Page 108 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

IASO

E wan is dead.

I saved Ara’s hand.

Ewan is dead.

My son has been mortally wounded.

Ewan is dead.

My sister has abandoned us.

Ewan is dead.

The ground trembled beneath my feet.

Miles away, vines consumed castles—vines and thorns and poison. Ivy slithered over parapets and shattered glass. Trees burst through floorboards, and flowers bloomed from corpses.

I had broken rules—broken the balance to save the lives of those I loved.

I tipped the scale, and Ewan died anyway.

The deep roots that held the realm together shifted. Cracks splintered across the land.

Life thrummed in my veins because death settled in my sinew. The sun only rose because it set. Spring bloomed because winter killed. Birth demanded burial. Growth required decay.

I was not born to be the realm’s healer.

I became the healer because I chose to.

Vines slithered around my ankles. Up my legs.

I didn’t want to heal anymore.

Ewan is dead.

More vines slid onto the battlefield, across scorched earth and shattered armor, seeking blood and penance.

I wanted to ravage. To consume and devour.

To feed my anger.

To right the scales I had tipped.

“No more hiding in the greenhouse,” Ewan said.

My vines rose like dark serpents, armed with venomous fangs.

“I won’t,” I whispered, then unleashed them.

They lunged all at once. A hundred bodies—a hundred mouths screamed as I ripped beneath their flesh. My vines climbed through muscle. Wrapped around bone. Thorns protruded from their skin.

Blood poured like wine, and the land drank greedily.

I drank greedily.

A hundred lives fed the counterpart of me, the truth I’d kept buried beneath soil and teas and soft-spoken spells.

Because I wasn’t simply life.

I was balance .

Poison and antidote.

This was not destruction.

This was healing.