“It is futile,” Caelan said. “The gem is almost filled.”
Gem?
Shock set my nerves aflame as I looked at the glowing green crystal that burned the brightest—Anna’s amulet. He couldn’t mean a soul gem? Such stones were rare and to hold a mage’s soul was rarer still.
I pushed through more everi, weaving it through deeper and deeper until I could finally feel her presence.
Relief rushed through me as Anna’s eyes shot open. A surge of adrenaline, my adrenaline, was shooting through her.
“The chains, Anna! Cut them! Dagger!”I said, pressing her mind with mine, desperately trying to connect to her subconscious.
With lightning-fast reflexes, she wielded my everi like it was her own and sliced through the chains restraining her.
Her arm shifted, catching Caelan off guard. The dagger never left his hand as Anna wrestled with him before the dagger’s blade was buried between them, their hands wrapped around the hilt. Anna’s eyes slipped closed and her grip slacked.
No.
This could not be happening.
Malakai was right.
I had been distracted this year. How could I have missed this? Caelan was nothing, a lower La’Thenyen of one of the nomadic clans of the south. And he had orchestrated this right in front of me.
Fury coursed through my veins as I flooded Anna with my everi, carving it from deep within dormant parts of my soul, paralyzed as I watched her.
Was I too late? Was the soul gem already filled?
Neither of them moved. The dungeon cell held its breath as we all waited in a terrifying stillness. I could not lose her like this—not now. Not after everything that happened before. I already failed her once; I could not fail her again.
They were bound there in a tragic embrace when Caelan faintly let out his breath. It sounded like a single heartbeat reverberating across the silence before it flatlined.
It echoed around us like an omen as the glowing pentagon between the bodies strung to the pillars faded.
Caelan slid to the floor with a thud as I rushed to Anna. I pulled her into my arms. Her wounds were severe andgrotesque. Her body was limp and unresponsive. They appeared to have been healing rapidly, over and over, until her everi was nearly depleted. The most recent stab wounds were bleeding profusely. I couldn’t see where to apply pressure and focus everi.
“You know our world is doomed,” Caelan said, his voice quiet and fading.
I glanced at him on the floor. He was pale, his hand still loosely gripping the dagger embedded in his heart.
“Is that why you did this?” I spat. “A pathetic attempt to shield a dying world from its doom?”
Caelan tried to laugh, but it was a strained breath. “I would never have sacrificed her life for that. No. Her power is real. She could have saved my people; shielded them as the Realm collapsed around us.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked. “There is no doubt she is unique, but that kind of power? No one has that.”
He started coughing, a wet, deathly sound.
“Adara did,” he whispered.
“You killed them and would have stolen her life based on lies from a thousand years ago?” I seethed. “You are lost and your people will suffer more for it when news spreads of what you have done.”
Caelan’s eyes were hollow.
He was no longer hearing me anymore.
“Beware the Void.”
I felt Anna’s wounds finally closing and continued to drain my everi into her body, repairing as much of the damage as I could.
