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He moved closer to the altar, deftly avoiding my aunt’s blows, and I saw my chance.

My body trembled as I reached deep within myself, grasping hold of the dark, roiling currents of magic I had always known were there.

My grandfather’s gaze fell upon me. I saw the malevolence in his eyes. He would take and take and take until there was nothing left.

But it didn’t have to be that way. Not when I could stop this. Now.

With a primal, mutinous scream, I launched myself, sitting up on the altar and throwing myself towards him. My arms wrapped tightly around his steely, corded neck.

His furious cry echoed through the grove like the stampeding of thunder through the clouds.

I knew he saw me as a momentary impediment. Nothing more.

From across the grove, I heard my aunt cry out my name.

From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed my uncle running towards us, and I smiled. Fitting that his would be the last face I ever saw.

And then, with a blinding flash of light, I imploded.

Like a prisoner breaking free of the chains that had bound them for so long, I surrendered myself to the darkness, wrapping my manacles around myself and my grandfather and strangling us with them.

We were both one with the darkness now.

As my vision faded to black, I reached out my mind and felt the heartbeat of the stars.

CHAPTER 40 - DRAVEN

I coughed, feeling dust leave my lungs. There was a ringing in my ears. I felt the roughness of the ground beneath me, the jagged edges of broken stone digging into my skin.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows. Across from me, Morgan lay sprawled stomach-down on the ground.

Crawling towards her, I gently flipped her onto her back, brushing pieces of broken stone and grit off her pale cheeks.

Pale. So pale. Her eyes were closed. Her body was still.

I touched a finger to her throat. She wasn’t breathing. There was no rise or fall to her chest.

Heart hammering with adrenaline, I lowered my lips to hers, breathing in life as my hands moved against her chest, compressing again and again.

A cough. A sputter. She stirred beneath my touch.

A gasp escaped her lips as her chest began to rise and fall.

She turned her head, looking up first at me, then scanning our surroundings, taking in the devastation that surrounded us.

We had fallen from heaven and somehow survived.

Around us lay the twisted wreckage of Perun’s palace, the remnants of our battle scattered like fallen leaves on the wind. Chunks of white marble littered the ground like fallen stars, their surfaces marred by cracks. Shattered pieces of gold glinted dully amidst charred wood and smoldering ruins.

Morgan was pushing herself up. I helped her to her feet.

The Black Mountain lay not far off in the distance. We were back where we had started.

A shouting broke through the ringing in my ears.

“Here! I’ve found them! Come quickly!”

Morgan looked at me in silence, tears trickling down her face.