Crack.
A sound like a stick snapping. I whipped my head in the other direction. There was someone there, on the ground. She did not seem to notice me and tried to stand up but quickly stumbled.
I rushed forward, catching her around the waist.
“Are you okay?” I asked, but she did not answer me.
When I lifted her into my arms, I was stunned by how young she was. I looked in the direction she had come from and walked a short distance before finding a small cabin.
The door stood open.
When I entered the small kitchen, I stared at the woman on the floor. She looked like the girl who was unconscious in my arms.
This was Ezreal’s doing.
Fury flooded me as I clutched the girl tightly.
I would not let him hurt her, too.
I rushed to the door intending to get her as far away as possible, but the black mist had returned. I fought it, but like before, it pulled at me from deep within, the darkness latching onto my everi and pulling me under.
In the darkness, I saw Ezreal’s bright red eyes before anything else.
I clutched the girl tightly, my anger at what he had made me do, and what he had done to that woman seeping out of me in dark tendrils of everi.
The mist retracted and the dungeon training hall reformed around me.
“Why?” I growled.
He looked down at the girl.
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “Set her down.”
“No,” I said. “And if you harm her, I will tell my father you are dabbling in forbidden techniques.”
Ezreal’s expression never changed.
“Your father already knows.”
“What? He approved of this?”
“You’re out of your depth, Prince Rykiren,” he said. “The girl will not be harmed but she does not belong here.”
I clutched her tighter and summoned my everi.
I had dreamed of the day I would see Ezreal dead at my feet ever since Roslyn was taken prisoner. I called for his blood, ready for this to be over.
But the warm spray never came.
Instead, Ezreal’s everi latched onto me like claws, and the pain seared through me before I lost all connection to reality.
Even as I fell to my knees, I kept hold of her for as long as I could, until everything slipped away into darkness.
“Where is she?”
Ezreal stared out at the city, dark clouds low in the sky.
“It is not of your concern,” he said.
