AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The room blurred, and the last thing I saw was the Mistress lunging for us, fingers ending in deadly claws almost catching me as we vanished.
42
ANARIA
Raziel carried me over the canopy of the great forest, traveling in the same way Zorander did but faster.
Impossibly fast.
Deathly fast.
My frozen lungs ached by the time we landed, my hands cold and clammy when Raziel led me to the base of the great moss-covered oak whose sweeping branches blocked out the sun.
The tree looked to be two thousand years old.
Not two hours.
Zorander lay at the base of the gnarled trunk like one of the fallen warrior kings from the books I used to read in Ravenshade’s library—his beautiful face carved in stillness, arms folded across his chest, the roots forming a protective wall around him as if they were cradling Zor in their arms.
I fell to my knees before him, the dull ache in my heart growing sharper.
A waste.
What a fucking waste.
“Zor loved you. He didn’t have the chance to tell you himself, but he wanted you to know.” My throat closed up when I glanced at Raziel, his face twisted with torment.
“He said…he would have been proud to be a part of…whatever this was between us.Fuck.”
He spun away, face buried in his hands.
I couldn’t stop the tears spilling down my face. I couldn’t lose Zor.I couldn’t.
Gods,what a fucking waste.
Falling in love with him, then losing him…Had this been the Oracle’s plan all along? Killing us off, one by one? This stank of her cruelty, and her cleverness, too. Because wouldn’t it be better to cut us down while we were still weak?
The magic was definitely making us stronger.
And if she knew we were a threat…
Zor and I both noticed the change after that night in Deepwood. And Raziel…I eyed the dark magic streaming out of him, wrapping through the newborn forest like wayward shadows. We were all becoming more powerful.
Yes, she would kill us before she’d share this world with us.
As soon as the thought ran through my head, I knew what I had to do. I would not allow her to sacrifice us to her fucking cause.
My hands curled into fists, anger exploding from me like a shock wave. Raz ducked and the forest shuddered, leaves spilling down from the shaking branches, birds exploding up into the air with a thunder of wings.
No, I would not accept any of this.
I would not accept Zorander’s death or our fate.
“Anaria.” I barely heard Raz’s warning over the roaring in my head, the din of the forest trembling around me, the breaking of my fucking heart. Grief became a thousand jagged cuts, a thousand ways this could have turned out differently.
“No.” I screamed the word into the void, my denial ripping through the forest like a sawblade before I could stop myself. Then I crawled closer to Zor and threw myself over him, stroking his already cold face and his closed eyes, brushing back his hair.
“I won’t let her do this.” I straddled him, gripped the front of his stained shirt, and ripped it right down the middle, baring his torso. Pale, bloodless, perfect. “I refuse to let him go.”
