Page 13 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

DELPHIA

I concealed.

Godrick led.

Iaso and Terran protected.

Ewan and Lee had gone ahead to King’s Port to be there when Ewan’s ship arrived, and Edana merely hovered.

She hardly said a word to anyone, but she was angry.

All the time. Her entire aura screamed imminent danger, so I avoided her, other than the occasional glare.

I still found myself doubting her identity, soley because if she were Edana and had been living in Canyon while Rogue was abused, nearly fucking died…

I would kill her for him.

He’d already suffered through Adrastus. There was not a single reason for him to suffer through this, through her , too. She abandoned him—a fucking child at the mercy of a monster.

Godrick had explained that if Rogue hadn’t found Ara yet, then she must be in the Black Veins, because not many people knew of it. These dungeons were reserved for personal vengeance, truly isolated, miles and miles from the closest town, so the evidence of torture wasn’t heard or seen by anyone.

What is he doing to you, Ara?

My gut twisted. The need for liquor parched my throat, but I settled for digging my nails into my palms. They were already riddled with scars and scabs, my skin rough, but scar tissue hurt worse, so I appreciated it, in a sick and twisted way.

The wind and world stilled as we came upon the tunnel system that contained the worst possible darkness, and Ara was in it.

And Adonis , a cowardly voice reminded me. My breaths came out in shaky waves, and I tightened my grip on my dagger.

I would not be blindsided again. Adonis would not see me again. I would hold this blind with my last breath. If he ever saw me again, it would be because I was dead and lifeless on the ground.

My limbs started to tremble. Memory after memory assaulted me until I could barely distinguish our surroundings now from my surroundings then.

Trees everywhere, green but wrong.

They should be red. Everything else was.

The grass was red. My hands were red. Doran was red.

Everything was covered in sticky red, no longer warm like it should be.

Red and wrong.

Mya was coated in red, too, but not Doran’s red. No, she carried a vial of it, but it looked as if she’d collected it from the battlefield herself, as her entire form was soaked in blood.

I winced, my hands twitching in my lap.

Red. Sticky. Cold.

Why? Why were we here? Why was Mya here? Augustus, too. Both of their expressions were blank as they sat cross-legged on the other side of Doran’s body.

My gut roiled. I leaned over again, dry heaving as I’d emptied my stomach hours ago. There was nothing left—not in my stomach, not in my soul.

But then, Thana appeared, dragged by her arm, stumbling over limbs and vines. Her eyes were glassy, emotionless, as she beheld the scene.

Fear and clarity washed over me in tandem. I jumped to my feet, but a thought slithered into my mind: “No use.”

My legs went limp, and I dropped like a dead weight.

“No use in running to her. No use in anything but sitting.”

I wanted to ask questions. I needed to worry over her, to run to her, and shield her from the soon-to-be dead man dragging her by her bruising arm, but my mind was suffocated in a cold, lifeless fog.

I wanted to do so many things, yet I could do nothing but watch.

The man who’d found us threw Thana at Doran’s feet, then tossed a small dead animal into Mya’s lap.

As Mya’s gaze dropped slowly to it, her form started to shake. She scooped up the animal gently and held it to her chest before her eyes flitted to the man, and tears slid down her cheeks—her only sign of any emotion.

Horrified chills spread over my skin when I saw the creature’s dark face.

An infant creature of night.

“An omen,” she whispered. “An omen killed. Fate broken.”

The man stood straighter, something akin to fear crossing his features before he sealed it off. “Get on with it.”

Mya shook her head, looking him in the eye as she said, “Your poor soul…”

I gasped when pain sliced through my finger, shattering the image, and opened my eyes to find Iaso, her face tight and irises glowing golden.

She held my hand, and dizziness threatened to send me on my ass when I saw her pin through my finger.

“Iaso!” The needle yanked from my skin as I staggered back and gasped again, sucking on my fingertip to stem the blood flow. “Why would you do that?”

When she didn’t answer immediately, I looked around the group. Everyone appeared as bewildered as her.

“What was that?” Iaso asked quietly, but not with gentleness—with caution.

I threw the blind over us again, feeling that familiar fatigue and welcoming it. It gave me a distraction, if only minimal.

“Nothing,” I muttered, turning to continue, but a hand wrenched my arm.

I spun and came face to face with Iaso again, her palm not warm but scorching . My scream was all that filled my ears, the smell of smoke in my nose as I tumbled backward through darkness and hit the ground with a thud.

