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She collapsed in my arms, and I held her and cried with her until neither of us had anything left but rage.

Nineteen

Isolde

I woke up crying.

At first it was because of my memory of Ana, and then I cried for myself.

Adrian lay beside me, and I turned into him, burying my face in his chest, weeping harder. He held me gently and whispered love to me while he kissed my hair.

It took me a while to speak, to form words beyond the sobs wracking my body, and I held onto Adrian harder, almost as if I feared someone would tear me away from him.

I don’t know how long I cried, but what brought words to my lips was the realization that I still wore Violeta’s necklace.

“How is Ana?…Violeta?”

When Adrian spoke, his voice was quiet, warm, and pained. “Ana is healed but she has not woken up yet.”

“And Violeta?”

He was quiet and I shifted to meet his gaze. “Adrian.” My voice trembled. “How is Violeta?”

He looked far more pale than usual, and he swallowed before he spoke, the words escaping his colorless lips in a whisper. “She didn’t make it.”

I shook my head. “She had to have.”

If Ana and I made it, there was no other explanation. Why were we alive if she was dead?

I could not grasp it, could not accept it—wouldn’t.

“Isolde,” Adrian said gently.

“No—” My voice broke, and I dissolved into tears once more.

Adrian pulled me to him, and time passed in this turbulent manner—where I would cry and then sleep, overcome with exhaustion, and wake up once more in tears.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

He waited so long to speak, I didn’t think he would tell me, but then he started. “Sorin,” he said. “He found me in Cel Ceredi. He left you all in the grove, surrounded by villagers from Gal who thought they were doling out justice against witches.”

A wave of nausea soured the back of my throat.

This was Solaris’s fault.

“Why are you saying it like that?” I asked. “Why are you saying he left us?”

I felt defensive. I remembered hearing the low growls of aufhockers disturbing our casting, and the sounds of Sorin battling, but beyond that, I knew nothing because by then, we had been attacked. I wondered how the villagers had managed to slip past the monster or monsters attacking Sorin.

“Because that is what he did,” Adrian said.

“He could not help it,” I said. “There were…so many. It was almost as if they knew we were going to be there.”

Adrian was tense beneath me. I did not think he blamed Sorin for having to leave for help, so much as he blamed himself for not being there at all.

“How is Sorin?” I asked.

“Devastated,” Adrian replied, and I could tell he spoke with his jaw clenched. “He says he heard a growl and thought it was an aufhocker. Then he heard another and thought it might be a pack. When he shifted, he found he was surrounded by villagers, and by then, you had all been attacked. They were lying in wait.”