Page 55 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Morgana

I watch the scythe slip from Leon’s body, the golden glow of its enchantment fading as the bearer shoves his body into the dirt.

He can’t be seriously hurt. There’s no blood blooming across his tunic, no visible wound.

Then it hits me. Agony batters through my body, piercing my mind and reaching into some deep, untouchable part of me.

I scream, because I’m being split in two, wrenched apart one particle at a time.

My whole body buckles, and I hit the ground, my fingers grinding into the dirt between the cobblestones.

“Leon.” I reach out to him, calling across the mooring, searching for the warm, strong presence that’s tied to my very soul.

But he’s not there. It’s like he’s been wiped away. All that answers me is terrible, eternal silence.

NO.

They will not rip him from me like this. They do not get to have him.

I take the agony of our separation and pour it into my veins, using it to light a fire more powerful than a thousand furnaces. A rage as hot as the sun bubbles up within me, and I push the molten force of my magic outward .

I explode, releasing the power of the sun with a savage cry.

The heat beam that leaves my body is so bright that people around me have to shield their eyes.

The bearer holding the scythe takes the full force of a flash of white light, his body instantly disintegrating.

The scythe falls to the cobblestones with a clang, quickly buried in a shower of ash.

A trail of smoke drifts upward, carried away on the air.

Not enough. It’s not even a drop of the pain I feel.

Caledon pushes his way through his clerics, scrambling for the fallen scythe. My power may not be able to hurt him, but I can make the rest of them pay.

My chest heaves with exertion as I call on my magic again, letting sunlight pour out of me in searing rays.

I kill the clerics fighting my friends first, the light hitting them so quickly they haven’t got a chance of lifting their hands fast enough to counter.

In seconds, they’re nothing more than piles of ash and bone.

Many of them start to turn and run as I advance into the battle zone. My light just chases after them, passing through them and into the buildings beyond, leaving smoking holes and remnants of rubble in its wake.

“Protect the carriage!” That cold voice I’ve heard so often in my nightmares barks orders to his minions. I pay it no attention. I only care about reaching Leon.

This isn’t real. It can’t be. He can’t be gone.

My enemies leave him lying on the ground as they flee. I step around the smoldering craters where their comrades fell, hurrying to his side.

It’s so strange, how still he looks, his face blank and eyes closed.

He should look like he’s sleeping—but he doesn’t.

As I kneel beside him and take his warm hand, I can’t help but think it’s as if Leon had simply gotten up and walked out of his body, leaving this shell behind.

Something about it just isn’t him anymore.

I reach my magic outward, desperately searching for his inner flame. If I can revive whatever they’ve done, it’ll be okay. I can save him, I know it.

My heart leaps when I find it. His inner flame is still burning tall and strong .

Except like Leon’s face, there’s something missing.

His celestial flame isn’t a fiery red or gold like usual.

Instead, it’s a strange, translucent gray.

It’s there, the spark of life dwelling inside of him, but it’s turned ghostly.

When I touch my magic to it, hoping to bring its color back, my power just slips right through it, like a hand through mist. I can’t reach it, no matter how hard I try.

I can’t reach him .

“Please Leon,” I shout across the mooring, although I might as well be screaming into a void. “You can’t leave me here. You promised.”

He swore he’d always find me, in the dream world or the waking one. But how is he going to find me when he’s no longer here?

Except, as I concentrate on the connection, I feel something . It takes me a moment to realize it’s his heartbeat, still thudding in his chest with a steady rhythm. I hold my hand to his mouth and feel the shallow breath on it, and my own heart skips a beat.

He’s alive.

A deep sob racks my body at the realization. I’m vaguely aware of the trundle of carriage wheels and the sound of horses cantering away nearby, but I can only hold on to this one thought.

He’s alive. But something’s very wrong. All the signs of life are faint and tepid, as if they’re slowly puttering out. I sense his body’s only just holding on, weakened by whatever absence I felt the moment I touched him.

