I will end the male who used you. Tortured you. Who tried to melt all the softness from your soul. For you, for our daughter, and for anyone else he’s wronged.
I
will
end this.
“But your wounds—”
“Are a hindrance, not lethal,” I rasp, pulling back just enough so I cansee her eyes, lit with the reflection of another moon streaking free of its perch. “I’ve survived similar injuries without prompt intervention.”
She seems to hesitate, her upper lip twitching. Like she wants to say something.
Again, the world jolts, the air no longer clean, but smoggy enough to make me cough if I didn’t keep swallowing the urge.
Raeve strikes a clinical nod. “I love you,” she pledges, and I breathe her words.
Let them fuel me.
Echo them before I plant a final kiss on her lips. “Go. Find her. And tell Kyzari that I—”
“Youwilltell her yourself,” she commands with a regal fierceness that makes me want to drop a knee, then she steps from my reach in a way I imagine a muscle rips from a bone.
Reluctantly.
“Whatever it is, Kaan Vaegor, youwilltell her yourself.” She swallows, blinking back tears that ruin me. “I’ll make this right. I swear.” With that, she whips around and sprints, leaping between molten pools as she makes for a dripping archway and disappears.
Gone in a breath.
The moment I lose sight of her, my lungs convulse, gouging through a series of sodden coughs that shred me. By the time the attack abates, I’m breathless, head hung, trying to focus on my center of balance while the world continues to shake and scream. Trying not to fall without Raeve here to keep me sturdy.
Her absence leaves only the pain; every slit, burn, lash, and the stab wound in my lung now raging.
I wobble—
Rygun’s tail hooks me, preventing a deadly tumble down the puffing ravine. I hadn’t even noticed his approach.
He nudges me with his snout, snuffing my bloody binds.
I draw a crackled breath, looking into his too-dark eyes. Embers starved of air.“Ew shathta mal—hein ák,”I drudge out.
You shouldn’t have come.
He blows a huff in boisterous defiance.
Shaking my head, I grip one of his tusks to steady myself while I sink within—no longer cold and numb as I was from the tonic. Not since the last of its effects burnt away as Rygun was clambering through the hole Raeve created.
I move across the shattered remnants of the barrier I built in the hopes of keeping Rygun oblivious to my pain, then tore down the moment I realized he’d come.
That he’d flown into the cold for me.
I press my hand against the wall I found behind the one I busted down. A scaled barricade the likes of which I’ve never seen, the same burnt-blood tone as Rygun.
Hiswall.
‘Luk uhn mei bárk úin. Ruif.’
Let me back in. Please.
