the sky like veins of silver.
Blake went still, his skin pale as he watched another flash sear through the sky. It was silent, and there was no thunder or wind.
“What is it?” I asked, sensing his everi rapidly coming to life.
He moved so quickly I didn’t see it. I saw him standing on the water with a blade in his hand. I marveled as I watched him. While I understood the possibility of such a thing as walking on water by using everi control, it was still hard to believe seeing it before me.
“Nightfall’s barrier has been breached,” he said. “We need to get back.”
As he reached for me, mist began to rise from the water. A chill came over me and I shivered. The creatures were no longer singing and the glow of the ivy was lost in the mist.
An alarming crack sounded around us as the lake froze beneath us. Blake broke the layer that tried to freeze his shoes to the lake’s icy surface and pulled me from the boat. Once I was in his arms it sank into the water and froze over again as if it were never there.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
Blake’s everi cloaked me like a shield as shadows formed in the mist.
They emerged in black robes, fully cloaked and masked, their faces covered by black cloth that concealed their mouths and noses.
We were surrounded. Blake set me down on the ice, and his everi flowed into me.
“Who are they?” I whispered. “Are they from the Realm?”
Blake pulled me against him, back-to-back, my body trembling.
“No. These are wannabe blood mages from this world,” Blake whispered. “Anna, there’s something I need to say to you.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah? Now?”
“Yes, now. Through all the times in my life when darkness prevailed, there was no light to guide me out. I now face the darkest part of myself. But somehow, in those depths, you have turned on a light and I can see better than I ever have before. You are my light, Anna, and I will protect you from whatever may come.”
Foreboding clenched around my heart.
