Page 156 of The Forbidden Fae King

My fingers tingle, then burn.

The sensation travels up my arms, becoming painful, but I don’t stop. By the time that scouring pain reaches my shoulders, chest, my spine, I think I can’t bear any more of it. Thousands of red-hot needles poke into my body, biting and stinging and aching. I cry out, but I don’t stop.

More. I need more power.

Aldrin said I could do this if I removed the block on my magic.

My heart bleeds with the desire to open this passageway. It twists painfully. I don’t care if I die trying to do it. Ineedto get back to him.

The pain hits a crescendo, and the world spins around me. That numbness creeps through me until I can't feel my entire body, but at least the pain is gone.

“Aldrin!” I scream. “Take mehome, Aldrin!”

My pleading does nothing. The portal drags at my soul, pulling out everything I have to give, yet its milky arches only glow faintly. Thevibrating hum of the moonstone resonates in my ears, engulfing me until I can’t hear anything else, but it no longer grows in volume.

Blackness creeps in from the corners of my vision. My grasp on all that power slips, and it ricochets violently back into me. My essence feels like it has been tossed across a room and slammed into a wall. Thrown off a cliff and dashed upon sharp rocks.

My body merely crumples into the moss, limp.

Heaving sobs wreck through me, constricting my chest and making it near impossible to breathe. I scream and scream incoherently, while my mind flounders.

His realm is too far away. I cannot find my way back to him.

I have defied so many odds, and it still wasn’t enough.

“Please. Please. Please.” I moan. “Aldrin, pleeease.”

I slap at the moonstone until my palms burn, hating it so much for keeping us apart. Hating myself even more for being stupid enough to leave him.

The flash of energy leaves me and I crumple against the dormant portal. My eyes burn from the salt of my tears and are so swollen I can hardly see.

“Aldrin, how do I find my way back to you?”

The night is mild enough that I am at no risk of suffering from exposure. Perhaps I could sleep here and try again in the morning. Fatigue is like a heavy blanket, smothering my senses and dragging me down and down.

Bony hands wrap around my shoulders and fingers clutch my chin, tilting my face up. For a single crazy moment I think it must be Aldrin, here to save me, but the silhouette is far too small to be him.

“Come, child. It cannot be done.” A familiar voice rings out, filled with warmth and understanding. “So many have tried before you.”

“High Priestess, would you like me to move her?” another asks.

All I can think is that I’m not ready to leave the portal. My mind scrambles, but my limbs are too tired to follow the command to grip onto the stone arch.

“Yes. Bring her down to the pass…and thank our sentries for alerting me straight away. There is always at least one who tries to go back.”

Weaves of air wrap around me and ever so gently lift me from the ground. My hair and arms fall limply out of that magical embrace. The soft swaying as I am carried away lulls me in and out of unconsciousness.

I thought I had cried out all of my tears, that nothing could hurt me this badly again, but I found a new rock bottom to my grief. I live in a world of turmoil and agony in the half-dreams that consume me.

Chapter 39

Keira

Iblink up at a silvery sky, pierced with the light of dawn. Hopelessness floods me as I lay limp on a bed of moss beneath the stone circle.

Warmth spreads throughout my body, burning within my chest and leaking to the tips of my extremities. I am being healed. A priestess with almond eyes and black hair hovers over me, pulling back as I sit up.

“You were almost completely depleted,” she says softly. “Using too much magic is an immense strain on the body. It can cause your heart to give out.”

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