All around them fire licked at rancid hay, and stagnant water boiled in the troughs, yet they remained unharmed. She struggled to sit upright, cradling her baby close, yet she didn’t seem afraid of me, didn’t seem shocked by what I’d done.
And why would she.
She was like me.
Bred and harvested, created and farmed.
Holding the little girl tight, I bolted up the pathway—leaping over roughly-hewn stairs and careening around corners as fire feasted on me.
It found my bloodlust. It liked it. It accepted yet another piece of my soul in return for power great enough to unmake the world.
Smoky ember wings erupted from my back, granting inhuman speed as I tore through the mountain.
Chapter Sixty-Six
BRANCHES TORE AT MY ARMS. ROOTS lunged for my ankles.
I didn’t notice or care.
The cold turned into my enemy as I bolted.
All I could think about, all I could focus on, was finding Lucien before it was too late.
Why had he left?
How long did we have?
Didn’t he understand we had to stay close? That distance was killing us? That the longer we spent apart, the worse we would become until our bodies broke?
Run!
I didn’t have much time.
He didn’t have much time—
I clawed at my chest as another icicle stabbed my heart with its icy, awful dagger.
Running hurt. Breathing hurt. I left a trail of frost with every footfall.
I left via the back gate in the Whispering Dragon wall. I didn’t tell Dillon. I didn’t have time. But I left a trail for him to find us, coating the world in white as I ran and ran andran.
The bond inside me was pulling, tugging,jerking.
Snippets of Lucien kept spilling into my head.
A dead child. A newborn baby. A slaughter.
I had to go to him. Help him.
Run, run, run!
The ice inside me snarled to go faster, faster,faster—pushing me to find Lucien so he could stop my creeping, freezing takeover.
I ran as hard as I could, my bare feet bleeding.
Why hadn’t I put on shoes?
How could I be so stupid?
