Her heartbeat is a whisper now, barely a flutter against the pull of the cold creeping into my bones.
“You don’t understand!” I shout, voice hoarse. “She will die!”
But Anethesis doesn’t hear me. Or perhaps he does and simply doesn’t care. He is far beyond reason, beyond redemption. There is nothing left in him but obsession. All he wants is Amara. All he craves is Meranor. Nothing else matters.
Then, through the roar of the vortex and the shatter of my pleas, the forest stirs.
The wind shifts. It hums.Voices rise from within the trees, low and resonant, their song threaded with age and power. The melody crawls under my skin, vibrating in my bones,until the whole world seems to thrum with it. The trees groan and bow as branches twist, and from the darkness, a thousand green eyes open, ancient and furious.
The first strike comes from the sky.
A flood of birds bursts from the canopy, their feathers flashing like shards of flame and gemstone as they dive, screaming, toward Anethesis. They fall upon him like a storm of arrows.
He snarls, throwing out his arm. A gust of wind tears through the air, scattering the flock in all directions. But in doing so, his concentration wavers, and Ifeelit. The invisible grip around my body loosens.
I drag in a breath, force my limbs to move, to fight.
Then the ground trembles.
The next wave comes on four legs. Wolves burst from the treeline, moving with inexplicable speed, blurs of motion, even to my eyes. Their howls split the air, a wild, ancient sound, as they descend upon the clearing. From the other side come the boars, muscled beasts, their tusks carved from stone, their hides thick and earthen. They crash through the undergrowth, charging headlong for Anethesis.
The Souls.
The forest itself rises to protect its Jewel.
Anethesis spits bitter curses, summoning wall after wall of wind to hold back the onslaught. The gale rips through the clearing, flattening grass and lavender alike, but the more he defends, the more his power splinters and then his hold on me breaks entirely.
I hit the ground hard, roll, and come up in a crouch. The collar still burns cold against my throat, but I no longer care. If I can’t wield magic, I’ll wield rage. If I can’t summon smoke, I’ll use my hands. I like using my hands.
I charge.
He doesn’t see me at first, too busy battling nature’s wrath. But before I reach him, fresh foes spill across the field. Legion soldiers pour in from the west, from the direction of the village. Their boots crush the lavender underfoot, dragging blood and muck through the grass as they surge forward, blades flashing.
Wolves meet steel, tusks meet shields, screams and howls fill the night. Flesh rends and metal shatters. Blood paints the earth, Fae, beast, and man alike, and still, through it all, the vortex rages. The earth continues to tear itself open.
I launch myself at Anethesis, fingers closing hot and merciless around his throat. The vortex stammers, wavers, loses a breath of power.
He slams his hands to mine, jaw a hard line, clawing at my grip. His skin is paper-thin beneath my fists. It splits under the pressure, warm wetness slicking my palms. He hisses, gurgles, a ragged plea. But the cyclone eats every scrap of his strength. He has nothing left to give me.
I squeeze. His eyes bulge wide, veins blackening beneath the sick, bruised purple of his skin as the air wheezes out of him in wet, rasping gasps. I don’t stop. I squeeze harder.
Then, absurd and fragile against the slaughter, a rabbit appears. Tiny and white and utterly out of place. It hops through the crimson grass as if the world were still simple, as if it were still spring. It pauses at the edge of the vortex, lifts a paw to its nose, and is calm in a way that feels like a rebuke. For one impossible heartbeat I think the Souls have sent it as a sign, some small mercy in the madness.
An arrow snaps free. Sharp, sudden. Whether aimed true or stray, it finds the rabbit’s chest. The shaft pierces through fur and flesh, its dark eyes gloss and close. It collapses like a dropped thing, the tiny body folding into the earth.
The pain that rips through me is not rational. It is something primal, hollow and vast, a raw wound clawing its way up from my gut, burning through my chest until it tears free of my throat in a sound I barely recognize as my own and then I understand.
It isn’t just the rabbit I mourn.
It’s the silence. The unbearable, suffocating silence where her heartbeat should be.
The bond between us, those golden threads I have felt all my life, lies severed, lifeless.
I can’t hear her.
I can’t feel her.
Amara… is gone.
