Lyana lifted her palm and reached with her magic. These colors that minutes before had been invisible were now tangible. Her magic skimmed the edges of the glowing auras, a gentle graze, a testing, tenuous touch.
The strangers froze.
She flicked her gaze to the man in the center. His eyes were wide, yet hungry. The pressure on her back strengthened, urging her to move faster, to follow. Lyana flared her power and thought, No.
She stopped cold, digging her heels into the ground.
The corner of the man’s lips twitched with unwilling delight even as his eyes hardened with resolve. His power built up, body glowing more brightly as he readied another attacked.
Lyana acted first.
Instinct took over. She didn’t know what she was doing, all she wanted was to get to Xander, to heal him, to free him. To push them away, to give herself time, to shut the world out for a few minutes.
The beast within her broke free.
A wave of blinding, bright colors shot across the room, slammed into the group, and sent them all flying through branches and leaves, into the darkest shadows on the other side of the room so they disappeared from sight.
But it didn’t stop.
The magic pulsed and pounded, shooting off her in waves she couldn’t control.
She didn’t try to.
She let the power flow as she ran to Xander and dropped to her knees, pressing her palms to his chest, trying to find the magic she knew, the magic she understood, somewhere within the mighty force she’d just unchained. Golden flecks simmered by her palms, bringing a smile to her lips, even as the rest of her body erupted in an explosion of color she didn’t understand.
Breathe, she thought. Breathe.
Heal.
Breathe.
Open your eyes, Xander.
Please, please be all right.
Please, just live. Please.
The aura in the center of his chest was hardly an ember, the last vestiges of a dying flame, but at the touch of her magic it sparked and sputtered, burning with new life. With each passing second it grew brighter and brighter, and that was all she cared about, all she saw.
The earth beneath them trembled. Branches rustled and snapped. Bird cries pierced like bolts of lightning, the beating of wings a growing thunder. Distantly, Lyana knew she must be causing it all, but she didn’t care, because Xander’s lids fluttered open, a moment of calm in the eye of a swelling storm.
He blinked, finding her above him. “Lyana?”
“Xander,” she cried and fell against his chest, clasping him. “You’re alive. Thank the gods, you’re alive.”
“I’m fine, I—” He froze. “I…I was stabbed.”
Lyana sat up.
“I was stabbed. By the priest. And you were, you…you…”
He trailed off, attention lingering on her wings for a few moments. He met her stare as silent questions raced across his eyes. But nothing else did. There were no reflections of the storm swirling around her, just a gentle glistening from the far-off sun. He couldn’t see the magic raging. But the way he watched her made it seem as if he were in the midst of his own revelation. He sat up and paused, noticing the tremors on the ground for the first time.
With a gasp, he took her by the hand. “We have to go. We have to get out of here.”
The rock walls of the sacred nest groaned. The metal bars stretching like mesh across the hollow ceiling screeched. The whole thing was going to topple and crush them.
“Lyana!” a deeper voice shouted across the roaring.
She spun to find the stranger walking toward her through the pulsing power, each step laborious as her magic tried to keep him away, tried to push everything away except Xander. But his own power swirled around him in waves, deflecting the force as he moved steadily closer.
The world dropped out from under her.
Everything plunged for a split second before the ground steadied.
Lyana was smacked hard against the floor. The god stone trembled precariously in the air. But her magic didn’t pause—didn’t flinch. It continued to come in waves that wouldn’t cease, bigger than she knew how to control.
“Lyana!” the man called again, his tone commanding.
She didn’t want to see the truth in his eyes, not yet—not until Xander was safe. Lyana spun, finding him among the chaos. He gaped in horror as his sacred nest ripped apart.
“Go!” she cried.
His eyes found hers. “Not without you. Come on!”
He reached for her arm and tugged, but she shirked his hold.
“No, Xander, go.” Her voice was soft this time, but he heard every word. There was too much to explain. “Go!”
Lyana shoved her power into his chest. He soared backwards, flipping in the air and crashing through the gate they’d come through, tumbling into the shadows of the corridor.
“Go!” she cried again.
For a moment, he stood still, watching her.
Then he disappeared.
“Lyana,” the stranger’s voice soothed, as though he understood the turmoil churning inside her and spilling out into the world. He put a hand on her shoulder and she spun, trembling with the power that threatened to tear her in two, trying to keep her balance as the world fell apart around her.
“Help,” she said. “Please, I can’t— I don’t— Help.”
He cradled her cheeks. His palms were on fire, just like her skin, scorching with magic, but it was a comfort to know she wasn’t alone in the middle of this inferno. He was with her, whoever he was, and his midnight eyes held the promise that he would save her.
“Listen to my voice. Listen to me. Calm down.” He lulled her, rubbing his thumbs along her cheekbones, over and over, in a meditative rhythm. “Someday, you’ll be able to control it.” His gaze flicked away and then returned. “But today is not that day.”
Something hard slammed into the back of her head.
She didn’t feel anything after that.
65
Cassi
For a long time, Cassi could focus on nothing but the scraping of metal on bone, horrifying yet somehow soothing in its monotony. Back and forth and back and forth. She didn’t see the blood spilling over her hands. Didn’t feel her fingers begin to stick together. Didn’t hear the moans that eventually grew silent. Just the endless scrape, scrape, scrape to keep her grounded, in an out-of-body trance, as numb as the knife wound in her side, as if this were nothing more than a dream.
Then the scraping ended.
She threw the knife so fast, so hard, that she didn’t even register the motion until she heard it thunk into the wall at the other end of the room. Her arms were trembling. Her entire body shook. She blinked and sniffled, fighting for control as her stomach turned over and bile surged up her throat.
It had to be done.
There was no other way, not with an invinci.
He couldn’t be allowed to heal. To escape.
There was—
The thought broke off, because she knew in her heart there was no rationalizing what she’d done here today, no making herself feel better. To be a bird without wings was a fate almost worse than death. She of all people understood that, understood the yearning in her mother’s eyes to never wake from the dreams her daughter weaved. Cassi had stolen many things, secrets and plans and information, but this was something different, a black mark that would stain her soul forever. Because she’d stolen the sky, his sky, and she wasn’t sure if Rafe would ever get it back.