“I might,” I snort.
I order my shadows to place him on the floor, and once he’s flat on the ground, my shadows splay themselves over his writhing body.
“Let him scream.”
Immediately, my shadows retreat from his mouth, and Fynn begins to cough loudly.
“You two are fucking insane!” He froths.
“Perhaps,” I smile at him.
Reiner closes in, the sickle hovering over Fynn’s body, who follows every movement with a hitched breath, and I can almost hear his frightened heart thumping loudly against his ribcage. It’s cathartic.
With the tip of the blade, Reiner drags a thin line across Fynn’s wrist, which my shadows hold up in offering. Small beads of blood start to swell, as the nick turns into a cut, the color is the brightest red I’ve ever seen.
“Beautiful,” I murmur.
Fynn, on the other hand, struggles against the suffocating hold he is in, a raw cry tearing from his throat, the sound sharp like fractured glass. I glower at him.
“Shut up, Fynn,” I sneer, his name bitter on my tongue. “Cut deeper,” I order Reiner.
I watch as the blade sinks into Fynn’s tender flesh, the skin parting, the ridges curling up slowly. More blood begins to spill, and I shove the first vial under his wrist. A tiny river of crimson crawls across his skin, leaking into the glass. It’s mesmerizing.
A muffled scream presses past his lips, and I feel a slight tremble in my shadows as he claws at them. His body rages against the confines, wild and unwilling, and that’s when I sense it before it catches my eye—a tiny spark—a flicker, like lightning cracking through the sky. The illumination within my shadows appears and disappears just as swiftly.
I blink.
“Reiner… did you see that as well?”
Reiner is taunting Fynn, the sickle now on his throat, nicking the skin there, while he uses his fog to frost over the minor wounds.
“See what, my love?”
I shake my head. I must have imagined it. I switch the first vial for an empty one, and push the cork in to seal the blood.
“Never mind,” I mumble.
I hold the blood in front of me, daylight filtering through it, and I swear I see a faint shimmering in it. Even their blood is lighter than ours, I think to myself sourly.
A new wail rips from Fynn’s chest, and this time, Reiner sees it too, an ember that ignites. A golden hue begins to spread over Fynn’s skin, and I hiss as I retreat my shadows, the glow painful. Although not as sharp as in the flower field, my mind is instantly back in that moment, the burns I endured, the torturous pain I suffered athishands. I can’t do that a second time; I refuse to do it again.
I feel Reiner’s eyes on me, observing me. He notices the crippling fear that begins to spread throughout my body, paralyzing me, as Fynn slowly gets to his unsteady feet. His dormant witch side must have awakened at the imminent threat that was brought to him by our doing, the foresight of being our captive, suffering abuse each time we want to take his blood. The idea of him having similar powers to the Aurum, the way he wielded it against me that day, horrifies me. I am unable to confront him, as terror begins to wrap itself around me, clasping me in its cold, unmoving fist.
Instead of attacking Fynn, my body shuts down, the trauma overpowering me, and I collapse to the floor, curling myself up into a ball. The fear locks my breath and stills my bones. I softly rock my body, hoping all of it will be over soon.
Reiner moves fast, his footsteps tracing over the wooden floor.Thud, thud, thud.I listen as the blade of the sickle slides through the air, meeting what it seeks. Skin is being split apart, its echo skittering off the walls, as metal collides with tender flesh, the squelching sound turns the dense silence into something unholy. The metallic tang fills my lungs as I inhale deeply. I barely register the blood-chilling scream that erupts from Fynn’s throat, or the warm splatters of blood that paint my skin scarlet. None of it matters. All of it is a blur.
Fynn falls beside me, his body limp. The sound of his skull hitting the floor and the soft crack that follows is unsettling. Those gray eyes of his dart until they find mine and fixate, as if I’m still his beacon of comfort. His lips move, words are trying to spill, to find me, but all I see are globs of blood pooling from his mouth instead. His throat is a gaping hole, where the blade of the sickle was yanked through with force. My eyes dip to the half-cut trachea, responsible for his muted speech, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to hear his words or his voice. A breathless whimper escapes me, as I can’t tear my eyes from the beautiful boy, while his soul slowly escapes the mortal cage that it once called home. Silent tears well in the corners of his gray eyes. He continues to move his lips, as if he’s having a conversation with me, and perhaps, in his mind, he is. Fynn lifts his hand toward me, only for it to slump down halfway before it can reach its destination, my face.
Fynn’s eyes glaze over, his pupils stop moving, and then his lips freeze in time as well. I let out a shaky breath, slowly sitting up. All of it felt like hours, but it was merely a few seconds. Reiner throws aside the small weapon and crashes next to me, pulling me against his chest, cradling me. His fingers rake lovingly through my hair, then he wraps me in a tighter embrace, his chin resting on the top of my head.
“He’s gone, my love,” he whispers.
His warmth is comforting, but the more I come to my senses, the more I realize what Reiner’s action means. Fynn’s blood, our magical supply, all of it gone. I loosen the embrace and glance up at Reiner.
“His blood, we—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“When will you understand, Caria? You are all that anchors me to this world, the only soul I cherish. Seeing you in distress like that will never be worth it, nor will I ever play with your life to keep that bastard around, only for him to take you away from me. I would rather let the world crumble to ash than allow your life to be toyed with or torn from my grasp. You are who I love, you are who matters, you always have been. If protecting you means that I cast aside every ambition we ever held, then I will let them rot. I love you, Caria. I need you to be safe.”
