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Everything slows, and my vision sharpens, bouncing from one heir to the next.
Bastian’s gaze is locked on me and veins in his neck bulge, but he doesn’t move.
Enzo’s eyes are pinned, but he’s not bouncing.
Dash, ahead of me, stares down, horror on his face, fingers twitching but the rest unmoving.
“They can’t help you, Dove." Axe already has the blade in Gael’s chest, and he’s dragging it down. “I made sure of it.”
I’m halfway there, but Axe was there when I spoke the words.
He knows how.
“NO! Axe, stop!”
The phrases fly from his tongue, faster and far easier than they did from mine.
“Axe, please!” I’m so close.
The silver strands float from the bleeding wound, curling like smoke.
By the time I reach him, it’s already stoppered.
I stop short, gaze shifting from the vial to Gael’s clear, dead eyes.
“No.” It’s hardly more than breath.
Axe stands, and I wrench the vial from his hand.
“You monster!” I scream in his awful face.
Starlit gaze extinguished, Axe stares at me with a hardness I’ve never seen. “You’ve no idea what a monster truly is.”
He lunges for me, and I instinctively cradle the vial to my chest.
But Axe wasn’t going for the vial. He grips my arm tight and spins me around, ripping my robe off with another hand.
Axe kicks my legs out, and the shock of his violence and of what he’s about to do has me frozen in place.
I hear the zipper, and my chest caves inward, heart entirely broken.
He would take it from me?
He would take it from me?
A scream unlike anything that’s come before rips out of me, and my wings burst forth, unbidden.
I double over, wings so heavy, still cradling the vial.
Distantly, Axe’s voice reaches me. “You have to stop me. You have to make it look convincing to him.”
The heirs, suddenly free of whatever stone spell Axe bound them with, fly forward.
And I fall to my knees, panting, screaming in anguish, as the weight of my wings lessens.
Why? Why this? Why now!?
The Flames flicker in my periphery, painting shadows on the crystalline walls, and the scent of burning feathers burns thick in my nose. The searing pain rends me, like fiery claws tearing through me, burning not just my wings, but down my back, through my skin, and into me.
