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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A lexei’s horrified shout meets my ears as I collapse.

He catches me as I fall, his big arms a welcome pressure around my back, supporting my head and neck. “Tansy!”

In the distance, Mother Kadris’s quickly blurring figure screams another spell, and Alexei’s upper arm swings in her direction, clearly against his will.

One of the rubies zips out of his hold before he clenches his fist, trying to hold on to the others, supporting me with one arm while his other is stretched beyond endurance.

He clenches his teeth, clutching on to the stones and me at the same time.

“You can’t die here. It’s forbidden.” He forces sound between his teeth. “This can’t be happening…”

I fight the pain and the threatening dark, straining upward to reach for his arm, wrapping my fingers around it. Lock.

His fist closes, holding the rubies tightly, but it’s taking everything left in me to maintain the spell.

Mother Kadris shouts, “She can heal herself if she stops fighting me, Alex. If she doesn’t, nothing will save her. It’s her choice.”

I try to catch his attention. “I can do this. I can hold on.”

“What’s more important to you, Alex?” calls Mother Kadris. “The rubies or her life?”

“I can do it,” I whisper again, my vision blurring, Alexei’s gray eyes fading from my view. “I can…”

His voice reaches me through a wash of pain. “I can’t lose you, Tansy. My light. My sunshine. I don’t need the rubies. I need you.”

My heart is breaking. How can he need me if he doesn’t love me?

I sense the power growing around him, the power he used to drain mine before. It steals into my torso and arms, into my mind, drawing my own magic away, weakening the lock on his arm…

My grip loosens. I try to hold on, but he bends his head, pressing his lips to mine, a terrible distraction.

The lock breaks?—

His fist opens, and the gems fly right into Mother Kadris’s waiting hands.

He deliberately let them go.

She smiles and shuts off the pain spell. The emerald light fades.

Alexei drags me into his chest, closing down his power, whispering to me, “Heal yourself.”

The healing spell rises to my mind, golden words as clear as if they were written in the air in front of me. I give him a nod of permission, screaming as he wrenches the stem from my stomach.

Words quickly slip from my tongue, and my healing spell glows around us, lighting up the worry in his eyes before I sense my wound knitting together.

He drops his head to mine, pressing a kiss to my forehead, but as the pain recedes, I realize…

I didn’t write a healing spell on the leaves attached to me.

I search his eyes. I’m still weak, but I want to fight. “The rubies?”

He shakes his head. “Let them go.”

Craning her neck to hear us, Mother Kadris calls out, “Don’t you want the rubies back? I promise I’ll give them to you once I have Tansy’s soul. I always honor my deals.”

Alexei slides an arm around my waist, helping me rise. He brushes the hair from my face, plants a kiss against my cheek, and says, “I don’t care about the rubies.”

Mother Kadris floats closer. “But your mother gave them to you.”

He holds me tightly as he roars, “Give up already! My mother is in my past. Tansy is my future. You can’t have her soul.”

Mother Kadris draws nearer, peering at him. “Why not, Alex?”

“Because… I…”

She scoffs. “Because what? You love her? You’re incapable of love.”

He turns to me, ignoring her. “If this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

I press my palm against the hand he holds to my cheek. So many people tell someone they love them without ever being willing to give up everything for the one they claim to love. Alexei has always shown me more love than I ever expected.

Mother Kadris taunts, “What about you, Tanzanina ? Are you prepared to walk away, damaged and broken? You didn’t get the revival spell. You lost the rubies. Are you really prepared to accept that?”

I close my eyes, then turn my cheek into Alexei’s palm, planting a kiss inside his wrist before I take his hand in mine and turn to her. “You were right, Mother Kadris. Part of me was broken, but it wasn’t my power. It was my belief in myself.”

Spells whoosh through my mind, so many to choose from…

“Through darkest night and brightest day, strongest heart will never stray, but stay the course, reverse the time, give back what’s lost…”

Her eyes widen. She takes a step back.

I smile before I complete the spell. “What’s lost is mine.”

The rubies fly out of her hand, wrenched away from her.

She tries to hold on to them, snatching at them as they fly ahead of her. Her feet race as she pursues them. She leaves the ground and leaps just as Alexei plucks the stones out of the air.

Her hand closes over his. The air sizzles, and her eyes widen.

Her lips part, she inhales, tries to wrench backward, starts to scream?—

Crimson light explodes between them, knocking me to the side. I tumble and right myself, jumping to my feet, ready to defend Alexei.

I freeze.

Their hands are still locked, both of them kneeling, facing each other. But now Alexei’s hands are closed over hers.

Tears stream down Mother Kadris’s face, her free palm pressed to her heart.

Alexei’s expression is stunned, fierce, his eyebrows drawn down, but with a single word it sounds as if his heart is both breaking and healing. “Mother.”