No.
It couldn’t end this way.
Rannirr’s eyes were locked onto Alianna’s grief-stricken face as he stood only a foot from her now, his putrid scent filling her nostrils.
She felt panic rising in her stomach as victory seemed so near, so within her reach – and death so incredibly close.
“Oh, you poor girl. You really thought you could make a difference for Rionan, didn’t you?” Rannirr purred. “So easily misled by such a pathetic, weak Lord. I have been alive for almost three times as long as Rionan, little mouse. I have been planning my conquest for centuries. Was this hisgrand plan? Sending a fragile, weak, breakable human to try and stop me?”
In between his words, Rannirr brought his hand up in front of his face and clenched it into a fist. The power wrapped around Alianna’s ankles clenched against her bones, tightening slowly, until she began to feel her ankles fracture and crack. She tried to fight the cry that threatened to escape her, but couldn’t stop it from spilling out.
“That’s it, little mouse. Your Lord is below, somewhere. Let him hear you. Let him know how easy it was for me to break his little human saviour.”
Rannirr cupped her chin. Repulsion ripped through Alianna at his touch.
“Now, whatever he has sent you up here with, be a good little mouse and hand it over, hmm? Lest I crush you where you stand and pluck it from your corpse.”
As panic rose in Alianna’s throat, she found herself clenching the bag and the stone within her arms, unwilling to let go.
And that’s when an idea crossed her mind.
She just had to get the stone into the Well, which now lay behind her. One way or another.
If she stayed here with Rannirr, she would die, if for no other reason than to torture Rionan.
Alianna thought of Ulreah’s brave sacrifice.
She thought of his final words: for Xanthia.
She thought of Rionan, somewhere below her.
And before she could think of anything else at all, she reached out her hands and pushed hard against Rannirr’s chest.
The move seemed to take him by surprise, the tendrils around her ankles weakening ever so slightly.
Alianna propelled herself backwards off the turret wall. As her feet slipped and she began falling, what she had intended to do seemed to dawn on Rannirr.
He reached down for her, his face twisted into a mask of pure hatred. The male who had been so desperate to mock a human, who taunted her knowing that Rionan would be able to feel her pain and terror, was now realising that this arrogant act had cost him.
Alianna fell through the air towards the Well beneath, the stone clutched in her arms, still half-inside the leather bag Rionan had given her.
She scrunched her eyes closed.
Awaiting the impact of whatever would meet her when she collided with Rionan’s power.
43
The Well
The familiar static of Rionan’s power wrapped around Alianna, as the night sky and world above her disappeared from view.
There was only her and his power. Nestled here, within Xanthia itself.
She felt the energy caress her body, run through her hair, warming her skin like the summer sun on a cloudless day. She was engulfed in a nest of glorious yellow light which cradled her, like the dawn welcoming the sun.
Alianna did not expect this to feel so peaceful.
Home.
