Page 6

I stepped out of Indrasyl’s hollow and opened my eyes to a dark forest, my body bare like a wolf in the moonlight. As much as I wanted to run and howl with the energy swirling through my limbs, I knew I needed to return to the village.

The black dress Erovos had fashioned for me lay in a destroyed heap on the ground. I refused to put the horrid thing back on my body, but I couldn’t return to the village wearing nothing.

A notion struck me. If Erovos could create a dress of darkness, I could create one out of light.

I summoned pinpricks of Light upon my skin, allowing the specks to create luminous paths along my body.

Heavenly jewels draped down my chest and torso like liquid moonlight turned to fabric.

The Light clung to my waist and hips, sparkling against me until it flared out and trailed behind me in a radiant train.

I was dressed in a glimmering gown that looked as if millions of diamonds had been painstakingly placed upon my skin one stone at a time.

My senses were keen, hyperaware, and my ear twitched.

There were eyes on me .

My sharp gaze darted to a massive figure hiding behind a tree. His dull, mossy stare looked frightened and unsure.

“You can come out,” I said to Graem, and he slowly emerged from behind the tree.

“Master?” he asked, somehow looking filthier than when I saw him a few minutes ago. He always wore tattered clothes, but now they were threadbare and barely hanging on. Demil must have done a number on him when he escaped.

“He’s gone,” I said plainly.

“Master?” he asked, gesturing to me.

“No. You no longer have a master, Graem. Is there somewhere else you can go?” I asked. I didn’t want to hurt him. I knew he had been under Erovos’ control all this time.

He nodded his misshapen head, and for the first time, a spark of light shone in his flat eyes.

“Go there and never come back. Do you understand?”

He nodded again, his body twitching with eagerness.

“Good. Now, go!” I commanded, and without hesitation, he ran into the woods. The ground shook and trembled as he fled from what I could only assume was a life full of suffering.

I turned away from the giant and closed my eyes.

Home, I thought with the merest of whispers, and thousands of beautiful threads unraveled before me in a celestial chandelier. I gently searched through the strands until I found what I was looking for.

The shimmering thread to the Wyn village came easily. I gave it a gentle tug and rushed through a channel of stars until my feet landed on solid ground. I marveled at the grace with which I arrived just outside the village. I’d never traveled with such speed and elegance before.

My hair and dress tousled around me as I settled from my crossing in a beam of light. It came so naturally, unlike before when traveling had been such a struggle .

I welcomed in the sight of the village—a place I had come to call home since learning the Alcreon Light flowed within my veins. Teardrop domes bloomed on the horizon like wooden flower buds, and the forest brushed against the purple-and-sapphire sky.

I took a deep breath and curled my toes into the plush grass, but my brows knit together in confusion. The ground was pokey and dry—an odd sensation for a village that was perpetually verdant.

My gaze darted up as a bounding white wolf charged toward me, and I dropped to my knees. “Sabra!” I choked out. My heart soared at the sight of her.

After she attempted to save Ven, Graem had hurled her into a tree, where she’d lain lifeless and unmoving. The sound of her snapping in half still haunted me, but now she ran without the slightest limp.

How had Takoda mended her so quickly? The healer told me his medicines worked best on flesh and that bones were another matter.

The only plant capable of mending Sabra was a noxlily, but Rowen had used the last one on me in the Crystal Crypts.

Not enough time had passed for Takoda to grow more of the healing flower.

I batted the thought away. Who cared how she healed?

The wolf was here, strong and magnificent.

That was all that mattered. The desire to run my fingers through her billowing fur overwhelmed me, but as the wolf neared, she slowed, avoiding my outstretched hand.

Her nose sniffed the air as she circled a wide berth around me, not letting me touch her.

Amber eyes blinked at me from a distance, and she lowered her head and whimpered.

Fear immediately gripped me. The beautiful beast never faltered at my touch.

“Sabra, come here, girl. What’s wrong?” I asked, patting the dry grass. I reached for her again, but she turned away from me with a flick of her snout.

I watched in confusion as she darted back to the village. Disappointment quickly morphed into elation as I saw Rowen sprinting towards me in a desperate fury.

“Keira!” he shouted my name from across the field. Emotion swelled in my chest like an overflowing chalice, choking up my throat and welling in my eyes. Members of the village rushed behind him to greet me.

“Rowen,” I cried as I ran to his outstretched arms.

Rowen closed the distance between us and gathered me into a fierce embrace. But as soon as his hands landed upon my skin, he flew from my fingertips.

