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His entire body looked ruined.
But he didn’t let her go.
She tried to fight but something was wrong with the way she moved. Sluggish and tangled, bound just like me.
Keeping her locked in his hold, Solin reached for Aktor’s left palm, tugging the chief’s son closer. Aktor’s hand glistened with blood, a design carved into his flesh, awfully similar to the one I’d seen on Runa.
My heart hurled itself against my ribs.
No.
He wouldn’t.
“Don’t!” I snarled. “Runa!”
“She is not yours. She can never be yours. Now, she never will be.”
The voice blew through my mind like an arctic hurricane.
I stiffened, panting hard.
I’d never heard the harsh whip before.
The unseen power added another lash of magic over my back, gagging me with ropes of unseen force. I choked on the sickly presence of ice and strength, turning feral as it covered my mouth and nose with dense silence.
“We are doing you a favour. Doing what you asked.”
My tongue was useless, my lips muzzled. I spoke in my mind, replying the same way it had. “I didn’t ask for anything.”
“You did. You made us promise. Made all of us promise. Mortals, animals, elements, and entities. We all had to promise. Promise. Promise.”
“Promise what?”
“To protect.”
“Protect who?”
“Us. Them. Everything.”
“From what?”
“From you. And her. From you and her together.” The voice dipped and dived like a feather caught in a breeze, cool and melodic while nasty and grim. “Quelis failed. Lokath failed. Vetak failed. Rivoza succeeded.”
I went cold.
“Rivoza...”
The dead language for air.
I shifted in its invisible binds. “You’re an element?”
“We are the element. We are breath and life, like her. We are suffocation and death, like you. We are the only element that matters—without us, nothing exists. With you, nothing survives. But with her, everything flourishes.”
I stopped struggling.
“We will let you go, Moon Master. It is almost done.” Its wintery bluster pressed up against my chin, raising my head, forcing my eyes back to Runa and Aktor still held in Solin’s grip.
The fire had called me that too.
Moon Master.
It tugged at a memory, but my head ached with sudden distortion.
Solin hadn’t moved. He hadn’t spoken another word. Runa stood in the exact same position as she had when the voice first came to me.
I blinked.
It felt as if I’d fought for an age, yet my argument with the element didn’t follow the usual pattern of time.
How?
“Because of us.” The wind gusted and played, pulling on my hair, seeming to read my mind. A tinkling laugh that sounded like shattering ice. “Time is air. Air is time. Wind speeds, fog slows, thick and thin, quick and—”
“Enough.” I yanked my arms, trying to get free from its binds. “Let me go.”
“Soon. Soon we will. Soon.” The finger of air holding my head up pushed higher, making my neck scream as time continued in its normal rhythm.
Runa struggled as Solin tugged her closer. Aktor gritted his teeth as he stepped to meet her, their bare feet almost touching.
“Watch, Moon Master. Watch us obey you. Watch us protect you. Watch. Are you watching?”
My heart hammered as Solin brought Runa and Aktor’s hands together, his face unreadable and eyes miserable.
Runa shuddered as he pressed her still ash-bleeding hand to Aktor’s.
I snarled as Aktor wrapped his fingers tightly around hers.
Runa tried to pull back.
He wouldn’t let her go.
Rage.
Fury.
My vision feathered black as my shadows siphoned out, clouding around me in the cocoon of air, trapping me, hiding me. The shades had nowhere to go, blinding my sight.
“You’ll want to see this, Moon Master. So you know all is lost.”
Yanking my shadows back, I bared my teeth at the icy voice just as Solin placed his hands over Aktor’s and Runa’s joined ones.
With his legs braced and bare chest gleaming with fire flames, he spoke to his clan with a heavy voice. “I condemn Aktor for his recent, unforgivable act toward my newly adoptive daughter. His mistrust and doubt caused unnecessary pain and for that he must atone. Physical punishment has been served but with his blood, he is bound by a far greater task. The task of loving what he fears. Of protecting what he doesn’t trust. Of learning to see instead of doubt.” His voice cracked. “Her pain is his pain. Her life is now his life. This bind is commanded, not by me, but by Quelis who knows far more than mere mortals. Something is stirring. Something is coming. And the fate of all of us hangs in the balance.”
Runa struggled.
Both Aktor and Solin held her firm.
The Fire Reader didn’t look at her, almost as if he couldn’t.
“See, Moon Master? See? Do you see?”
I fought again, sweat pouring off me. “Let me go. Before it’s too late.”
Because I did see.
I saw, and I couldn’t breathe.
“LET ME GO!”
The air merely bristled and blew, stinging my eyes and making my skin prickle with horror.