Hands touch my shoulder, and a familiar voice is saying my name in an urgent, rushed tone.

“Morgana, are you alright?”

I look up to see Harman standing over me, his face twisted in concern.

“Yes,” I say, though nothing could be further from the truth. “He’s alive. But barely. I don’t think he has a lot of time.” The words come out of my mouth of their own accord.

“He’s alive!” Harman calls over his shoulder before turning back to me, speaking quickly. “Caledon’s taken the carriage with the children. The Hand are going after them to see if we can catch them up. But you should take the injured with Mal and the fae. You have to get them out of Qimorna.”

I nod numbly, remembering those children’s terrified faces. It’s obvious to me there’s no way the Hand can save them now. Within moments, that carriage will be surrounded by hundreds of clerics. Yet I know that these facts won’t matter to Harman. He has to try. That’s why he’s the rebels’ leader.

More familiar faces gather around me, moving fast. Hyllus scoops me up as the other fae lift Leon’s body. Alastor has tears in his eyes, and Damia’s expression is so fierce I think she could kill a man just by looking at him.

Somehow in the chaos, they’ve found a wagon and are using that and our own carriage to load up injured rebels and those without horses. Hyllus places me inside the wagon beside Leon. I have the strange sensation of being underwater as I look around and see the devastation from the fight.

Bodies litter the street, one side of which is still missing thanks to Leon’s magic. The buildings are scorched and smoking from my sun beams. For now, the clerics are all gone, fled with the carriage or dead.

But I have no doubt fresh forces will be here soon.

I have enough awareness to search for Harman, seeing him swing himself up onto his horse.

“Be careful, brother,” I say.

“I will be,” he says. Then his eyes move from me to Alastor, and the pair exchange a long look. “But my job is to look after the Hand while yours is to see to the prince.”

I understand he’s not talking to me; my heart shatters as Alastor runs up to Harman’s horse. I turn my face away from their goodbye, unable to bear it. I spot Lafia across the wagon from me, looking at Leon.

“He’s not dead,” I say, the words hollow in my ears.

“I know,” she replies, a strange note in her voice.

I don’t pay attention to our journey out of the city.

I know we go fast—it’s necessary given the horde of clerics that might soon be nipping at our heels—but every time I try to focus on the scenery around us, it’s like my senses are dulled to it.

I know that eventually the white marble buildings are behind us, and we disappear into the Trovian countryside.

“We’ll take him to Lavail,” Alastor says, riding beside the wagon to speak to me. “To the Sanctuary of Viscalis. It kept Fairon alive until you could heal him; it’ll work for the captain too.”

I look down at Leon. Could he possibly hold on that long? Mal and Lafia are both bent over him now, muttering to each other in low tones. They’ve been that way for an hour at least, since Mal examined Leon after he’d seen to the other urgent injuries.

“I don’t understand,” I say, sick of the thoughts that keep swirling around my head and looking for a break from them. “We’re connected, linked by a spell. I can still feel him physically here, so how is it that he’s also not here at the same time?”

When I focus, his heartbeat thuds in my ears, yet when I reach across the mooring, nothing answers.

Mal looks at Lafia. “Go on, tell her. Share what you just told me.”

Lafia’s big brown eyes are even wider than usual, and her complexion is slightly gray.

“It’s the scythe they used, and the way it left no injuries. I think?—”

“It’s Ethira’s,” I complete. She hadn’t been part of the discussions about Caledon’s search for the gods’ tokens, but I’m in no mood to explain any of that to her now.

She nods. “The legends say that he used it in the ritual that made him a god. In order to take on an immortal form, he had to separate himself from his human body, shedding his mortality. He made a scythe with metal given by Lusteris, the ever-changing moon, and Ralus, the god who gives the spark of life.”

“But what does it do?” I demand, frustrated by her bedtime story. “What did they do to Leon?”

Lafia swallows, looking like she’d rather say anything but what she’s about to tell me.

“They cut away his soul.”