He catapulted across the sky, slamming into a tree with a devastating grunt. Fear cinched around my ribcage as I hunted for whoever attacked Rowen, ready to turn my hands on them and incinerate them into dust.

When I saw no one near, I sprinted towards Rowen, my dress trailing behind me in a stream of light. He let out a groan as he struggled to pull himself up.

I placed my hand on his arm, my murderous eyes scanning for whoever did this, but as soon as my skin touched Rowen’s, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he convulsed violently in my arms.

Repulsed, I yanked my hands away, realizing I was the one inflicting pain on the only person I had ever loved.

Ever since Rowen had emerged through the mist of my dreams, I felt an inexplicable pull toward him.

What began as a delusional attraction evolved into an earth-shattering love that spanned across galaxies.

But the man who owned my heart and soul wasn’t breathing, and something deep in my chest whipped in fear.

“Keira,” he finally gasped, and the breath I’d been holding loosened at the sound of his voice. “When I told you to learn to knock me on my ass, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

A ragged laugh puffed up my throat.

I turned to see the entire Wyn village gaping in terror, their star-kissed hair gently blowing in the midnight breeze. I whipped my head back to Rowen.

His gaze trailed up my body, but the more he took me in, the more his brow furrowed in confusion and awe. “You’re so beautiful,” he rasped. “Are you all right?”

“You’re worried about me?” I asked incredulously. “You’re the one who was just hurled into a tree.”

“I’m okay,” he grunted as he sat upright, clutching his shoulder.

The light from my dress cast a glow upon the dark hollows of his face, revealing a trail of blood dripping from his nose.

The red stain upon his skin curdled my insides, and slowly, I took in my surroundings. The villagers looked horrified; the plants that used to shimmer in my presence were dead, and the dried grass poked at me like needles.

The once lush village was dying.

Suddenly, darkness bubbled up inside me—thick, heavy, and rotting—taking root within me like a seed of decay.

Death enveloped me. It was everywhere, all around me. Within me.

Erovos was right; my body was failing. I could feel it dying a little more with each passing second.

Tears flooded my eyes as anguish crept up my throat and choked me. When suddenly, lightning struck a nearby tree and shook the earth.

The Wyn elves gasped as they dodged the violent bolt.

I could feel more than see Rowen reach for me, just as he always had. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face and clouding my vision. “I don’t want to hurt you. ”

Another bolt of lightning pierced through the nearest dome like a skewer. The Wyn scattered, trying to escape the sky. Escape me .

Takoda suddenly appeared beside me; his healing hands remained by his sides. “Star-touched, breath. Control yourself,” he soothed in my ear, but the death was too strong, and growing, and lightning struck again. I was harnessing the Alcreon Light in bolts of lightning, but I wasn’t controlling it.

I had no control.

Rowen’s impossibly strong arms clasped around me, his fingers interlocking behind my back. We were chest to chest, fully flushed, and he shuddered against me as I shocked him unwillingly.

“Keira,” he grunted in my ear, his body stiff as every one of his muscles strained from the current running through him.

My hair cracked and whipped around us as the sky roiled. The veins in Rowen’s neck bulged dangerously. I tried pushing him off me, but he didn’t budge. The stubborn bastard wasn’t letting go.

Rowen was going to stop me, or he was going to die trying.

The light in his green eyes faded as the ground erupted and splashed around us.

His eyes couldn’t close; I wouldn’t let them.

Whatever I was feeling right now would multiply if Rowen died—there would be no stopping my rage.

But the more I tried to gain control, the more I lost it. There was nothing I could do.

Suddenly, foreign arms wrapped around me from behind, trapping me between two walls of muscle. Both bodies pressed against me in an attempt to smother my celestial storm. Fear bolted through me as I waited for whoever was behind me to start convulsing.

But they never did.

“Stop,” a familiar yet unfamiliar voice begged against the curve of my ear. The stranger squeezed me tighter, his fingers digging into my skin. “You’re killing him.”

“I don’t know how to stop,” I cried as the two bodies pressed against every inch of me, but the men’s strength was no match for my raging tempest. I was inconsolable as more light exploded in chaos and destruction.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said before I was blasted with a Light that was mine yet wasn’t. It pulsed through me calmly, peacefully, and my body went limp.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Rowen crumpling to the ground in front of me.

I collapsed into the stranger’s arms, and the darkness I feared yet welcomed blanketed over me and carried me away.