Footsteps in the corridor jolted me, prompting me to draw everi into my hand, but my body was numb and it didn’t respond.
Several cloaked and masked figures entered the room, hovering between the corpses of those whose lives were taken too early. They remained in the shadows, unmoving, as a final figure entered.
His eyes were bright red, glowing like a monster you wouldn’t want to meet in the dead of night. They flashed over Blake and me before looking down at the floor.
Ezreal Kalmont.
“Hmp,” he grunted, a twisted look of displeasure on his lips.
I desperately tried to summon more everi but my body was broken. I held onto Blake tightly, willing him to wake up, but hisface was soft and innocent, impervious to our predicament in the waking world.
“Get the prince out of here,” he said.
The others moved forward and I clutched Blake harder.
“No,” I screamed. “Please.”
I closed my eyes, the stinging unbearable, as Blake was ripped from my arms. Strong, rough hands held me down until one of them carried him from the room and out of sight. The remaining two restrained me with everi vines snaking across my wrists, holding my arms down over my head.
“This was your doing,” I snarled, staring into the gleaming red eyes of Ezreal Kalmont. “You put Caelan up to this, didn’t you?”
He was staring at my chest. I refused to look, unwilling to relive that right now. Blake’s everi was still coursing through me—he healed me. There was no pain anymore, just mangled clothes and dried blood.
“I never thought I would see the day that Prince Ryth’enir would give so much to save a lover,” he mused.
He moved slowly at the edge of the stone slab as I tried to break through the everi vines thread by thread.
“Where did you take Blake?” I hissed.
Ezreal was as stoic as ever. “There is someone I want to introduce him to. But that does not concern you. It would seem that the prince found a way to break the soul gem that I gave to the young Feanor heir.”
“Why?” I shouted. “What do you want with me? Was this always your plan? To have him kill me and then you take the gem?”
He smirked, chuckling as if genuinely amused by my distress.
“Take her to my tower,” he said. “I will deal with her later. And make sure Luke does not go anywhere near there.”
Luke?
The everi vines snaked up my arms and around my neck.
“Stop!” I cried, trying to loosen their hold, but I was far too weak.
They tightened and tightened, making me gasp for air. Desperate to breathe, I glimpsed Ezreal, but he didn’t move as he watched me suffocating.
Darkness closed in around me, his glowing red eyes the last thing I saw as all the light faded away.
Chapter 49
Everyone Dies
BLAKE
Idid not know how long I had been here, but if the deep ache in my body was an indicator, it had been a while. The more conscious I became, the more the pain spread through my arms. My back was against a wall, my arms above my head.
I jerked and my wrists caught on steel.
A pain far worse than the ache coursed through me.
