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AREK

“A ll is lost.”

I grit my teeth. My grip is tight, my swing is sure, and I slice through the red-robed priestess’s neck without hesitation.

It’s not until her head rolls across the ground that the impact of her words hits me.

The dark rage that’s built inside me eases, the tunneling around my vision finally clearing.

I choke on a deep breath, glancing around the corpse-strewn keep grounds. Sweat stings my eyes, stings lacerations all over my face and hands.

“All is lost,” another priestess cries out, and then, as one, they’re on their knees, heads bowed.

I feel the moment as it shifts.

We all do.

They crumple as one, their limbs contorting in ways no natural body should move. The world seems to exhale, and then their bodies are dust.

Dust, and nothingness.

Shocked, I release my grip on the corpses whole enough to turn against Sola’s forces, and more bodies tumble to the ground.

Lara staggers, her purple magic swirling around her as she sucks it back into herself.

Morrow, still at her side, two daggers in his hands instead of his huge sword, pulls her to him, dropping the knives.

“What happened?” Morrow yells, eyes still burning with Lojad’s fervor for justice.

Caedia sits in a tangle of limbs next to the inner wall, green blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. “She’s dead.”

At first, I think she means Sola.

My knees hit the ground, and I suck in a breath, pain lancing through my heart.

Through where my bond with Kyrie lies.

“Kyrie,” I scream.

“I’m sorry,” Lara says, and her magic wraps around me, warm and tight, like a hug—and then I’m falling, everything going dark.

I have never known pain like this.

I have never had a love like Kyrie.

I never will again.