Page 14 of A Rising Hope (The Freckled Fate #3)

14

GIDEON

T here was only one thought in my mind as the world crumbled around me.

One thought was all I would allow myself to think.

Finnleah had to live.

She had to survive.

I didn’t let my mind process what my eyes saw. The heaps of dead, tortured bodies all over the ground and in the middle—her. Wounded. Motionless. Silent. Not a tremor. Not a shout or a whisper. A lovely body in a pool of blood.

No, I didn’t let my mind think. Didn’t let myself remember.

“Now, Godric!” I shouted into the void.

The giant poisonous thorns lunged at us.

The fire within me roared, begging to be let free, but I had to keep it leashed. Had to let my blood magic work, to take root. The urge to burn the Queen, to burn this castle and the whole damn world tortured me, but I kept it locked.

Not yet. Not now.

Everything happened all at once.

With a quick jump, Godric reached Finnleah’s broken body.

I threw myself against the rain of large thorns and vines as they shot through my body like a thousand arrows piercing my flesh, hungrily tearing it like wild beasts.

I glanced back only once.

Godric was already in the portal. Finnleah’s handless body over his shoulder.

He gave me a fleeting nod goodbye and a blink of confirmation.

A blink that I would never forget. One that I would hold on to for the rest of my life.

The Queen’s screeching cry erupted, hammering my eardrums as she realized what had happened. Because even as her thorns tore into my flesh, blinding me from pain, the portal was gone and so was Godric and with him, Finnleah.

“You!” she hissed, stumbling past the mutilated bodies scattered all over the room. “You, fucking idiot! What have you done?!” she shouted, her eyes turning inhumane, unnaturally senseless. Shadows matching her fury rose in the room, swallowing any light within.

I sneered at her, ignoring the shuttering agony all over my body. The poison from the large spikes that threaded through me like needles on a cloth filled my veins.

“She would’ve died, and you could’ve lived, but now you will both die!” the Queen screeched as rage and indignation curled around her. She extended her hand, and a long Basalt Glass arrow appeared. The Queen marched towards me, blinded by her fury.

But I no longer cared.

Finnleah would live.

She would be safe.

I reached into the depths of my powers, ensuring their lingering hold.

The large thorns moved my body, my muscles no longer in control, vines stretching my arms out like ropes.

I didn’t look away, victoriously lifting my bloodied chin up.

A single flicker of fire and the pain could stop. The world could pause.

But I needed this minute. I needed this tragic loss.

“All this effort for nothing.” She slapped my face, but my body was numb from the pain, blinking in and out of consciousness. Black creeping vines like snakes twisted around my neck, choking me, but I held my head high. “I will kill you and then I will hunt her down,” the Queen replied, taking a gulp of Finnleah’s blood from her goblet. “And maybe it’s even better this way. Because I hope you watch helplessly from the Underworld as I torture and kill your Soulbond. I hope you listen to her scream as I tear her magic from her little by little until she is nothing but a husk. Then I am going to keep her body alive for eternity, so you two are never reunited in the Beyond,” she spat, her saliva landing on my face. “I really should’ve done this a long time ago.” The Queen leaned closer to my face. “Tell that bitch Diamara I say hi.” Then she shoved the Basalt Glass arrow straight through my heart.

And Death welcomed me at last.