Page 56 of Night of Death and Flowers

His pleading gaze finds me, and I nod slowly, seeing the boy in front of me clearly for the first time. He can’t be any older than Ari, and he has a mother in Ennismore who’s probably praying for him right now.

Drake squeezes my arm and I flinch. Rourne splutters a cough, blood foaming at his lips. His chest quakes, and a gurgling choke leaves his throat.

“I can save him,” Ari whispers, leaning forward, but I shake my head.

Drake glances at me, and I press my fingers against Rourne’s forehead.

He winces under my touch, then closes his eyes as he waits for my magic to consume him. Except nothing happens. The more I try to will the magic, the more exhausted I feel.

“What’s wrong?” Drake asks when I stare at my fingers as they refusing to darken.

“I—it’s not working.” My jaw slacks as I try again, to no avail. Rourne’s cries fly from his lips in short wails, and after a moment, I lift the hand holding my dagger.

Drake’s brusque voice disrupts the silence. “Cali, no.”

The mild, sweet aroma burns in my nose as I bring the poisoned onyx blade down and swiftly drag it across Rourne’s throat, spilling his blood in a splatter of crimson. I hold my breath as his eyes fling open, panicked gurgles sounding as his bloodshot stare widens.

Seconds feel like minutes as I watch him die, but it is unlike the stories I have been told. He is still alive, but suffering.

Ari covers her mouth and looks away with a quaking sob. I exhale shakily, the anticipation crawling through me, swirling the building nausea in my stomach. I press the dagger to his throat once more, this time applying enough pressure to hack through his vocal cords, each thrust straining the muscles in my arms, the motion spattering more blood over my face and chest.

Rourne’s eyes shut, his chest caving as he goes limp at last, his breaths falling silent.

“Good gods,” Drake states. The horrified edge in his voice only makes this harder.

“He’s dead now,” I whisper, closing my eyes briefly, refusing to stop and think of Rourne as a person. I shake my head, strengthening my resolve, aware that people may be closer than we know, hidden in the trees. “We need to go. Now.”

Ari stands over Rourne, her legs wobbly as she holds her trembling fingers over her lips. She lifts her gaze to my face, her eyes bulging as she takes in the blood. I look down at my feet, then crouch, replacing the dagger into the holder strapped to my thigh.

The moment I stand straight, my legs suddenly buckle, and I collapse to my knees.

“Cali!” Drake’s hands are on my shoulders as I struggle for breath. A suffocating darkness engulfs my vision, plunging into blindness.

Rourne’s essence lingers on the fringes of his magic, and I clutch the sides of my head, squeezing as my brain throbs against my skull. I wince as a sharp pain pulsates through my temples, intensifying with each beat of my heart.

A small shriek escapes Arabella’s lips, but it is hastily smothered by Drake’s hand.

Time stretches into what feels like an eternity until the tight band of his powers dissipates, and my sight returns. I take in my surroundings through a blurred haze, and slowly, as if a veil has been lifted, the world comes into focus, materializing clearly before my eyes.

I inhale sharply, and Drake removes his hand from Arabella’s mouth, his eyes locked onto mine. “Rourne’s magic?”

I nod, and Ari’s expression shifts, a quiver over her lips. “Your eyes turned dark green. Even the white parts. Then the blood…”

“Thanks for that horrifying image.”

Shame consumes me as we stand, evaluating the perimeter.

Drake’s expression is unreadable, but we have no time to ponder on things that cannot be undone. All that matters now is their survival. Otherwise, everything I did was for nothing.

I take off into the cover of trees, and they follow. My thoughts turn to Death as we race over the uneven, vine-stricken ground, wondering if he somehow took my powers away, now that I am in his domain.

I flex my fingers as we hurry through the eerily quiet forest, knowing that without my powers, I cannot save them. Perhaps this was Death’s plan all along. He’s probably laughing at my fate wherever he may be.

TWENTY-TWO

Azkiel

This is not the first time I have been buried alive. Essentria has a penchant for dragging her siblings into the ground and covering us with fucking soil and insects.

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