“I’m not doing this again. You. Will. Not. Leave. Me.” I gripped her shuddering body tight and pressed my hand against the seeping wound, but blood spilled between my fingers, taking my sisters life force with it.
Not again. Not this.
Anything but this.
“Lia,” she whispered, just before her eyes fluttered shut.
There was one final rattling breath.
Then nothing.
A deafening scream reverberated through me, bouncing off my skull and flooding my ears. Agony pierced me in a never-ending stream of sizzling fire, through my chest to tear apart my heart, my very soul. Obliterating my world in an explosion I would never recover from.
Time lost all meaning as I held her close, her body heavy in my lap. Her chest no longer rose, and no sound passed her lips. I stared at her face framed by those wild curls I’d brushed every night. She looked as if she were sleeping, were it not for the deep-red blood coating her lips.
I would never see her bright smile again. Never hear her soft laugh or teasing jokes.
She was gone.
My sweet, perfect baby sister.
The ringing cut off, my throat hoarse and dry. Tears poured hot and acidic down my face, dripping into my still-open mouth but doing little to moisten my tongue. I screamed silently, suffocating in the truth.
After a while, other sounds reached me, registering as distressing.
Shouts. Clashing blades. Cries of pain.
Then another sound, one I would know anywhere.
“Adelia.” He didn’t yell, but I could still hear his voice over the echoing sounds in the chamber.Shade.
I pushed through the darkness swallowing me in pain, blinking through the haze of my tear-filled eyes to find him. He was all I had now. I wouldn’t fail him as I’d failed my sister.
When I found him, another feeling sparked in my chest, igniting a small flame that had been doused by crushing agony. Shade fought several soldiers at once on the other side of the room. Sword in hand, he was locked in an intense battle with Gensen as other men attacked him from every angle. Tendrils of smoke danced around him, and he ducked and swerved and jabbed.
Harkin’s still unconscious form lay several feet away, Wista crouched behind him, using his body as a shield from the fighting men.
I searched the room for another man, the one I would destroy even if it took every last breath in my body to do so. King Terym stood half behind a now-conscious Pierce, who was sitting upright. What caught my attention though wasn’t the distraught cowardly king, but the man in front of him.
Pierce was stock still, sword still sheathed at his side. He wasn’t looking at Shade and the men he fought or paying attention to the king behind him. No—he was staring at me, pure anguish slashed across his features so intensely it rooted me to the spot.
Not me, he was staring at my arms, where my sister lay motionless.
My sister who wasdead.
My breathing stalled, and I hugged her tighter to me. Protectively.
A shout of pain drew my eyes in time to catch Shade withdrawing his sword from Gensen’s side. He lined the blade up to his exposed throat, thrusting forward to end the captain’s life, but as the point met his skin, it rebounded and flung from Shade’s hand, clattering against the stone out of reach.
He couldn’t kill them.
He could fight them, maim them, but not make a killing blow. He was bound by ancient magic, unable to take a life in his current form.
But if he was freed from the shackles of the lamp, he could.
My wish would save him. I would save him.
If Terym survived, his wrath would be inescapable, but I had nothing left to live for. Nothing but the man who fought with his bare fists against several men at one.
