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My mother was dead. Dead!
I cried into her hair, my lungs straining to be quiet as I pleaded for the stars to give her back—to go back in time and get to her sooner. Never leave.
What was I supposed to do?
I curled into myself, hugging my mother to my chest as I rocked her. Us.
It was all my fault. All my fault!
I covered my mouth to contain my wretched sobs, my head feeling like it was going to explode from all the pressure.
Reach within, Elowyn.
The words still made no sense—they never made any sense—yet every fiber of my body surrendered, digging deep until I reached an endless void.
Frustration and anger welled from the darkest cavities of my soul, replacing the harrowing sadness that threatened to rip me apart, and I pulled.
Summoning it until the simmering rage came to a boil, overflowing out of me and into the world.
Inky shadows spilled from my hands, slithering and hissing along the ground toward the guards like a viper ready to attack.
They tried to run—they even bothered to scream—but their efforts were in vain. I clenched my fists instinctively, commanding the shadows to constrict, and watched with delight as they coiled around them, silencing their cries and dissolving them into nothing.
Talon staggered back—not in horror—but in amazement as I plucked them off one by one, no longer in control of my body or thoughts.
More and more shadowed tendrils spilled from my palms and amassed a force to be unrivaled by humans or fae.
An icy chill spread through my limbs, tunneling my vision, but I kept pulling, accessing a depth I never knew existed and allowing it to consume me. Submitting to the shadows’ demands until I had nothing left to give.
Until darkness bled into the whites of my eyes and suffocated everything living and bright.
Orbs of golden light forced their way to the surface. The blast of Talon’s golden magic was the last thing I saw before I collapsed to the ground.
I awoke in my living room, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa beside the crackling fireplace. It took a moment for me to gather my bearings and realize where I was—how I got there—when everything came flooding in at once.
My mother.
The guards.
The inky shadows with a mind of their own.
Kicking the blankets off my body, I shot up, wincing from the splitting headache that followed, and I doubled over, too weak to move. It felt as if my very essence had been devoured, the meat sucked clean from my bones, leaving me hollow and empty.
That was grief, I told myself. Grief and nothing more.
However, I couldn’t sit here and do nothing. Not when my mother’s body was growing colder by the minute. I gathered enough strength to stand—going where and to do what I didn’t know—when Talon rounded the corner.
“Woah, easy now,” Talon said, placing a hand on my shoulder as he sat beside me, the cushions dipping from his weight. “You did a number on yourself—you need to rest.”
I didn’t bother fighting him. Instead, I sank back into the sofa, pulling my knees to my chest as he wrapped the blanket around my trembling body.
“She’s dead.” My voice was flat and detached, but it was all I could muster. “There was nothing I could do, Talon. I couldn’t grab the nightingale fast enough. I did all this for her, and for what? She’d still be alive if I never did!” My throat constricted. “What am I supposed to do, Talon? I don’t know what to do. I—I didn’t even get to hug her!”
Talon pulled me to him and held me to his chest, stroking my hair away from my wet face. My cries came out in hopeless sobs, but his hold on me never wavered. He said nothing as I grieved, nor did he try to offer any words of sympathy. But I didn’t need him to. There were no words that would make any of this feel better—nothing that would take this pain away.
Instead, he offered me something finer—something I’d been too proud to admit I needed until now: love.
I cried until my eyes went dry and my sobs turned into haphazard sniffles.
