My heart stopped as realization hit him, whatever he saw in my face enough for my cover to be blown. His hand reached through my shadows and gripped my forearm, pulling it forward.
Silver eyes examined the rings on my long fingers, and his lips twisted into a sinister smile. My stomach bottomed out, and I wrenched my arm from his grip as my shadows reacted.
The Obscura lunged forward, surrounding us in a cloud of darkness, and I used the momentary distraction to fling myself out of his grasp. I hurtled through the air, over wreckage, as a spine-tingling cackle ripped from Bayne’s lips.
Away.
I had to get away.
Run.
Fly.
My pulse pounded against my neck as I fled, leaping over rocks and bodies, through another blazing branch of the LivingLibrary until I finally reached a clear enough path to run and begin flapping my wings.
Smoke clogged my lungs as I lifted into the air, and I dared a look over my shoulders to where Sintarrak had been.
My heart stopped as my eyes landed on the empty clearing. A growing hysteria forced the air from my lungs. My wings pumped wildly into the sky, and just as I turned back, acrackechoed in my ears.
Hard hands gripped my shoulders midair. My eyes reeled against the flashing silver of Bayne’s irises, and fear like nothing I’d ever experienced paralyzed me. My wings stilled, and even my shadows seemed to freeze.
“Tynan told you he would make youEmpress of the Embodied,” Sintarrak hissed into my ear. “Only I can do that.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
KELLAN
Kellan – Living Library, Lotrennia
“THIS IS NOT THE PLAN!” Selvina screamed after me as I hurtled through the wreckage, dodging the falling flames and rounding the southern end of the Living Library.The dying library.
No, this was not the plan. Fuck the plan.
We’d agreed to give Lyvia the space she needed to face him, to weaken him enough so the rest of us could attack when she drew him to the other side of the city.
But every thought had eddied from my mind as I felt Lyvia’s panic in my soul.
Nobody would keep me from her.
Blood poured from my nose, and my thigh ached from the burns as I pushed my body as hard as I could to get back to her. I’d seen the transformation. She was fucking magnificent… as magnificent as she had been in Tynan’s Hell, the first time she fused with her caeluma. She’d become a fuckinggoddess. She elevated to something I’d never fully understand.
I didn’t need to understand, though.
I just neededher.
Bodies littered the ground surrounding the library, and the blood in my veins pumped furiously as I stopped in the clearing. My soul searched, and I pulled on the three connections we used to form one, thick, unbreakable bond. A weave we’d created together. It tightened in response, and a weak breeze floated down from above.
My blood banged through my veins, and I scanned the dark sky, following that breeze. The breeze that was pure, a wind from another realm that was somehow cleaner… raw and flawless. My eyes caught on the form of shadows, the darkness of a void against the deep violet of the approaching Lotrennian dawn.
I forced a breath as I caught the side of Lyvia’s face. Massive black wings pumped gracefully against the velvety shadows that rippled from her. Fleeting relief swept through me, and I rushed beneath where she flew as a loudcrackripped through the sky.
Everything stilled as Bayne’s form materialized in front of where Lyvia flew, and he seized her arms.
Rage surged, but my breathing stopped as the side of her face came into view, and even from far beneath where she flew, the brilliant orange embers of her eyes glowed against the edges of black pupils as she stared at him.
No.
Oh gods, no.
