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Don't be sorry, you're my shadow,I replied, my brow pinching when the lizard barked something at me. He held a pale-haired man in front of him like a marionette with its strings cut, and rattled his body.
"That's not very nice," I croaked—and jumped to hear my own voice. I could talk? I sounded like I'd smoked five packets of cigs in the past hour, but hey, I had a voice. That was pretty cool. Less cool was how much it fuckinghurtto speak.
"Give me the crown," the lizard growled, eyes flashing with clear and true madness. "Or I'll kill him."
"This crown?" I echoed, hissing with pain when I reached up to brush my fingers over the burning metal around my head. "I'll trade you. Give me the pretty man, and I'll give you the burny crown."
The lizard bared its teeth, shard and needle-like. Creepy. I shuddered—and grunted at the ensuing flare of pain.
"Fuck your trade; the crown ismine."The lizard roared, parts of him flaking off. Oof, that didn't look good. Didn't he need that bit of skin?5
"You couldn't behave, could you?" the lizard snarled, his fury clashing with the upbeat, jangling music all around us. "You always had to push, to disobey. This is what disobedience gets you, Avie."
I jolted forward on my knees, panic dousing the fire in my body for a second as the lizard flexed its hands into a gnarled claw and shoved it into—into Arkan's chest. That was Ark, my wraith, my mate.
"Take it!" I ripped the crown off my head and threw it at Eidolon as he gouged his clawed hands deeper, blood pouring across his fingers.Ark'sblood. My heart thumped unnaturally fast, pain and fire in every beat. "It's yours, just let him go."
"Thank you," he huffed, and tore his hand from Arkan's chest.
Relief made me waver, giving the pain a stronghold in every millimetre of my body. Fire dripped from my eyes, my nose, my ears, and wound around my horns. I couldn't contain it; it would break me apart to find release. But as long as Ark was okay, it didn't matter.
Eidolon threw something into the grass, discarded it like trash, then shoved Arkan aside so he could grab the crown. With a smile on his scaly face, he plopped the crown on his head—and roared as loud as my own screams.
I thought it was a matching agony to mine, but it wasfuryin that sound, unadulterated and raw.
"You spitefulbitch,"he snarled, but I was no longer paying attention.
The thing he discarded rolled across the scorched grass, and came to stop by my knees. For a hazy, endless moment I just stared at it. My heart stumbled between beats. Pained breaths scraped up my throat, making raw skin bleed until it was all I tasted.
The bodies around me surged—undead things ripped from their graves and made into soldiers. I didn't pay them any attention. I stared only at what had rolled across the grass.
I stared only at Arkan's heart.
48
Chaos erupted around me, but it was silent inside my head, horror dampening every sense.
Thenawist demons raced from all directions, snarling from their furry throats, purple eyes glowing as they brandished spears uselessly against already dead corpses.
The Company of Murkyr dropped down from the skies, claws punching through rotting throats, tearing off heads. I flinched at the distant sound of them hitting the grass, so similar to Arkan's heart being thrown at me.
I stretched out my hand, numb to everything. Even the maelstrom of magic and pain ravaging my body was hollowed out, unable to touch me. The heart was still warm, but as still as death when I carefully closed my fingers around it, holding it protectively to my chest.
Eidolon stared at me across the scant distance between us, Ark's unmoving, heartless body at his feet. There was no satisfaction on Eidolon's face. No smirk, onlyrage.Looked like he'd finally broken through thelet's not kill Aviewall that had stayed his hand all night.
Good.
I got to my feet and took a step, letting the fire fade from my body, a challenge.Come at me, then. Do your fucking worst.
But he'd already done it. The blood oozing into my burned, scabbed hand was proof of that, growing colder every second. Ark was dead.
Someone screamed inside my head, horror and blinding panic roaring through my soul from so many directions that it tangled in my own soul. But none of it pierced the numbness. I took another step, and then another, my eyes locked on Eidolon.
"What are you going to do, Avie?" he asked, flexing his hand. It still dripped Ark's blood. I looked from him to the still body of my mate, numbness sending cold through every burned part of me, icing the shards of my broken soul.
"No!" a rough voice roared."No!"
A shout filled the air, seething with fury and grief, and a mournful howl echoed it. A different, deeper, worse sort of pain split my soul, and my knees buckled as I took another step towards Eidolon, towards my dead mate.
