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“Don’t you think I fucking know that?” I sucked in a raspy breath. “We have to get to her.”
But miles of forest stretched between us. A day, maybe, on foot before we’d reach Tempeste.Too late.
“I told her to save a reserve,” Zor grunted, mostly to himself. “I fucking told her.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Didn’t remind him that her bullshite plan—the one he’d fucking agreed to—would get her killed.
We raced through the ever-changing forest, along the stream that was now a roaring river, through trees that towered taller than any I’d seen in the three realms despite them still growing. The magic wasn’t finished, and I prayed we made it through this gauntlet of wood and water before we were devoured.
“Another few minutes and my magic will replenish enough for me to take us to Tempeste,” Zor growled. “Or close enough.”
“We’ll be too late,” I snarled, leaping over a tree root. “Too fucking late, Zor.” The roaring in my head wouldn’t quiet, it only grew louder and louder with every desperate step.
Too late, too late, too late.
Too late to save the woman I loved.
Too late to save the princess who’d just saved our arses several times over, with not one thought about herself or what it might cost her. That we would fail her was abhorrent. ThatIwould fail her was unacceptable after all my promises.
Yet here we were, fighting our way through this gauntlet of trees when saving her could be so simple if…
I skidded to a stop.
Zor kept going for another few paces then halted, turned, and trudged back. From the dark circles beneath his eyes, his clammy pallor, he wouldn’t be reaching for his magic anytime soon.
We’d been fools to think we’d escape the Oracle’s trap alive and make our way back to Solarys in one piece.
Utter fools.
And right now…my choices were fucking shite. Fucking shite, yet there was only one choice that would make a difference.
The one choice I’d never wanted to make.
“I’m taking the collar off.” I held Zor’s gaze, his mouth gaping open in shock. “That’s the only way to reach her in time.” There was so much to explain, too much for the scant few seconds we had left before this place consumed us, but I wished I had years to beg Zor’s forgiveness for what I was about to do.
For a century I’d willingly chosen slavery to keep my oldest friend alive.
I prayed he understood how much I regretted what I was about to do.
“Now?” The forest was exploding around us, and yet, nothing shocked Zorander more than this. “After all this time, I thought you’d given up.”
“I could have taken it off at any time, Zor. But I…was waiting for the right time. When it was the only choice left.”
Of course, I’d imagined that day would come on a battlefield, after my oldest friend had fallen beneath enemy blades, and I had nothing left to lose. I drew a shuddering breath. I never thought I would have to end his life myself in order to save the life of someone else.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zor growled. “Get the fucking thing off and let’s go get her.”
“I never told you the price of removing this.” I couldn’t stop the shaking that started in my knees and crept through the rest of my body like a cancer. “Never told you how the king truly shackled me after our rebellion.”
Gods, that fucking rebellion. So long ago.
“Godsdamn it, Raziel. Get that fucking thing off.”
“He used your blood to cast the binding spell, Zor. The iron binds the power to a certain degree, but iron alone could never contain my magic.” I blinked my burning eyes. “Only one thing could. I break this collar, you die. That is the true cost of my freedom. And the one I was never willing to pay.”
I held his stare. “The one I nevermeantto pay, not until you left this world first.”
My words rang hollowly between us, Zor’s expression changing in an instant from shock to understanding, then to fierce determination.
