“Please,” I whispered, my hands trembling as I raised them to try and plead with her. “Please don’t hurt him.”
Ornella cocked her head with interest at my begging, those sharp silver-green eyes perceptive as always.
“You succumbed to thetaíribond. That is excellent! He will make such a wonderful example of how it feels to have your entire world ripped away,” she growled at me. “Tell me,” she hissed, looking nothing like the friend that I had once known and loved, “how does it feel to stand by and watch as your mate is threatened?”
You must lose love to gain the forgiveness that will save your world.
“No!” I snarled in an instant refusal, power pulsing under my skin in response to the mere thought of being forced to loseOrion. “Please don’t do this. I did not know Sage was your mate or I never—”
“I saved your life. Provided for you and then sacrificed myself in order to protect you. And when I needed you, you just stood there and watched as he was taken.”
“I thought we were protecting you! We knew nothing of the Rot or that the Spring Court would collapse—”
“Be that as it may, millions of fey are now dead and displaced because of what you did. Such a tragedy must be answered for even if it was unintentional,” insisted her male companion behind me.
Unfortunately, I knew he was right…
“How?” I asked them with a glance over my shoulder toward the fey male.
“That is still to be determined,” he advised me.
“You have no authority to punish us,” hissed Ares.
“No?” Ornella laughed, and my heart shot up into my throat when she pressed her claws tighter around Orion’s windpipe. “This is all the authority I need,” she taunted. “The authority to rip out his throat!”
“Ornella,” I breathed, pleading to whatever gods were listening to me at that moment. “I will doanything.”
“Anything?” she verified, raising her brows.
“Anything,” I stressed, and she seemed to think about it for a long moment.
“What if all I need is for you to feel pain? What if all I ask of you is to know the crushing weight of losing what is most precious to you?” she demanded.
“Hurt me however you need to! But take it out ofmyflesh andnothis. Please!” I pleaded with her.
“Amira—” he tried to object, but she dug her claws in again to silence him.
Do not speak. Please just trust me,I begged him down our bond that was still so new and beautiful in my mind.
Amira?Riordan spoke up.What is going on?
I realized he had sensed my turmoil, and try as I might, there was no keeping him out of my mind. I felt his rage when he saw what was happening across the City-States.
I am coming, he growled, although he need not have bothered telling me that. The earth and sky rumbled with his fury, and Ornella laughed knowingly.
“So Riordan knows. Such a shame he will be too late. But at least someone will know where to come and collect the bodies,” she added with a look at her companion.
My head whipped around in time to see the male fey throwing a ball of fire at Helena and Ares, which set their feathered wings ablaze instantly. I did not realize I was screaming until a horrible crunch resounded through my soul and made everything seem to gutter out around me. Sound. Light. Gravity. All of it faded.
I turned around slowly, my ears ringing as I watched Orion slump over limply while Ornella allowed her vines to fall away from him.
A deep silence yawned open in my mind. I heard the distant sound of Riordan screaming down the bond before the pain hit me like an unforgiving aftershock.
And then my worldshattered.
I hit the ground on my knees in a numb haze before darkness rushed in to smother me.
Chapter thirty-six
