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“Azriel…” My mind called out to him against the shaded boundaries of the void. I needed his help to find my way out, to escape her clutches and rid myself of this agony.
You dare look to him to help you! After all I’ve done for you!The ash figure snapped back her hand, the obscureness of her face filled with a dreadful scorn.
He will be the first to go.
“Azriel!” I screamed, but there was no response.
Get rid of him, Arya, or I’ll be forced to do it for you.
The pressure against my skull went quiet and was replaced with the tremor of my nerves. Somewhere, another breeze blew to send the ashes of her form disappearing into the void, leaving me alone in the darkness.
No light. No Azriel. No hope of escape.
It was just me and my fear, together, facing the darkest night I’d ever seen.
12
I felt the wind.
Not the same cold breeze in my dreams, but the organic sensation of the air. It was damp against my skin, unlike the draft that carried the wretched spirit of a soulreaper into my consciousness.
Calloused hands shifted around me, adjusting their placement—one behind the base of my neck, the other under the folds of my knees. But it was the smell that brought me back to reality, the smoky burn of a watcher prompted my placement in the real world.
“Azriel?” I whispered, my voice caught on the dryness in my throat. He didn’t answer me.
My lashes fluttered open, a shadow blanketing his features. His figure was against the moonlight; the beat of his wings almost lulled me back to sleep.
“I’m taking you back,” he growled, the sound feral in his throat, unrecognizable from his lips.
My eyes flew open wide, and I was suddenly very much awake.
“No!” I shouted defiantly, struggling against his grasp in the air. “Azriel, you can’t take me back now, not when we’re so close!”
His fingers pinched my skin as they gripped me tighter, his strength impossible to fight. “The closer you are to the leylines, the easier it is for her power to find to you. Imagine when we get to where the lines meet. Imagine then what she will try to do to you.”
“Why do you care? Our mission is to get the stones before the Dark Army finds them. I am supposed to guide you to their location, even if it costs me everything, Azriel.” I pulled his face sideways to look at me, but the stubborn fool tensed his neck impossibly firm. “Please, put me down and let’s finish this.”
“Why do Icare?” he repeated before blowing a harsh breath. “Because I just spent the last three hours trying to bring you back to this world. I looked into those damned cerulean eyes of yours and sawnothing. You were alive, but your spirit was gone, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
He ascended higher in an unreasonable rage, his wings beating swiftly and powerfully, the air thinning as we climbed ever higher into the night. Beads of dew gathered on his skin and ran down in heavy drops down the side of his insufferably sharp jaw line.
“Az, please stop. You’re scaring me…” I managed to wheeze, not daring to look down at the diminishing landscape.
“Good,” he snarled. He wanted me to feel his fear, like this was some sort of retribution for the panic I’d inadvertently created.
“Can’t…breathe.” I gasped. My fingers clawed his shirt, creating half-moon shaped deviations into the soft skin underneath.
He finally snapped back into himself, looking at me at last to see my gaping mouth and bulging eyes. He had risen too high, too fast, and the air was no longer breathable at this altitude for a mere mortal like myself. He cringed, realizing his mistake, and dove back to the earth at triple the speed.
The rush of the fall took my breath away completely.
I said nothing more until we reached the earth again and he placed my feet on solid ground. He attempted to help me stand on my shaking legs, but I slapped his hand away and stumbled into the sand, choking on the moisture thickening the air and its stark contrast to the kind above. My fury outweighed my hurt, and I intended to unleash every ounce of my wrath on this beach he landed us on.
“I’m sorr—” he started to say. My fist grabbed a handful of loose sand and flung it into his face.
“Get away from me!” I hissed as he stumbled back from the gritty blow. The waves at my back muffled the volume of my shouts and hid our voices from the vampyres. The only place in the realm I could finally shout, scream, and send a thousand curses his way without the fear of calling the monsters. It felt good to scream.
“Arya, you don’t understand—”
