My power reached the vines just as a devastatingpopcracked through the air.
Aquila’s struggling body stilled as his neck broke, my flames burning through the vines too late, and an explosion of power blasted through the air.
The detonation rippled through the ground, and my knees buckled below the agony of loss that followed. Time slowed as my soul unraveled from the perfectly tangled web it had created with the ancient hawk. A web spun thousands of years before my birth, created with the bonding of my great-great-great-grandfather, reformed in that near-death moment below the ice in the Death Dunes.
Two centuries of shared emotions, of companionship, of a bond so deep, the essence of who we were melded together. It slipped, its end nearing nothing as his white Soleia power floated through the air. My body hollowed out as the force of the magic punched me backward.
Sound disappeared, but my mouth was open. I could feel the scream ripping through my chest. My soul slipped as my body hurled away from it, just as a sparkling net of gold and black wrapped around the power. My back cracked against the ground as the net slammed the power into the furry form that chased after me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
LYVIA
A Weave has not been attempted since before the War of Ruin.
– Bonded Magic, 18thlevel, Living Library.
Lyvia – Living Library, Lotrennia
Pain ripped through my chest as Aquila’s death splintered through the Bellator bonds. Selvina’s hand slapped to her heart in the distance, and her face crumpled. Nerissa lay screaming in a heap next to the wolf, the sound of her wail sharp and frantic. I reached a tendril of consciousness down our Bellator bond, and a hot spark zapped me in response.
Sintarrak’s silver eyes widened as he reached for the power leaving Aquila’s dead body. The light slipped through his fingers, and he stretched Bayne’s lips into a raging scream.
My breath came too quickly, and my head pounded at the expenditure of energy it took, morphing the Obscura into a net and reaching Aquila’s power as life left his body. I peeked outfrom behind the boulder, and my eyes widened as they landed on the massive, furry body of a wolf.
Oh gods.
He’s dead. He’s dead.Tiberius repeated in a panic, his voice choking into my mind through a wavering rasp.What just happened?
I don’t know! I didn’t mean to do that! I just meant to throw it at Nerissa, to stop Sintarrak from taking it, but then the wolf jumped in front of her!
How are we going to stop this? We are all going to die…
The Living Library crackled from behind me, the light from its flames igniting the predawn hour. Sintarrak’s raging scream ripped through Bayne’s lips, the Embodied’s wrath warping the sound of Bayne’s voice.
Tiberius’s suffocating grief morphed into a fiery wrath as he flew past.
We are Death, Lyv. We will not die tonight.
A wave of comfort washed over me, but I paused, repeating my caeluma’s words and remembering another’s from months ago.
We are Death…
Tynan said there was only one thing Sintarrak feared…I paused, my mind racing as I replayed our time in his hell.
Him, Tiberius answered, his voice wary.
I nodded, pressing my back against the boulder as Sintarrak sent a blast of white flames toward me.
Sintarrak fears Tynan… Fears Death, I said, my breath heaving as I resisted the urge to form my shield. I’d need all my strength for this…
We are Death,I continued,and we are strongest together. Whatever we did in Tynan’s Hell… I need you for this. We need to fuse again. We need to becomehim.
Tiberius’s voice was silent, and I waited for his permission. Whatever had happened between us in that other realm, it had allowed us to survive the Abyss twice. To endure our own hell, and another’s.
I’m coming.
“LYVIA, LOOK OUT!” Selvina’s scream rippled through the night.
