AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His hand fell.
Clutching his chest again, he sat back on his heels. “What did you do to me?”
Emylia’s brows knitted together. “I gave you back your heart, Des. You won’t be a wraith. We can move to the otherlife, side by side.”
His face twisted, teeth bared. His voice came out strangled. “Why does it burn?”
Her eyes dropped to Desmond’s chest, where white light began to glow through his ethera. “Des, what’s happening?”
“It hurts. Gods, it hurts. What have you done?”
The light burned brighter. With a shout, he threw his head back. The white light spilled from his mouth, spiraling over his form. Desmond’s limbs flailed, arms fluttering as if made of paper, while the light streamed from his hands and feet. Emylia gripped the edges of his burning ethera, but every part she touched crumbled into ash.
It continued to burn until nothing remained, neither light nor shadow. Not even ash lingered.
Emylia sat before nothing, clutching at air. She trembled, staring at the place Desmond had been a moment before.
Teryn watched, not knowing what to say. What to feel. He wasn’t sorry to see all that remained of Morkai burn away. He wasn’t sorry Desmond’s soul couldn’t be saved. Then again, he wasn’t happy either.
He was…numb.
The edges of his consciousness began to fade.
Where was he? Where had he been?
Hadn’t his heart ached for someone?
Hadn’t there been flames?
A field?
“Teryn.”
He opened his eyes. When had he closed them?
Emylia stood before him, sorrow etched into the lines of her face. “Don’t fade away, Teryn. I couldn’t save him, but it’s not too late for you. You can still go back.”
He blinked a few times, willing his mind to clear, but the haze was growing, eating at his awareness, his memories.
A tingling sensation buzzed over his shoulders, and he found Emylia was shaking him. “Don’t fade away! You have to go back.” She forced him to turn around, and his eyes landed on something not too far away.
A woman with dark hair bent over a body. Tears filled her eyes as she gently slapped the man’s cheeks.
No, not just any man. That washim.
And that woman…
“Cora.” Her name warmed his ethera as it left his lips.
His mind sharpened again, his memories melting back into place.
“Hurry, Teryn,” Emylia said. “Connect to your vitale. Feel your heartbeat, the air filling your lungs—”
“There’s nothing.” The realization cleared his mind further, this time with fear. Where once he’d felt his blood and breath, there was only a hollow void. His vitale…it was lost to him.
There was no heartbeat.
No breath.
