Page 194 of The Chains You Defy

Where was I?

Who was I?

Bright light devoured me.

With every muscle twitching, I couldn’t stand upright anymore, and gentle hands guided me to lie down on the hard floor of the dais.

If I could have a pillow? The question churned in my mind, but my tongue didn’t obey my command to speak.

The Graigh didn’t sing with the others but hummed instead, and their cadences mingled together with the melody from below in an eerie tune. The notes engulfed me like a toxic lover’s embrace and etched themselves into my skin.

Something within me shifted, and my limbs were so heavy I couldn’t will them to move.

Was I still breathing?

Somehow, the thought of dying didn’t scare me as long as the end was like this. Basked in light, surrounded by love, and accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful tune.

But then the chant changed. Slight dissonances tasted like rotten fruit, and the light bent and blistered. Invisible forces latched onto me and tightened as if someone was ripping my soul apart.

“You’re doing so well, sweet thing. Not long now, and the ceremony will be completed. You’ll be free. We’re all so proud.”

My eyes—they’d fallen shut seconds or winters ago—opened wide as a fresh wave of searing agony radiated through the hidden place where my Potential rested, and some of the haze I’d been in for days vanished into thin air.

What was I doing here?

Why?

Gods, I had to get away.

A scream tore from my throat as I attempted to rise to my feet but failed because I was too weak.

With the last strength I could muster, I tried to half-crawl, half-drag myself away.

Light was binding itself around my limbs, and another horrid wail shredded my voice as the most crucial part of me shattered into a myriad of tiny fragments.

Faster than ever before—even faster than I’d always believed possible—did I race through the shadows, and yet, my subconsciousness yelled at me to speed up more, to hurry, to reach my destination without any further delay.

But instead of finding my exit, the dark plane catapulted me out into the open. A lance of searing incandescence had assaulted my brain all of a sudden, and my already distracted concentration had splintered into a million tiny pieces. With brutal impact, I crashed onto a patch of grass, so hard I was certain to leave an imprint on the packedearth underneath.

External pain joined the internal one and pressed the air out of my lungs, but I didn’t permit those hurdles to strike me down, and I consumed every thread of agony to fuel my determination. Screams only I could hear violated my senses, my vision wavered and remained blurry, but I didn’t care. There was no time to recover.

Only pure tenacity helped me to haul myself back to my feet, but another blast of anguish threatened to tear my chest apart.

Something precious, a vital element inside of me of utmost importance—severed, the sheer magnitude of the fracture clawing at my sanity. Momentarily overwhelmed by the last couple of seconds—it couldn’t have been longer since the darkness had spat me out—I threw my head back and roared into the sky.

A flock of birds shot into the air in alarm at the primal bellow of pure rage, disrupting the peace of the dawn of night, but I ignored everything wrong with my body and also with my power, which oscillated more haphazardly by the second.

Whatever catastrophe had occurred, there would be no mercy for anyone involved. They would suffer a thousandfold, down to the very last person.

Protect. Hunt. Hurt. Kill.

Shadows sank over my vision, forcing my pupils to turn black, yet I could perceive my surroundings more clearly than ever. My magic cocooned me like an onsetting supernova of darkness, seeping from me as I shredded the chains of the ironclad control I’d enacted all my life.

This time, as I jumped back into the void, shadowwalking felt more like teleportation—although that should have been impossible for me.

Within the blink of an eye, I resurfaced in a grand hall in the middle of a gathering of fae dressed in light attire. A sickly sweet scent attacked my nose, but underneath all, I could detect faint notes of citrus and herbs—Nayana. She was here somewhere. Everything else was absolutely insignificant.

The chanting poisoning the air ceased, and I registered the dissonances the voices had created only when silence reigned supreme.