Idris dodged the wave of fire and used his advantage with Adan distracting her to land a kick to her side and sending her careening across the gravel. The woman snarled at the twins as they closed in on her. She rose to her feet, bringing the flames back and raised her hands, willing them to grow higher and higher. “I will burn ash before I let you get past me. And thenI’llbe the one who becomes Henry’s favorite.”
“Then, by all means, be the first,” Aeric said as he emerged from the flames behind her.
She gasped, whirling to face him before he sliced his sword across her neck, sending her head toppling mere feet away from Idris’s boots.
“Aeric…” Adan said through gritted teeth, glaring at his arm.
He glanced down, to where the Vedran’s flames must have caught him. To the bloodied patch of skin she had seared, that now slowly knitted itself closed. Leaving behind a network of black veins beneath his scarred skin.
“What in saint’s name…” Idris murmured, looking to his brother.
Aeric’s jaw clenched as a sinking feeling started to take root within his chest.
Spinning on his heel toward the slowly dying fires along the archway, he said, “Let’s go.”
Dead Watchmen lined the tunnels.
So many bodies that Aeric wondered how long they’d been there. Aeric’s heart had sunk when he’d seen the sliced throat of the Watchman laying on the snow before the entrance, and he knew Anelize had nothing to do with it. Some part of him that only belonged to her screamed as much in his mind. Only proving to leave him more unsettled, pressed for time to find her.
They used the lights along the walls for guidance through the darkness as they hurried into one of the first chambers that would lead them toward the book. The entire time, his eyesscanned the floors. The bodies. Any sign that Anelize had come through this way.
There was a single body that laid on the ground, covered in gathering snow that fell from the crack in the ceiling.
“Saints,” Idris murmured as he knelt beside the body that he discerned was a boy with red hair. A boy they all knew. Wellyn Dobrin. Shaking his head, Idris looked to Aeric with a grim expression. “He’s dead.”
A piercing scream filled the tunnels, coming from every direction. Sending them all to stand on edge.
He knew that voice.
Heard that agonizing scream only once before when he was lost to the darkness that she’d pulled him free from.
“Anya.”
Aeric ran toward the sound, ignoring Idris and Adan as they warned him to be careful. But the screams continued, on and on until he was sure he’d lose himself to the madness of hearing her pain. Then, a sudden flash of light swept over them, so blinding he had to shield his eyes from it as a surge of power filled the air around him. Crackling embers and the roar of flames filled his mind, thrummed through his body. Making him feel as alive as he had when Anelize called to his heart.
“What was that?” Adan murmured as he looked at the fading streaks of light that seemed to dance around them.
“You felt it, too?” Idris asked, sounding winded.
Aeric pressed on, ignoring the flames that roiled within him. He was out of breath by the time they reached the opened doorway of the chamber where the book was kept.
Blood was all he saw as he stepped into the room. A large pool of crimson sat at the base of the platform before it appeared as though someone had been dragged through it,leading to his right, where he saw Enid Yarrow laying, covered in her own blood.
Adan cursed as he rushed over, kneeling beside her as he inspected her wound, the stillness of her body.
The surge of power he’d felt echoed once more, making him turn where he spotted the book in the center of the platform.
The pages blank…
Across the room, along the wall, Henry was standing with wide eyes as he stared into the deepest part of the room, covered in shadows, save for one flickering light that pulsed before him. The power grew again, swelled, as the light grew brighter before dimming. As if it were a living, breathing entity. At his feet, Gabriel was laying on the ground. His head bent at an odd angle, his expression petrified. The rest of his body twisted into painful directions as if someone had gone and pulled him apart.
Aeric gritted his teeth as he made to cross the room and demand answers.
Then he saw her as he followed Henry’s line of sight. Anelize was standing with her back to them in the shadows before the pulsing light dispelled them once more. She was covered in blood, a large gash on her side where it continued to bleed.
His eyes shot to Henry with murderous intent, eyeing the bloodied blade in his hand. He would kill him; with his own bare hands, if he had been the one who did this to her. He’d kill him regardless, for the betrayal he sowed on this night.
“Incredible,” Henry gasped as he stumbled toward her. “I’ve never seen such power. Do you know what this means,Anya? For Vedrans, forus?We could rule everything the world has to offer.”
