Page 52

CORRESPONDING RIBS

SERYN

D estroy, my gift whispered urgently in my mind. But the demand wasn’t what it had once been. It wasn’t laced with malice or hunger. It was akin to the anticipation of a reunion. Of affinity.

Vaguely, I heard Gavrel’s words as he asked the question I’d posed earlier.

“Why, wi-with the Ancient of Nightmares, of course,” Elder Guust responded, as if it was obvious.

I stacked my spine, hand squeezing Gavrel’s.

“Phobetor? Are you bloody serious? Where the void has he been?” Kaden puckered his mouth and then chuckled. “I suppose in the Void.”

“What kind of deal? How do you remember that if she wiped your memories?” I murmured.

Marah’s glazed stare shifted to the protruding boulder.

“She wiped our minds clean often, but left some details behind. The mystery of what happened haunted us; a torment without an end. What I know is that we’ve outlived our life spans.

Ascension should have occurred long ago, but Melina’s made it her mission to hunt and annihilate anyone who could be a Scion.

She could never be certain of controlling or imprisoning a new Elder, and our blood bond intricately connects us and our enhanced gifts.

Her life’s purpose is to live and rule into eternity. ”

One of her hands fluttered toward the amber, and Endurst placed one of his on her shoulder.

“For the last century or so, Mel-Melina and the other Elders gathered us every so often. It’s like looking through clouded water, but there are glimpses of being d-down here.

Of th-that thing’s power shooting through us. ”

Marah cringed, her voice distant, as if she was drifting away in the sea of her lost cognizance.

“Melina’s fated. He … he wasn’t a good male.

He was cruel. Violent. Melina wasn’t always …

Their relationship twisted her into the monster she is today.

Something … something broke within her. And then she broke anyone who stood in her way.

” She dipped her chin, eyes closing. “She refused to die once her khorda was gone. So, she beseeched Phobetor. Agreed to his demands.”

My breaths came in uneven gasps. Melina’s footfalls were closer, the beat of them controlling my pulse. “We have to destroy this. She’s too close.”

“We’ll stall her. Do wh-what you must. I’ve no doubt a Nightshade is more than up to the task.” An encouraging smile lifted Endurst’s mouth as he and Marah went off to meet their peer. Matching looks of retribution flit across their features as their halos burned around them.

“Prophecy time,” I said, trying to convince myself that I was, in fact, up to the task. You can do this. You must. Pushing my jawline up and my shoulders back, my aura burst around me. My mantra bounced around my skull.

I am you, and you are me.

Blinking iridescence snapped over my skin, the patterns on my arms writhing. My fingers weaved until a gyrating ball of variegated radiance formed .

“You’ve got this,” Kaden murmured, allowing his clover-like halo to flicker. He wasn’t as apprehensive of my power as he once was.

Gavrel’s rune blazed as I pushed more power between my hands. The pull of Gavrel’s energy to mine droned through me. It wasn’t just that my aura was latching onto his—his was reaching for mine as well.

The orb was as big as my head now, and my heart stuttered as the center imploded, sucking in the light directly around it as a black hole would. It was like looking into the eye of another universe with twinkling stars caught in its web.

Through the intense buzz reverberating through my every sinew, Gavrel’s hand found my lower back. A tether to reality. Trembling, I bit down hard, concentrating and sifting my energy through my limbs.

“Let go, my star,” Gavrel whispered.

My forehead furrowed, and I followed the prickling burn driving up my spine, prodding it until it flamed through my arms and sank into the center of the twisting halo.

Fear and doubt gnawed at my confidence. I didn’t yet know what I was capable of, and Phantasos had stopped me when the void had formed before.

I am you, and you are me. I breathed in, held it, and then exhaled, wiggling my jaw.

Before the epicenter could get any bigger, I lobbed my creation toward the boulder, and it bonded with the carved surface and oozed over it. I continued to push my ember into it, my face pulling taut.

Golden brilliance burst within the boulder, light seeping through every tiny fissure until it escaped in a rush of blinding luminosity.

A few levels up, flashes of smoke, azure, and yellow burst. The Elders’ shouts fell upon us. Kaden’s halo flared around him, and he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Take it,” he offered, bracing himself.

Instantly, my ember siphoned his. It pulled at Gavrel’s energy as well, but he felt different. The current of his resolve whirled along the cord that tethered us, strengthening my will.

Kaden’s shoulders slumped, but he squared his jaw as I fed our combined power into the stone. Finally, a crack rent the air, and a wide fracture split down the center of the boulder. Kaden’s hand slipped limply from my shoulder, and he dropped to his knees.

My pulse was trying to break free from my veins, but still, I forced the rest of my incandescence into the crevice.

The skirmish above grew louder as the massive stone quaked. Melina’s angered shrieks skittered over my back, forcing goosebumps over my flesh. I’d never heard her so distressed before.

Good.

I hoped she was suffering. Was frantic knowing we were about to destroy whatever was keeping her alive.

With a final gilded spasm of coruscation, the cobble exploded upward in a blazing fit of flashes and amber.

Veiled behind a cloak of shimmering haze, the being collapsed in an unmoving mound as the burnished pebbles rained upon it, splashing into the molten pool around it and blanketing it in a sheet of fragmented bronze.

If the creature wanted to harm us when it awoke, we’d need to deal with that then.

My control was slipping, darkness creeping into the edges of my vision.

Enough , I rasped within my mind.

Fizzling into the air, my ember dissolved, and the tingling sway of it under my flesh stilled. My knees hit the obsidian, and I grimaced at the bite of pain that rocketed through my bones. I slung one limp arm around Kaden and the other around the back of Gavrel’s knee.

