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Hundreds of workers were scattered throughout my orchard, saws cutting and axes swinging as they took down the trees that I had poured my love, my labor,my lifeinto.
Aurelius was cutting down my orchard—the only thing that was . . . mine.
He stepped beside me, his eyes spanning over the destruction. “Someday, you will understand that this was necessary.”
“You’re wrong!” I raged as I tore the wedding band from my finger and slammed it down on the windowsill. “I will never forgive you for this.”
Aurelius’s brows smashed together. “How dare you take my gold off! You think that you have a choice? Do you honestly believe that I would ever let you leave me? Regardless of some ridiculous deal you made with the God of Death. I will never let you leave, Moonbeam. Not now. Not ever.”
He let out a mighty roar that shook the castle as he pulled on his wrists with such immeasurable strength, hebrokethe shackles.
Bits of diamonds rained down on the polished floors.
I reared back.
But his hand struck like a viper. He grabbed my wrist with bruising strength, snatched the ring, and shook it in front of my face. “I will have this welded to your finger.” We both grunted as he uncurled my clenched finger—my strength no match for his—and forced the ring back on. “But until then—”
Like a petrified stick being stepped on, he snapped my finger to the side.
I screamed.
A piece of white bone gruesomely shot out, painted in golden ichor—my life’s essence marrying with the ring I was being forced to wear.
Aurelius let my wrist go as he tossed me to the side.
Stumbling, I fell to the ground. I cradled my hand against my chest, sobbing.
Arkyn jumped up from his chair, but Aurelius turned to him and snarled, “Sit down.”
And like a well-trained dog, that’s exactly what Arkyn did. Not that he had any other choice in the matter—the divine command in Aurelius’s voicealwaysreigned supreme. Had Aurelius commanded him to go along with this plan of his too? I didn’t doubt it.
Aurelius turned back to me, fire in his eyes as he came for me.
I kicked my feet on the floor, rearing back like a frightened animal, away from him.
When he reached for me, I let my light take me before he could.
My tears of pain turned to ones of anger.
Aurelius could break my bones and he could destroy my orchard, but I would not let him take the very thing I had tended with such love and care and use it to kill countless lives—countless families.
But if I was going to save them, I couldn’t do it alone.
Which meant . . .
I had a deal to make.
Sage
Black, glittering cinders fell from the amethyst sky like puffs of ash spit out from the mouth of a choking volcano.
I reached out from underneath the cape of my wispy, sheer sleeves, my palm facing upwards, watching with a curiously piqued brow as the ash fell into my hand. The contrast between the small, onyx-colored flecks and my pale skin was as stark as morning to night. Even more curious, the pieces began to melt against the warmth of my hand, just like snow would have. Is that what this was?
Black snow?
My brow raised a bit more.
I had never seen black snow before, but then again, I had never visited the Spirit Realm, and the information surrounding it was . . . limited, at best.
