Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
The king hauls Zoey out, even as she screams Rhys’s and my names. He simply picks her up and walks out, leaving the rest of us behind.
I feel one of the rebels die, his soul lifting up from his body even before it falls to the ground under the guard’s sword. I see the spirit, shock on his ghostly face as he is pulled toward the wizard.
He doesn’t even have to try. He simply reaches out a hand and drags the soul into his body, light flashing as he is absorbed.
My body aches as I reach out, trying to drag him back, but I don’t know how. The impulse is there. It rushes under my skin, but the knowledge is far from me.
I should know. I did know. Once I was this magic and this magic was me.
Swords clang and I’m surrounded by the grunts and groans of battle. Rhys tackles me, taking me to the floor.
I feel his power trying to flare but it’s dampened. Myrddin is working some mojo, and I would bet they took out all of the rebel’s witches. Myrddin knew about Rhys and his powers, so they are ready for him.
What he isn’t ready for is me.
The trouble is I’m only now starting to figure out I have power at all. It’s right there. Right in my fingertips, but I can’t quite make it work. Terror thrums through me because I can’t watch this happen to him. Not to Rhys.
I held back for so long. So long, and now I’m here and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I lose him, I lose the best part of me. I lose the us we can be. I can’t.
“We have to go.” Lee is suddenly standing over us. “The wizard is held back by the wards, too, but he’s taking them down. It won’t be long before he’s at full power and can kill us all with a glance. I’ll take you to the temple. We’ll be safe there.”
Rhys hauls me up and barely avoids taking a sword to his shoulder. It comes down and hits the ground and Rhys whirls me away. By the time I can look over his shoulder, Lee is gutting the Fae with what I’m sure is cold iron. I see the man’s soul begin to leave his body and like the others, it’s drawn to the wizard, who doesn’t even look up from weaving whatever spell he’s working as the male’s immortal soul is sucked into his body. And that male was his ally. He doesn’t discriminate. He will take them all into his greedy soul.
Sasha makes his way to us, fighting them off with his bare hands. His fangs are out and there’s blood coating his tunic as he grabs Rhys’s arm. “We’re going now.”
Lee nods. “We take them to the temple. The king’s men can’t get in.”
I hear a cry and then it feels like the whole world goes still.
Neil. Fae Neil is in one of the last guard’s arms, and I watch as he drags a blade over his throat and bright red blood begins to flow.
“Uncle,” Lee shouts, but it’s far, far too late.
Rhys grabs his brother’s hand. “You can’t save him.”
“I can’t…” Lee’s face is pale, his eyes tortured. “They’ll eat his soul. They’ll exterminate everything he is and was and could be again. I can’t…”
Neil’s soul floats from his body, a confused look on his face, and then he’s searching for something. For Lee. He holds a hand out but he’s already getting sucked into the vortex that is Myrddin’s soul.
I can’t. I know him. I know I don’t know this Neil, but I know him. I know the beautiful, loving, funny variation of him, and I cannot let this pass.
Something opens deep inside of me, something warm and powerful. Like a fire or a boiling pot. Like warmth in winter. That heat flows through me. Strange. I thought any death power would be cold, but there is infinite warmth in this, a calling and longing. There is love in this power.
I hold out my hand, and Neil’s soul freezes as though caught between the two of us.
Myrddin interrupts his under-the-breath chanting. Lee said he was pulling down the wards that held magic from this space, but he stops because those wards aren’t holding mine at all.
My magic is older than any ward. Wards exists because of my magic. Everything exists because of this sweet heat and light flowing through my veins.
But I am small now. Where once I was infinite, I am now defined and trapped in flesh. I don’t completely understand the images flowing through me. They aren’t images, exactly. Colors and feelings and impressions of mist and time and a man weeping at what he must do.
Myrddin’s eyes glow as he directs his power toward the soul we fight over.