When I ran to the doors, I tried opening them, but they wouldn’t budge. I called to the small amount of elemental magic that I had, trying to burn off the handles, but I could barely warm my palms. “What the fuck?” I hissed.
The smell of wood burning seeped through the cracks of the wood, and another one of her screams tore through the gaps. Even with it drowned out and muffled, I could feel every bit of her pain and terror.
“I’m coming, Mara!” I yelled, banging on the doors. “I’m coming!” I took a step back and called to my shadows. Slowly, they seeped from my sleeve, wrapping around my forearm, but as I tried to direct them enough to bring me to her, they kept pulling back.
“No!” I yelled, using every ounce of my strength to push against their restraint. The harder I tried, the more they began to recoil back into my skin, and I screamed as I kicked at the doors. “Let me in!”
Soon, smoke poured through the walls, and I could hear the fire crackling just as Mara’s screams stopped abruptly. I fell to my knees, still banging my fists against the wood.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered in defeat, though I knew my efforts were for naught. This had already happened. She was dead… Mara was?—
“Kaiden.”
My head snapped around, and suddenly, I no longer stood at my stables. Now, it appeared almost similar to the woods we had woken in, but these trees were black and burnt. And standing before me was the same woman I remembered. Her skin looked just as soft as it once was… her long, black hair laying over her chest in a well-kept braid.
“Mara.” It felt like all of my breath had left me in a single word.
She had on the same gown she had worn beneath her riding coat. She was frozen in time, an apparition of a memory standing before me.
“I don’t… I don’t understand?—”
“Don’t you?” While her voice was as soft as I remembered, it held a bitterness that was unbecoming of her. She had always beenkind. Her hands remained behind her back as she took a step forward, and I rose to stand and face her. “Will you at least tell mewhyyou did it?”
My brows quickly pushed together in confusion. “Why I didwhat?”
The laugh she responded with was cruel and harsh. “Kaiden, now isn’t the time for one of your games. You just saw it—plain as day. Will you truly deny it even now?”
Deny?
My jaw tensed. “Mara… that wasn’t me.”
“Right,” she drawled. Then, she turned, circling me slowly, but wouldn’t actually meet my eyes. “I’ve had centuries to theorize why you might have done it. My overall conclusion was that Ryuk ordered you to. I know he wasn’thappywith how our relationship progressed when the prophecy had been written. Perhaps he needed to test yourloyalties?—”
“Bullshit, Mara. You knew I never planned to actually?—”
“But you did,” she interrupted in a quiet voice. She paused beside a tree, tracing the bark with her thumb as she lost herself to her thoughts. “Does she know?”
I suddenly felt sick by the question, even more so knowing that Mara had been here. Had Morrigan seen her? “Does she know what?”
“Don’t play stupid, Kaiden, it never did suit you. Does Morrigan knowwhywe look so alike?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to keep my voice steady. “No.”
Her lips curved up in a sad kind of smile. “She’s strong, you know. A lot stronger thanIwas. Gods,” she laughed, shaking her head as she turned to face me. “Tristan told us everything. The things they did to her. It makes my death look like mere mercy. Her entire life… pulled by a thread held by everyone’s hands but her own.”
Tristan.My blood heated at my core, and I dug my nails into my palms in a tight fist until I felt them pierce my skin. “Is that his name?”
Mara ignored the question and continued her path, circling me once more. “I considered telling her who I am… I probablyshouldhave.”
“Mara, please?—”
“Shut up!” In a quick move, she lifted her hands and revealed a blade I was all too familiar with—one I hadn’t seen in a very long time.
“Where did you get that?”
“I’ve seen those scars, Kaiden,” she sneered. “Did you do those, too?”
“Mara, I swear to you, it wasn’t?—”
