Page 129 of No One’s Daughter

“I should… I should have come and found a way to get you out of here the second I heard you were taken,” I cried between shaky breaths.

“Don’t,” she croaked, the blood bubbling from her mouth as she tried to form words.

“Shh,” I cried, trying and failing to control my breathing.

“Don’t let,” she whispered, the words barely audible. “Let them dim your light.”

​Before I could process her words or form a response, her eyes closed.

I choked on a sob at the understanding that they weren’t going to open again. I’d never see her beautiful ocean blue eyes again, I’d never see that spark of life that had kept me alive again.

This couldn’t be happening.

“No,” I whispered against her blood smeared cheek.

No. No. No. No.

No.

God, please no.

This was my fault.

My body trembled, numb to everything around me.

​I felt her try and fail to take a breath, the action stopping before she could draw in any air.

And in that moment, I felt her lifeforce slip out from between my arms.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

Davien

A SCREAM TORE from her—raw, feral, unrestrained—unlike any I’d ever witnessed. Instead of broken or defeated, her cry was one of sheer power. The hairs on my body stood as a chill swept over me.

​It ripped through the space, through bone and blood and stone until it felt like the very world recoiled from it.

The night sky above us darkened like an angry bruise, no one dared to speak or move. Even Valerius seemed to have been rendered temporarily speechless.

She demanded all of our attention.

Her rage continued to be the only sound filling the silence until the sharp clasp of thunder boomed above and the air changed once more. Heavy sheets of rain began spilling from the heavens, hammering against the glass ceiling above us, relentless, furious until even that barrier began to tremble under the assault.

This was her.

All of it.

Her power, answering her grief. Her rage made manifest in the world itself.

Despite the anti-magic bracelets they’d shackled her with.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

Wouldn’t have been—for anyone else.

I saw her then.

Truly saw her.