Amity loosed a shaky breath and opened her arms. “You forgot to give us hugs.”
Viri scrunched her nose. “Really, Mom? I’ll be, like, twenty steps away.”
“She gave me a hug and a kiss, too,” Braedan reminded Viri. “Just let her do it, or we’ll be here all day.”
Blowing out a breath, Viri walked back and let her mom embrace her, then her dad, both of them squeezing fiercely, as if they didn’t want to let hergo.
“We love you, darling,” Jorth said, his voice husky. “We’ll be—We’ll be right here watching, just like with Brae.”
“Don’t try to force anything with the obelisk,” Amity warned, her fingers clenched in front of her, as if she were stopping herself from hugging her daughter again. “Just—Just let it take what it wants. Don’t fight it. And definitely don’t try to take anything from it.”
Braedan frowned. “How would you even do that?” He seemed confused, but reassured Viri by saying, “It feels a bit like knocking over a bucket of water—by the time you realize your ellixen is gone, it’s already done. There’s nothing to fight, nothing to take back. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” They shared a look only siblings could, mutually agreeing their parents were just being weird.
“No fighting the obelisk,” Viri dutifully promised her mom and dad. “Got it.”
With that, she turned and hurried away before they could change their minds about letting her Impart today, her thoughts on the garlic chicken and crispy potatoes that awaited her at the Juniper Grill when this was over. But when she came to a stop before the obsidian stone, her hunger was replaced by butterflies rioting in her stomach.
Viri had never been this close to an obelisk before. A heavy, insistent humming vibrated over her skin and into her bones, causing goosebumps to rise on her flesh and her blood to stir in her veins. It was like she couldfeelthe power within the stone, like the air was saturated with magic. There were times in her life when she’d felt a prickle of ellixen no one else seemed to notice, but she’d never experienced anything this strong before, like something deep inside her was calling out to the obelisk—or perhaps the obelisk was calling out to her.
Braedan hadn’t said anything about this. Nor had her parents.
Viriwasn’t sure if she was more anxious or exhilarated by the strange sensations electrifying her nerves, but she was wholly mesmerized by the power she felt, and helpless to resist stretching her hand out toward the stone.
The moment she touched it, a gasp left her—
And her world exploded.
Fire—she was onfire. Only, there were no flames, just a searing, agonizing burn spreading across her body as pure energy—puremagic—flowed from the obelisk into her. A suffocating, possessive feeling encompassed her, like the stone was searching for something while also claiming her as its own, a dark voice seeming to whisper, “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
The burning increased so much that Viri screamed, certain it was boiling her alive. She tried to yank her hand free, but whatever magic was coursing through her kept her trapped in place, connected to the very thing that felt as if it were killing her.
Another tortured scream left her, and through teary eyes she saw her mom and dad running forward while shouting at Braedan and Reeve to stay back. Terror gripped her at the sight, because while she didn’t know what was happening, she could tell it was so very wrong, and she didn’t want her parents anywhere near her. They were mere steps away when she threw her free hand out to warn them, but the most blistering surge of magic yet flooded into her from the obelisk, scorching like an inferno in her chest, before rushing down her outstretched arm—
And slamming into her parents.
Amity and Jorth barely had time for their eyes to widen in horror before the ellixen struck them, blasting them off their feet. Even Reeve and Braedan were blown backward by the shock wave, both landing in the angelrose hedge, looking dazed. But Viri’s parents weren’t looking dazed. They weren’t looking anything at all.
Because they weren’t moving from where they’d fallen.
The magic—
The obelisk’s magic—
Viri’smagic—
A strangled sob left her even as the burning continued to rise, but the flames were nothing compared to what she felt as she stared at her parents, their eyes open but unseeing, their bodies unnaturally still.
All the fire in the world couldn’t melt the icy numbness sweeping through Viri as she realized the horrible truth.
Her parents were dead.
And she’d killed them.
Viri wrenched herself out of the memory and leapt to her feet in front of the Guardian’s crackling green fireplace, tears streaming down her cheeks as she rasped out to everyone and no one, “I killed them.I killed them.”
Braedan hadn’t murdered their parents—shehad. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at Reeve. Couldn’t even look at the Guardian. Her mind was a mess, her grief so acute and shame so severe that it was impossible to string a rational thought together. The only thing she knew was confusion, having no idea what had gone so wrong with the obelisk, or why she’d been so certain of her brother’s guilt. The answers were within her now, the door to the memory unlocked, but she couldn’t bear returning to it yet, too overwhelmed by everything she was feeling.
The stone walls were closing in on her, her vision swirling as she tried to fill her lungs, but every ragged breath felt like daggers piercing her throat, her chest, herheart.
