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Ash’s entire body jerked.
A hand smacked down on my mouth, silencing my newest scream. “Listen to me,” Attes hissed in my ear. “Ash is still alive. A shadowstone blade will not kill him. He’s just weakened from battling Kolis. But if you keep screaming, Kolis will kill him.”
Kolis stomped his foot down on the dagger once more, and I felt it. I swore I felt the blow in my chest. My entire body shook.
Everything felt like it was rushing and spinning. The chamber. Attes’s words. What I saw. I strained against the Primal of War and Accord’s hold, desperately needing to get to Ash. Kolis was…oh, gods, he pulled the blade free and then thrust it into Ash’s chest again. A spasm went through me, swift and sharp. I went boneless and limp. Lifeless.
Attes cursed under his breath as he shifted me in his arms. “Sera?” Bright tendrils of eather whipped through his eyes. “Sera?”
My mouth was open, but only the thinnest bit of air got in, and there was this godsawful thumping and a wet, fleshy sound. I struggled to breathe, to turn my head toward Ash.
All I saw was the rise and fall of Kolis’s arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. A blood-slicked dagger glinted in the moonlight.
I screamed. I knew I did, even if there was no sound. I screamed and screamed, still shaking.
“Fuck.” Attes’s head shot up. “Kolis! She needs your help,” he shouted, his skin thinning. “Godsdamn it, listen to me. Sotoria is about to die.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“If you let that happen, you will lose her. Do you hear me?” Attes squeezed his eyes shut, and I thought I saw panic flash across his features. But I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. My eyes couldn’t focus. “You will lose your graeca.”
The horrific thumping ceased.
“No,” Kolis croaked. “No.”
The faint scent of vanilla and lilacs—stale lilacs—enveloped me, and then Attes was no longer holding me.
Kolis had me in his arms. He lifted me as he rose, my head lolling. “Put him in the cells,” he said. “I will deal with him when I return.”
If more was said, I didn’t know. A rush of wind whirled around us, and I was vaguely aware of warm night air touching my skin.
I struggled to open my eyes, but they no longer responded to my commands. The darkness smothered me, suffocated. My breaths came in shallow gasps, and my heart raced before it stuttered. Time. It sped up and slowed down, leaving me to exist in those too-long gaps between the beats of my heart and the ceaseless roar of the wind.
I didn’t want to die.
Not like this.
Not alone in the darkness with this monster.
I wanted to be with Ash, in his arms at my lake, as he’d promised we would be when my time came.
This wasn’t right.
It’s not fair, I swore I heard Sotoria whisper, her thoughts briefly mingling with mine.
The embers of life vibrated wildly. Panic surged like a wild animal trapped in a cage, desperate to break free, but there was no escape.
Death had always been inevitable.
I sensed that we’d stopped moving, stopped shadowstepping. A palm pressed down on the center of my chest, and my breath, my heart, snagged as a strange pins-and-needles sensation swept over me.
Then, there was nothing.
Ash.
That was the first thing I thought as I came to. The battle between him and Kolis, the blade striking him, moving up and down, up and down, stabbing into Ash’s body.
My eyes peeled open, going wide. The sky above was drenched in starlight, and I gulped salty, damp air that turned into thin breaths that barely did anything to ease the constriction in my chest. The buzzing in my ears retreated, and I heard voices coming from every direction. Whispers followed us as I caught the vague impression of people lowering themselves to their knees, and glimpsed twinkling lights inside sandstone buildings and larger structures in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, though. All I knew was that I was still being carried as I struggled to breathe.
