Page 93 of The Rose in the Shadows

I clawed at his fingers, desperate to breathe, desperate to fight, desperate to dosomethingto save my friend. She couldn’t die for me. Too many people had already died for me. Not her. Please, not her.

And yet, I saw the moment the light left her eyes. I could have sworn Ifelther soul leaving its body and beginning its descent to the Underworld.

Lorelai was dead.

Lorelai had died because of me.

Lorelai had died because they came here for me and I wasn’t fast enough to save her from them.

Lorelai, who had always been kind to me, who had loaned me countless dresses, who had comforted me only hours ago…was dead.

And finally, the well of power in my stomach refused to stay suppressed any longer.

A raw scream ripped through me, and power erupted from every nerve in my body. It touched everyone and everything and then suddenly I couldfeelthem all.

I could feel Kent as he sang, knocking as many people unconscious as he could. I could feel Camilla as she sliced through her attacker without remorse. I could feel Rankor as he wrapped his arms around the head of a smaller man and snapped his neck. I could feel Clay as he unleashed a torrent of dragonfire on a group of attackers.

I felteveryone.

Their life forces around me were palpable. I could feel their hearts beating, their lungs inflating and deflating, their blood moving through their extremities. Grasping onto each of the attackers was remarkably easy.

The man holding me felt it when my magic wrapped around him. He looked at me, eyes widening with shock and what might have been fear, and with a brush of my will, his heart stopped beating. He fell. The attackers all fell. One by one, I took them, and as I had felt Lorelai’s death, I also felt when their souls left their bodies.

The ballroom stilled.

Eyes landed on me.

From across the room, Clay’s gaze met mine, eyes wild and afraid. I held his attention until a tremor fell over me. The weight of exhaustion hit me suddenly, and then I too fell.

Chapter Thirty-One

Iwasn’t sure what I expected to see when I opened my eyes, but it surprised me to find Clay waiting at my bedside. We were back in the infirmary. I was laying in the same room we had first met in all those months ago.

But our worlds had both changed so much since then.

His hands were crossed on the bed before me, fingers still stained with blood, and his head hung low. That blonde hair that usually was so well-kept was dirty and out of place. His shoulders slumped as if pressed down by a weight I couldn’t begin to imagine. And yet, though I knew he had other places to be and things to do, he sat here with me.

“You’re alone,” I noted, my voice hoarse and dry. Internally, I kicked myself for saying something so stupid.

When he looked up at me, I didn’t miss the flash of relief on his face. I also noticed the red and sunken rims of his eyes, as if he had been crying. Numbly, I noted he was still in his party clothes.

He ran a hand roughly over his face as if to shake himself back into alertness. “The guards are just outside. Every Council member is being attended, myself included.”

“A lot of good that does for us now.”

He chuckled darkly, and I felt the heat of his eyes scanning quickly over me. “Does anything hurt? The nurses gave you something for the pain.”

Everything hurt. My broken ribs ached, and my head pounded from where it had hit the wall. The worst of it was the exhaustion, though. I’d never felt quite that tired before. My entire body screamed at me in protest, my limbs were heavier than normal, and my eyes burned as I struggled to keep them open.

“How long was I asleep?” I asked, evading his question.

“Almost two days.”

I frowned. Two whole days, and I still felt so entirely wiped. What in all of creation was that power I unleased? It had been unlike anything I had ever felt before. It wasintoxicating. Beautiful and natural, but also deadly. It had taken more energy than I had expected.

“The servants?” I whispered, already sensing the answer to that question.

They were dead.

---