Page 85 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“Long before you were a thought, witchling.”

Portia raised a hand to steady me as the ground sank beneath our steps, sending us sliding until we stood ankle-deep in sand.

“Save your breath. We’re gonna need it,” she predicted as the grains shifted beneath us.

My terror confirmed her theory.

This magical bulwark was designed to make us fail. To demand everything we possessed and then ask for more.

“Yeah,” I agreed, wrenching one boot free only for it to sink just as deeply with my next step.

Everything inside me recoiled.

The shadows pulled backward, begging us to retreat.

But we couldn’t.

“I need you to look after my people until I circle back.”

I squeezed my eyes shut against the memory—my subconscious either taunting me or desperately recalling why returning wasn’t an option.

“Get them to your sisters. Make them come here. Help them. They’ll need a talented healer for a while… Promise me.”

My chest ached, longing singing a sorrowful melody through my blood.

I missed Aren with every fiber of my being. Every bruising pulse of my hollow heart seemed to whisper his name. To echo his boisterous laugh.

If I closed my eyes and basked in the last rays of the blistering sun, I could pretend it was the caress of his gaze.

The warmth of his smile.

What I would give to feel him again.

To have his calloused fingers beneath my chin, cradling my face as though I were the most precious thing in the world.

Wasted.

I’d spat on a gift so sacred that the universe would never forgive me for it.

Even if the universe did, I was certain I couldn’t.

It wasn’t that my concerns had been invalid. If anything, my current predicament had confirmed them. The Guardian Bond would’ve shackled him to me.

Divided his focus—or mine. And here I was, abandoning my sisters. Turning my back on my hierarchy and the woman who’d raised me to protect his people.

People who were suffering because of me.

Fear had a way of manifesting the very thing you dreaded most.

Gods, it fucking hurt to know he’d loved me so freely.

The universe had smiled upon me and deemed me worthy of a soul larger than life, and my weakness had crushed that gift beneath unforgiving heels.

Few things sharpened the blade of regret as efficiently as grief.

And grief had become my omnipresent companion.

“Promise me.”