Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Bastian had regained an ounce of control. The healer had stopped the bleeding and was busy bandaging his arm and shoulder. He shoved her away in his fury and stalked off of the podium.
“You will pay for this,” he told Kerrigan. “You will all pay.”
Kerrigan looked up at him with fire in her eyes. “We will never stop fighting.”
“I should kill you,” he snarled. His magic was tight as he lashed it into a whip and brought it down hard across her chest.
She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to give him the benefit of her screams. But on the third strike, she groaned. On the fifth, she gasped. On the seventh, she shouted. And on the tenth, when her chest was bloody and raw, she screamed herself hoarse.
Bastian let the whip go and then stood before her, missing an arm, but as proud as ever. “I have other plans for you. You will be made an example.” He lifted his one good arm. “Everyone, witness the sentencing of Kerrigan Argon. I will invoke the old ways.”
Kerrigan blinked through her tears of pain. She didn’t know what that meant. The old ways?
Then, figures appeared out of the crowd. Red Masks, all of them dressed in black Society robes. The guards fled her side as they closed in on her. Bastian at the lead, and to Kerrigan’s horror, twelve others in a circle around her.
Thirteen.
A circle of thirteen.
She flashed back to her vision. A circle of thirteen was used for powerful workings. It was almost never used now. Hardly any magic was needed to do something this spectacular. But she had seen it, and now … now, it was around her. What powerful working could they be doing together?
“As one,” Bastian called.
Each Fae reached for their magic. It lit up gold as it shimmered into a perfect circle, connecting each of the members in the circle into one unit. The power flowed around and through them before returning like a current to Bastian.
He lifted his one remaining hand and said, “Fraisen.”
Kerrigan racked her brain for the ancient Fae word. And then it came to her—drain.
Her magic tore out of her.
This time, she couldn’t even scream as her body was lifted off of the ground. She arched backward as a funnel of power siphoned out of her. She could feel it draining like sand through a sieve. She tried to cling to it, to demand it remain, but there was no hope. There was no stopping it. Not with a circle of thirteen working ancient magic.
It ripped through her. Pulling and pulling and pulling until she could feel that near-bottomless well hitting empty.
Then, her bond with Tieran was at the forefront. It snapped, as if it had never existed. Tears ran freely down her cheeks at its loss.
At the loss of all of her magic. Every last drop was draining out of her. And she had so much that she had never considered what it would be like to see it dwindle. She had felt several times what it would be like to go without, and it had nearly broken her. She couldn’t live like this. She couldn’t do it.
Another bond stretched taut.
Fordham.
“No,” she forced past her lips.
She reached for Fordham wherever he was left dying on the ground. She reached for him, desperate to keep the bond secure. They had just found that invisible string that tied them together. They had broken the curse and discovered a way to be together. There was so much more that they needed to do. So much more time they needed. She wouldn’t let this go too. She refused.
She tried to fight it. Felt the weight of the circle of thirteen fighting against her.
And she just wasn’t strong enough.
Her scream ripped through the arena as the bond snapped.
She collapsed forward as the circle ended.
It was gone. It was all gone. Her magic was fully drained.
The shackles fell off her wrists. She could have slaughtered them all in that moment. But she couldn’t so much as make a spark appear in her fingers. There was nothing there. Just a deep, empty nothingness.
Her mind thought too hard on it, and everything fractured. No Tieran. No Fordham. No magic. She was … less than nothing now. Just a half-Fae girl who had risen too high and been reminded of her place.
54
THE TRUTH
The circle broke apart.
She was no longer a threat to them. The crowd was cheering her demise. Bastian was speaking to his audience. But she couldn’t hear any of it.
She felt nothing at all.
She would surely die like this.
Just as all the others he had used as examples of his power.
She would die and never see Fordham again. She could no longer feel him. They had ripped the one pure thing from her. Tieran was still trapped, and now, they weren’t bonded either. Everything had fallen apart. She had been so busy chasing dead ends that she hadn’t seen what was right in front of her nose. And everyone she loved was paying for it.