Page 80 of Blade of the Nightking

Rìan straightened slowly, something dark settling over him as he fixed on Aedric. "I'll find him."

The shadow binding Aedric's mouth loosened and slipped away as Rìan turned to face him, his beauty made all the more terrible by its cruelty.

"How cunning of you to keep your secrets to yourself, Aedric." His voice was almost conversational. "Tell me... did you do it for her sake, or yours?"

"May the gods drag you to hell."

Rìan clicked his tongue, unimpressed, though hatred burned openly in his stare.

“Tell them I say hello.” His eyes flared suddenly, igniting the dark.

It happened so fast.

Aedric turned his head toward me, his gaze moving over my face as though he were committing it to memory. His throat bobbed. His lips parted. And then he mouthed the words I’d never said aloud—the ones I’d held back each time I’d had the chance.

I love you.

His body seized. The movement was violent, his back arching as his breath tore from him, a strangled sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a scream. His body locked, then trembled, small, uncontrollable spasms rippling through him as Rìan’s power ripped through his mind.

“Stop it!” I cried, the words breaking out of me as I fought against the shadows holding me.

Rìan didn’t so much as look in my direction. Aedric’s breath came ragged, choked, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth, tinged faintly pink with blood as his body struggled to withstand the power forced into it.

I thrashed, straining to reach him—he was right there, beside me, close enough to touch, and I couldn’t—couldn’t—and helplessness crashed over me, panic gripping me. He was going to die. Right in front of me.

My mate was going to die.

My magic answered. It roared awake, wild and furious, exploding outward—and with every ounce of will I had, I seized it, forcing it into shape, driving it toward Aedric, toward his mind, riding the wave of power as it broke free to defend him.

The world dropped out from beneath me and darkness swallowed me whole. I hurtled through it, images tearing past too quickly to grasp, until silver split the void open in violent arcs of lightning that lashed again and again, merciless in their force.

Rìan.

I recognized it—the shape of his power. I’d seen it once before, suspended like a web, frozen in place when the Veil had held him fast. Now it was unleashed, striking without pause, relentless and precise, its control and ferocity utterly terrifying.

I hurled myself against it, my magic colliding with that presence, trying to force him out, shoving with all my might⁠—

I couldn’t.

He was too strong, the breadth of his power staggering—my magic couldn’t hold him back, couldn’t push him out.

I turned.

Reached.

Aedric.

A dimming presence in the dark, slipping.

I caught hold of him. Awareness flickered. A weak pressure, and then an image flashed before me, bright and startling, gone almost as soon as it came.

White ridges. The stark, gleaming line of exposed spine, his back torn open, slumped over a fallen log. Dead.

Neeken.

The lightning crashed down again, and my magic strained beneath it, splitting between shielding Aedric and resisting Rìan. It could do neither fully. The effort burned through me from the inside out.

And then something inside me moved.