“Shit,” I muttered as I surveyed the ruins and the guards. “We have to get everyone out of there. Let the soldiers go into the woods; the forest can decide their fate. We need to get to our family.”
Tucker cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “The guards will enter the woods or be slaughtered. It’s your choice to make!”
The soldiers exchanged glances, and many paled visibly.
“We need men and women to make sure they enter the woods while the rest of us head to the palace to dig out any survivors!” He turned to Indon. “Can you spread our plan amongst the gargoyles?”
“I already have.”
As he spoke, gargoyles landed on the field. They nudged the soldiers in the back with the tips of their wings as other amsirah joined them in escorting the guards to the woods.
I debated helping with the punishment, but I was too eager to get to the palace. They had this under control, but no one was helping the others yet.
Before we started across the field, I tried opening a portal out of the realm to see if it would work. It didn’t, but after everything we’d accomplished, I didn’t feel defeated by this.
As we started across the field, my exhaustion faded. We strode past the broken-looking guards shuffling toward the tree line and, most likely, their death. A whole new mission rose before me.
Tempest was free. We were free. We still couldn’t leave our realm, but we didn’t have to suffer in it anymore. I wanted to shout my joy to the heavens. Instead, I focused on the goal ahead as I jogged across the field and on toward more death and uncertainty. I couldn’t stop to enjoy our win.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Ryker
Fuck, every part of me hurt.
My muscles and bones bent in ways they should never go. My head felt like someone had smashed it with a hammer. Or maybe not a hammer—maybe it had been crushed beneath the thousands of tons of rock that had fallen on it.
A loud, incessant screeching sounded endlessly in my ears. I tried to touch my head to see how much of it still existed, but my fingers either wouldn’t work or were pinned beneath the remnants of the palace.
I could still think, so that meant my brain remained intact, even if it felt like someone was repeatedly kicking it. When I first woke, my broken spine made it impossible to feel my feet, but as it healed, the feeling started returning.
That feeling was worse than the numbness. Fire raced across the synapses as they fused back together. Flames seared across my healing nerve endings; it burned the skin from my muscles and bones, and though it didn’t fall around me, I was sure the blaze was destroying me.
I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming as bones snapped while my body worked to heal itself. My spine wasn’t the only thing broken in the collapse; both my arms, my right ankle, and my left femur had also shattered.
With every breath I took, my ribs jabbed my lungs, making every inhale a piercing agony. I couldn’t feel the fingers on my left hand, probably because the stones pinning it had bent my wrist into an unnatural angle.
As the inferno continued to devour me, I closed my eyes… or maybe I didn’t. I couldn’t be sure. It was impossible to tell since darkness surrounded me.
Opening my eyes again, I strained to see but only succeeded in increasing the intensity of the hammer bashing my brain. Every time I tried to breathe, a lancing pain shot out from my ribs and through my lungs.
When the pain settled into something more manageable, I searched within myself for Ellery. She was somewhere in here too.
Is she alive?
The idea of losing her was more excruciating than all my shattered bones and bashed skull. She has to be alive.
The pulse of her lightning thrummed within me. It was a familiar beat, one that should have calmed me. Instead, I worried it had become such an entwined part of me that it would be there if she were dead or alive.
She was powerful. If anyone could survive this, it was her, but I needed to see and hold her. My arms ached from more than the healing bones.
Unfortunately, I was too battered to do much more than get lightning to flicker at the tips of my left hand. Narrowing my eyes, I focused on releasing a little bolt of lightning. Some of the rocks shattered and skidded away from me, but as soon as they vanished, more fell to replace them.
I bit back my frustration as the new rocks clinked and clattered into place. When they stopped falling, silence descended once more.
Wiggling my fingers again, I attempted to open a portal, but nothing happened. Either I was too weak for it to happen, or the anti-portal spell that protected the palace remained in place even with the structure in ruins.
My back had healed enough that it stopped burning, and I could feel the cool stones encompassing me. The mineral tang of their scent filled my nostrils.
