Page 192 of The Reaping Rose

Her eyes narrow on Davorian, and he backs up again, his teeth gritting when his gaze moves to me.

“You can’t stay here, no matter how hard you cling to who you think you are,” Davorian warns, the air swirling in a circle of bronze sparks behind him. “Just as a Fae body could not contain Voilene’s magic, this realm cannot contain us. So long as we are here, what’s beneath us will continue to crumble. The Well will continue to seek and destroy. So long as you fight your fate, you will kill all you say you care about.”

Wilder wraps an arm around my waist, like he senses my knees are about to give out.

“I’ll see you soon.” Davorian’s eyes cut from me to Hazel a final time as he calls a crack of lightning from the sky, disappearing through it.

The moment he’s gone, Hazel drops to the ground, grabbing her brother’s hand. A chilling sob escapes her throat as Callum moves to stand over her.

My hand finds my stomach, and I can barely breathe.

“Look at me, Elorie.” Wilder lifts my chin. His voice is distant. It’s hollow, almost as if I’m hearing it through the threads when I’m not. “We’ll figure this out. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“Hurt me? But what about—” everyone else.

I don’t say that part out loud, but if what Davorian said is true, then it’s not me who Wilder should worry about. So long as I resist, the realm will suffer.

Oh gods, I’m the reason it continues to crumble. So long as Voilene is here, the two of them will rip these realms apart. Or is it the two of us?

“Don’t think like that.” Wilder cups my cheeks, but there’s no warmth to be found in his crackling gaze. “We don’t know that what he said is true. Don’t give up on me now. We’ll fight through this. Trust me. We’ll figure this out.”

“We’ll figure this out.” Even as I say it, it feels like a lie.

And when the wind breezes, Voilene’s laugh haunts me.

Chapter 65

Hazel

I always knew my shadows were chatty beasts. Restless and impossible to please. Now, this new darkness creeps through them, and they’re strangely silent. They burrow to my wrists while the void bares its teeth at them.

Footsteps sound down the stone stairwell. A steady gait. His sword clacks against the metal at his wrist with every swing of his arms.

I turn in my cell, curling against the cool wall while a spit of shadow dances on the floor of my cell. It twists and weaves and battles.

Until it dies like I will not.

Like I cannot.

That’s why I’m here. I have no doubt that if Wilder knew how to kill me, he would. Instead, they lock me in this dark cell as if it is any different from living in my mind.

Far above in the palace, Wilder wanders. I can hear so far now—feel so far now. He paces all night, worrying about what Davorian said. I wonder what it’s like to think the fates are a gift, only for it to be stripped away. Clearly, Wilder and Elorie had hope in what they were given, and now they are like the rest of us. They thought finding their counterpart was that simple.

A chuckle leaves my lips. Malachi would appreciate that naivety. He’d laugh with me at how easily they were fooled.

But he can’t because he’s gone.

I clutch my stomach, steadying my breath.

Elorie wanders as well, in and out of the mountain. She wonders who she is—what she is. She worries for the male she believed to be her mate. Wonders if magic muddied the truth or if, just as there are two sides of her, there are two males bound between them.

Their wandering and worrying keep me up all day and night.

Callum clears his throat when he reaches my cell. One hand rests on his sword, but I don’t bother looking at him. He shifts on his feet, at a loss for words.

Does he know I hear him too? Pacing above me, training day and night like it erases what he learned on the beach.

He was bound to come down here eventually. Everyone always wants answers. There was a time I wanted them too. Until I learned that answers only come in the form of lies, so I stopped asking.