The glow of my fated’s rune simmered when he brushed his fingers against my cheek, tucking loose curls behind my ear.

A humming warmth melted into my flesh at his touch, and I relished in the soothing relief it offered.

Leaning, just a bit, on his sturdy frame.

His thigh and calf muscles flexed as he braced his leg more firmly to support me.

“Breathe, Little Star. You’ve done it,” he murmured.

“Well, at least it’s not some beast that’ll bite our faces off,” Kaden joked. The color in his cheeks was returning gradually, overtaking the paleness.

I squinted my eyes at the bronzed mass. “Not yet.”

Its skin had an aurous sheen and almost blended into the resplendent gravel scattered around it. It breathed, the side of its chiseled flank rising with each inhalation.

With unsteady limbs, Kaden stood. He reached down to give me his hand. I let him and Gavrel help me rise. My muscles were loose, unattached, and floating in a haze of fatigue.

Too late, the eerie silence registered in my awareness. There weren’t any flashes of the Elders’ ember above. No infuriated shouts.

“What have you done?” Melina’s outrage sliced at my back. I tried to turn, but my legs buckled beneath me. Gavrel and Kaden bracketed me, holding me steady as we faced her together.

Melina’s platinum hair was a mess; her usually porcelain skin was florid, and her diaphragm heaved against her dark sheath dress. I’d never seen her so deliciously disheveled.

Without her tourmaline ring, she hadn’t been able to transport herself quickly, and she was delightfully breathless.

Balor Drent stumbled behind her, missing a couple of teeth from Kaden’s assault and looking quite put out.

Lifting my chin, a grin spread across my enamel as my thumb rubbed the faceted pommel at my hip. “Looks like you’re having a bad day.”

Her palms whipped up, talons spread wide. “I’ve had enough of you, pet,” she hissed, her voice sharp with annoyance and her smoggy halo billowing around her.

“Like you had enough of your fated?” Kaden chided.

I glanced at him. The corner of his eye creased slightly. He was stalling.

“Shut your pretty mouth, or I’ll shut it for you,” she snapped, cracking her neck to the side.

Kaden smirked, goading her further, “But I hear that you so enjoyed your time with him.”

She bared her teeth. “I think I’ll keep you after I rid Gavie of his khorda .

Show you what I learned from mine. The commander can attest that I was an apt pupil.

Besides, you must be pleased that they won’t complete the ceremony.

At least you’ll still have your brother.

” Her tone was scathing, her neck muscles looked as if they were going to burst, and one eye twitched.

Balor sniveled, inching closer to Melina. It was either the bravest or the dumbest thing the male had ever done. “Mistress, you thought Maya was?—”

“Silence!” Melina barked.

He recoiled. “Yes, of course, but what if this one is?—”

She whipped a smoky tendril of energy toward him, his body flinging to the stone.

“Enough! I’ll deal with Phobetor’s wrath.

It’ll be worth it to watch the light in her eyes dim.

” She licked her bottom lip, flicking a half-lidded gaze to Gavrel.

“And for Gavie to watch as I drain her mind completely.”

All at once, her ember swooped toward my face. My gift reared back, weakened and thrumming below the surface, but my hand was steady as I flung my dagger toward her heart.

With a garbled yell, Balor dove in front of his mistress, my blade sinking between his ribs with a satisfying thunk.

He crumpled at her feet as I beckoned my weapon to my hand, and Melina’s face twisted into an ugly mask of fury. Stalking closer, she pushed more power toward me, and my vision clouded with shadows.

Gavrel roared, twisting his body in front of mine and wrapping me in his embrace. The brunt of her attack pummeled into his back. His name tumbled from my throat as a billowing wall of blackened mist swept over him.

With a frantic look, Kaden charged Melina, clamping his arms around her middle, their bodies crashing to the stone. Her aura seeped into her skin, but the residual haze still clung to Gavrel, its shadows slinking into his ears and nose.

His jaw was taut as he resisted the intrusion, muscles straining.

His rune blinked on as he cupped my face, the ten-pointed star reflecting in his pupils. “She can’t take them, Asteria. Our memories are ours. I won’t let her take them. I won’t let her take you.”

“Gavrel.” The breathless whisper was like a knife dragging up my throat. Trepidation slithered up my spine while my fingers clung to the front of his tunic .

My aura sputtered. An embered thread twined tightly to the bone hovering over my aching heart, and I knew, with soul-deep certainty, that the other end fastened securely to my fated khorda’s corresponding rib.

Reverently, his thumbs brushed over the hollows of my cheeks. My soul pulled taut on the thread.

Why did it feel like he was saying goodbye?

Footfalls rushed toward us.

“To the Nether Void and beyond?—”

His mouth crashed into mine, and then he spun, pushing my body back toward the wall. The breath was knocked from me, and I choked on his name.

Gavrel hooked his arm around Melina’s waist as she lunged for me. His biceps bulged as he caged her flailing body against his torso.

Stunned, Kaden watched, a look of horror and realization contorting his face. Elders Guust and Strom stumbled onto the landing, shock and disorientation twisting their features.

Shifting stones crackled as the being shifted under the rubble at the center of the pool.

Pure, unconcealed love shone from Gavrel’s eyes as they met mine.

As if time stilled, the image of him from my dreams flashed before me.

Of him falling backward into the dark abyss.

“It’s the only way ,” he’d said in our dream.

And as Melina flung her weight backward, Gavrel’s boots slipped on crushed stone and then tipped over the edge of the pool.

I reached for him, desperation tearing at my chest. “No!”

Greedily, the metallic-lined blackness gobbled them up, coiling around them and dragging them into its depths.