Page 157 of Winterfall Destiny

“Andrei,” she pants out. “Killing Gabriella is killing us. Ash can’t stand. Jamie’s only okay because I’m holding him. Don’t kill Tobias for a lie.”

I’ve dug into the one part of Andrei that the First unwittingly enhanced—protecting Maeve as overriding everything—and he’s directed that fury to me. The magic dropped. Marginally.

Would Andrei kill me? Is there enough of him left to consider Maeve’s words?

I grip the sides of my heads, weakness growing in my limbs. Ash doesn’t move. No blood. Still no burned scent. Jamie kneels with palms on the floor, breaths sawing in and out. How could we ever imagine Andrei would remain enough himself to hold back the primal corruption poured into him?

“Finish Gabriella, but if you can’t kill her, get out of here,” I say weakly to the others.

Maeve drops her hold on Jamie and stands, completely steady and unaffected. Only when she steps between us does she stumble slightly at Andrei’s pulsing magic, but the shadows thicken in response.

Andrei falters. “I’ll leave Tobias but get the shadows away from me. Let me finish her.”

“That’s the opposite of what I’ll do if you don’t stop now.”

“Not until Gabriella dies!”

“Andrei,” Maeve says in desperation. “Tobias did not hurt me. I am okay. He has not betrayed us. Tobias wants you to calm down that’s all.”

“Then do as he says leave!” he shouts.

“Jamie and Ash can’t move!” she shouts then falters as his eyes meet hers. “Where are you, Andrei?”

Wherever Andrei is, it isn’t here.

Maeve and her shadowed tendrils attacked Andrei yesterday and won, but he still held vestiges of Andrei. This unthinking, obsessed creature left Andrei behind the moment he became the First’s bomb unwittingly detonating our lives.

“I’m sorry, Andrei,” Maeve whispers. “You can’t do this.”

Maeve trembles as the shadows leave her, alive with intent, surging forward in a wave of suffocating darkness. They coil around the Andrei like chains, tightening with each attempt that Andrei makes to break free. As they leech the strength from his magic, Andrei chokes within the cloud.

Yelling out, Andrei launches himself at Gabriella, the shadows trailing with him as if he’s on fire. His last burst of fury brings the First’s power to its peak and ends everything.

55

MAEVE

I’m in Hell. Is this what the place is like? The stench from the burned-out recruits adds to the acrid taste in my mouth. Only the fiery pits are missing but there’s a faint smell of smoke too.

Nobody else in this theatre moves.

Hell.

The shadows submerge Andrei, clouded around him as he lies beside Gabriella who’s on her side, facing away from me. Has Andrei killed Gabriella? Has he killed the others?

Tobias. Jamie. Ash. Every one of them lie on the stage, unmoving. Tobias isn’t far, on the boards between Jamie and I as if moving to help him. Ash hasn’t left the spot he landed before, or Jamie shifted from where I made the heart-rending decision to leave him and challenge Andrei. Through the remnants of shadows still with me, I can’t make out whether they’re bloodied or burned. Or dead.

The shadows whispered to me to let them go the moment Ash first fell, urging that they could end the threat. But beneath everything, Andrei still existed. How could I unleash them when I’d no idea what they might do to him?

My hesitation in giving the shadows their freedom cost lives.

I drag both hands down my face, whirling around in a circle, figuring out where to start. Who to check first. How to get us out of here.

Tears choke through the shock. No. The guys are not dead. They can’t be.

But this is the end of the First’s game where we never knew the rules or how to win.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The First’s voice carries from the balcony, and I drag hands covered in residual shadows through my hair, drawing a sharp, shocked breath. “What. Is. This?” the creature continues.

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