I blinked.

Doran’s body sat in a chair, and…

A guttural scream tore from my chest. His throat was slashed, and he was paler than normal—too pale. His eyes were open but lifeless, pale irises staring into nothingness.

“Why?” I sobbed, my vision blurring with tears as I scrambled to my feet and stumbled forward, falling to my knees before him.

My hands hovered over his body but never touched; there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t drenched in blood, and beneath that, he’d be cold.

I knew he would be, cold and empty and dead.

He was dead and now mutilated.

Even in death, he’d been tortured, his body desecrated.

A fire lit in the pit of my stomach as I stared into his eyes.

They didn’t meet my gaze; they never would again.

They looked straight past me, past the veil, into the land of the dead where his soul was.

My eyes lowered to the crudely stitched wound across his neck.

A rivulet of blood had rolled down from the corner and dried there.

That raging fire poured through my veins and spread until my vision tinted red, too. That rage turned my head toward the man who’d done this, and he stood there, clean, untouched, not a speck of blood on him.

That rage pulled me to my feet, my body taut against the slimy fog surrounding the edges of my mind, ready to strike. A scream built in my throat until it felt like it might burst, and when I opened my mouth, envisioning carnage and ruin, I screamed.

But screams filled my ears too, more than just mine, and I was tackled to the ground with an arm barred over my throat.

I clawed at it, kicking and hitting my assailant, but when I opened my eyes, I found Terran atop me with blood sliding down his cheeks from his ears.

My body went limp against his hold, and he finally relented, his chest heaving. As he dropped to the ground beside me, Iaso’s face came into view, a trail of red leaking down her jaw.

I frantically looked from person to person before feeling my ears—nothing. Godrick and Edana held their hands firmly over their ears, Godrick’s expression pained, and when they removed them, blood speckled their palms.

“What happened?” I asked Iaso.

With glowing eyes, she healed her own ears, then Terran’s. Everyone was touched before she came back to me, took my hand, and pulled me to my feet.

“You, child. You happened.”

There wasn’t a word for what I had become.

‘My heart hurt’ was an understatement. It felt as though a beast had crawled into my chest cavity, determined to tear itself out in the most destructive way possible.

I was more surprised blood didn’t pour down my front, my heart splayed open for the world to ravage, than I was to be…this.

This pain was tangible. It had to be visible.

It was such a rare occurrence that I didn’t believe it could happen—most people didn’t. The stories were chalked up to legend and folklore, sad tales from the past. Yet here I was.

People like me, shielders, who went through something so traumatic it changed their magic down to its core; their shields—which were meant to do just that, shield—became more, developed teeth and claws.

It only arose when a shielder felt so unsafe, so broken that they needed offensive magic rather than protective.

My lower lip trembled again, and I closed my eyes with a deep breath until my foot caught on a stray root. I tumbled into Iaso’s back but caught myself on her shoulders, biting my lip to cease the trembling before she turned.

She wasn’t angry, though, not anymore. No, this was worse.

She pitied me. I saw it in her eyes when she explained it to me, in every glance over her shoulder, in her eyes as she tapped my hand and continued forward.

I hated it, and I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve pity.

I didn’t deserve this ability because Doran had died—not me.

It felt unfair. Everything about this was unfair, unbalanced, and wrong.

He had been the one who went through trauma, who felt the slice of a sword and his blood leaving his body.

He was the one who’d been…been… mutilated.

I hate it.

I hate it.

I hate it.

My nails dug into the palm of my good hand until they sliced the skin. It wasn’t a sword, but it would have to do. My broken fists tried, but that was a different kind of excruciating.

The deeper my nails dug, the more I wanted to scream, but not out of pain—out of frustration because it wasn’t working. I needed longer nails.

I hate myself.

For being this fucking weak.

For sacrificing my friends.

Blood trickled down my hand.

For not saving Doran.

For not going with Doran.

A hand wrapped around my wrist, and I hadn’t realized I’d been hyperventilating until my breath hitched.

My lungs burned when my eyes met Godrick’s, his creased around the edges, a furrow between his brows.

He slipped his fingers between mine and my palm, pulling my nails from my skin before looping his hand in mine.

I could see it in his eyes, too. He knew my hatred, but there wasn’t disgust in his gaze or even disapproval. Just…worry.

When he turned forward again and tugged me with him, our hands still intertwined, my heart cracked, and from it escaped a quiet sob. It wracked my chest, but it was only one, and Godrick pretended not to feel it.