My stomach drops. “No.”
Rosalina stumbles, wide-eyed. “Cas…”
Beside me, Ezryn’s grip tightens on his hammer. “It shouldn’t be possible.”
From the other side of the cavern, Sira laughs. A burst of shadows explodes around her, knocking Dayton and Farron away.
“Yes!” Sira cries, spinning like a child at a festival. “She’s almost dead. It’s time.”
My sword trembles in my grip. We had him. I beat him. And it still wasn’t enough.
Ezryn rushes forward, slamming his hammer against the Baron. Kel pulls away from Sira to assist.
“Cas.” Rosalina grips my arm, forcing me to look at her. “The obelisks are the tether. Sira has been stealing the joy from people to feed them for years.”
So many secrets, Mother. So much pain. For what?So you would feel less lonely? For one perfect creation?I stare down at my hands. All this power, and it’s still not enough to beat him.
“I chipped them before,” Rosalina snarls. “But with the Baron’s magic running through it, they’re unbreakable. I can’t control the Green Flame magic. It’s not of the Vale. We need to disrupt it somehow.”
The words are thick in my throat. “I’ll find a way.”
Her eyes flash. “You break the connection. I’ll break the obelisks.”
“Alright then. Together, Princess?”
“Together.”
With my father distracted, Rosalina and I rush over to the glowing green crystals. As soon as I place my hands on them, a surge of energy floods me, blowing back my hair, whipping my cape. Green light refracts across my moonstone armor.
It washes over me all at once, so many faces I know. Faces I’ve seen walking the streets of Cryptgarden, always joyless and empty. Each one of these moments is a sacrifice tying the Baron to this world.
And now Sira’s using the strongest of all her crystals to channel both Anya’s magic and Malekai’s, all in order to bring him here.
Anya screams again, and George lets out a heart’s cry to meet it.
“Hold on,” I gasp, fingers curling over the stone. I told Rosalina I’d find a way to break the connection, but how?
If happiness tethers him here, what could disrupt that, if only for a moment?
Of all the magic I’ve been born with and given, nothing can compare to these raw emotions…
But maybe it’s not magic I need.
It’s something else my father’s given me. Something my mother has too.
I grasp for a connection to the crystals, threading their energy with my own. But instead of giving it memories of joy…
I give it pain.
Every strike of Emberlash’s whip. Every rejected glance and twisted word from my mother. Vespera’s objects. Kneeling at my father’s feet as he speaks of a world of flame and ash.
The memories wash over me, sucking into the crystal, each one flooding through me as if they were as fresh as the day they happened.
Sweat beads on my brow, and I scream, the sound ripe with grief and torture. In the reflection behind me, I watch my father swing his sword, sending Keldarion flying across the room. Dayton has fallen to one knee, Farron barely able to hold back Sira on his own.
“Cas!” Rosalina shouts.
I scream louder. The cage of fire. Watching Sira torture my sister in front of me. Saving my mate and having to leave her all in one day.Take it all.
