The Ruin suddenly fell silent, and Reyna jerked up her head just in time to see the sword swinging toward her face. She gasped and ducked down, her knees slamming into the hard stone. In the background, Lorcan roared. He slammed his hands against the bars, and strangely, the iron began to bend.
“REYNA!” The fear in his voice matched her own. She scuttled back as the wood king’s sword hurtled toward her once more.
With a racing heart, she jumped to her feet and opened every single part of her to the Ruin. She ground her teeth together as the magic surged through her blood. She pushed at that power, shoving it toward the edges of her skin. Magic hissed as it slipped from her, swirling out of her body like a thousand tiny ants. The ash rushed through the hall, swirling with a vengeance that knocked the closest warriors to the floor. The ash rained down on their faces, burning them instantly.
Reyna pushed, squeezing her eyes shut tight as her head began to spin. She reached up to her neck and clutched the ice glass, just like the Ruin had said.
The dizziness stopped. The Ruin spun from her body, swirling before her, and blocking the wood king’s advance.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, his voice full of fear for the first time since Reyna had laid eyes on him. He stumbled away from her as the storm continued to bleed out of her body, rushing and whorling through the hall.
The ash blew toward the cages along the back wall.
“NO,” she gritted out, her vision faltering. “That way.”
She lifted a finger and pointed at the king. The Ruin slowed to a stop. The ash swirled away from Lorcan. More of the magic seeped from her skin. The dizziness slammed into her head once again with full force. She clutched at the ring as she fell to her knees, bowing over at the blinding pain crashing through her head.
She heaved as the final remnants of the power left her. The world spun beneath her, turning her upside down until she was no longer sure where the sky ended and the ground began. Through bleary eyes, she looked up.
The wood king growled, his face blurred by the swirling ash. “You think you can take me out with some dark magic? I have Unseelie’s power inside me. I am blessed by the gods.”
“You aren’t blessed by anything,” she ground out, sagging against the floor. Her cheek hit the stone, providing her a view of the Ruin’s destruction. Almost every wood fae warrior inside the hall had vanished into piles of ash. Char stretched up the walls, melting together with the black stone that had built this castle.
“Reyna!” Lorcan shouted. She could hear the creak of the iron bars bending beneath his force. How was he doing that?
She wanted to crane her head toward him, but she couldn’t. She had to command the Ruin before it turned its ash on her.
“In,” she commanded it, trying to force her will upon the wild magic that had never listened to anyone else before now. “Go inside Ulaid Molt. And end this, once and for all. Become the protector you were always meant to be.”
Electric magic shattered her mind. Sparks of fire blazed on her skin, burning her up completely. And then all her strength left her. The entire world went dark.
47
Lorcan
Lorcan ripped open the iron bars and grabbed a fallen sword from the ground. He raced toward Reyna, where she’d collapsed beneath the force of the magic whorling from her skin. He had never seen anything like it before. Dark shadows had drifted from her body, spinning up into a whirlwind of ash. It had swept through the entire hall, killing everyone but the shadow fae trapped inside the cages.
And now it was hurtling straight toward the wood king.
The magic shoved inside of him, punching into his armor like a steel fist. The wood king’s eyes went wide as the Ruin filled his form. Lorcan slid to a stop beside Reyna, pressing a hand to her cold cheek. She was still breathing.
With a growl, he flicked his gaze up at the king.
Molt’s eyes were wild; his cheeks were pale. When he spoke, his voice sounded like the scratch of a pen against parchment. “What is this?”
Lorcan slowly stood, clutching the sword in both his hands. “You never should have gone up against Reyna Darragh. She’s given you a little gift. It’s called the Ruin.”
Molt shuddered as the magic stormed through him. Soon, the Ruin would rip him apart, shattering his soul into a million pieces. But as Lorcan waited for the inevitable, Molt began to laugh. The eerie sound echoed off the stone walls.
“You think you can kill me that easily?” Molt’s body shook as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. “Do you not know what I am? What I have living inside of me?”
Lorcan edged closer to the king, his heart thumping. “I know exactly what you are, Molt, which is why you won’t survive another day.”
“The Ruin can’t kill me,” Molt sneered. “I feast on blood and bone. Unseelie’s powerful magic fills my lungs with air. It breathes life into my limbs. And it protects me from magic just like this.”
Frowning, Lorcan watched as the king shuddered against the force of the Ruin. But he did not fall. If anything, the smile on his face made it seem like he enjoyed it.
Dread pooled in Lorcan’s gut as Reyna’s words began to echo in his head. She’d survived the Ruin, too. Because she’d been gifted Seelie’s magic to protect her. He wet his lips, edging closer to Molt. If Unseelie’s powers were inside him, protecting him…
