I seized on it, coaxing the magic to life with sheer will. My palms warmed as the magic gathered strength, and once again I drew power from the earth, feeling it soak into me everywhere my body touched the muddy ground.
Ignoring the pain in my arms, I slammed my palms into the beast’s heads, unleashing all of that power.
Bright blue light exploded around us.
The beast recoiled, skittering off of me and hissing in pain, his heads trapped in twin bubbles of light. He tried to shake free, but the harder he fought, the more the magic seemed to disorient him.
I crawled over to the edge and climbed up the embankment, slipping with every step, but desperate to get away before the magic wore off. My arms were throbbing again, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t look back.
I was struggling to reach the top when a black-gloved hand thrust out above my head, offering help.
I took it without thinking, allowing the stranger to haul me up. My shoulders burned with the effort of holding on, but I gritted my teeth and scrambled up the last part of the muddy embankment, grateful for the rescue just the same.
He gave one last tug, and I was out. I landed on my back on the grass, trembling and spent. For several heartbeats, I stared up at the sky, now violet with orange sherbet clouds, and tried to catch my breath.
“Thank you,” I finally managed.
A hooded figure loomed over me, all darkness and shadow…
Except for those otherworldly electric blue eyes.
Ten
Gray
“Liam!” His name caught in my throat, emotion choking off my words. Ignoring the pain in my body, I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shadowy black robes.
He was back in his Death form, but I didn’t care. I had never been so happy to see him.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I thought…” I couldn’t get the words out. My heart was hammering, filled with a strange mixture of shock and relief and joy.
After what felt like an eternity, I released my hold on him and took a step back, looking up into those luminous eyes. The realm had shifted again—or we were somehow in a new place—the lake vanishing and the forest turning into a meadow carpeted in blue and silver grass. It seemed like Jonathan and the two-headed beast were gone, but I didn’t dare break my gaze away from Liam to find out.
How long had it been since I’d last seen him—since that brief glimpse in my realm before Jonathan hauled me back into the caves? Weeks? A month?
“How did you find me?” I asked.
Liam was stone-still. He hadn’t said a word.
And, I realized now, he hadn’t hugged me back. Hadn’t shown a single sign that he was happy or relieved to see me.
“Liam?” I whispered, my heart hammering for an entirely different reason now. Had something happened to the guys? To Haley and Reva and the others? “What… what happened?”
A frosty breeze kissed my face, my breath turning into white fog.
“What have you done, Shadowborn?” Liam asked plainly. His voice was dead calm; more than the sudden chill in the air, that utter lack of emotion sent a shiver down my spine.
All traces of Liam—of his humanity—were gone, and when he reached up and wrapped his hands around my upper arms, my blood turned icy cold.
“What,” he repeated, “have you done?”
He was talking about Jonathan’s soul, I realized. About how I’d condemned myself to this fate, even after all the warnings he’d given me the night I’d tried to banish Travis.
“I had to dosomething!” I said. “I couldn’t just let him torture and kill—”
“And banishing yourself to an eternity here was the best option you could come up with? All your magic, all your training, all your instincts… andthis?” He glanced out across the realm. “Thisis the path you choose?”
“You think Iwantedthis?” I jerked free of his grasp, anger turning my blood from cold to hot once again. “I was a prisoner, Liam. In every sense of the word. So I saw an opening and I took it.”
