Page 159 of The Eighth Isle

They did—so I would rather just get this over with myself. There was no way I was going to make it to the mirror room, anyway. Might as well just end it right now.

I remained on my side and waited a heartbeat until I heard Fessa stepping closer to my feet. I blinked the black dots away from my vision just enough to see what was in front of me—the box. Those engraved symbols. The emerald that reflected the sunlight slipping in through the branches so beautifully.

“…and you understand, right? I mean, what my sisters and me did with that curse was insane! A hundred and one layers of magic—such a waste of fucking time! It’s only five centuries, yes, but?—”

I opened the box.

Blinding blue light took my vision away once more.

Fessa stopped speaking.

“What…what are you doing?”

I smiled at myself—does it fucking look like I know what I’m doing?!

“No!”Fessa shouted at the top of her voice, just as I slipped my hand inside the box, onto that ball of light as big as my fist buzzing with energy—the magic that had been in my womb.

No idea what the hell I expected, but my breath caught in my throat and I was sure that I wasnevergoing to breathe again. My heart stopped beating, too. Completely. My body shut down, but my mind was as active as ever, thoughts running all over it, my vision fading away little by little, all those beautiful colors turning to black.

The last thing I saw was Fessa’s terrified face in front of my eyes as she grabbed the box and pulled it away.

Too late.

The magic was in me now. Again—except this time, it did hurt. This time, it didn’t settle.

This time, it was eating me alive.

The scream that tore from my throat could have shook the entire Isle. In my mind, it was the same scream as Syra’s, just before she ruined Ennaris. The same scream and the same pain—my God.The exact same fate for me at the hands of the sirens.

They, too, had killed Grey, and if they hadn’t already, they were going to kill me and my baby. They, too, had takeneverythingfrom me. My whole life, when I had barely even had it.

They were monsters, all four of them left, and now I was just as hurt and as outraged as Syra had been. Funny, because I’d felt all that she’d felt in the Storyteller. I’d felt it, and it had terrified me, had stayed with me for so long, as if my body knew that there’d come a day when I’d feel the same thing for myself, too.

Now, here I was.

I saw nothing, wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own feet while that magic consumed me, invaded my every cell, transformed me. Not nearly as strong as Syra to speak or to do anything at all accept think. Wish.Hope,even now.

The palm of my hand was flat against the ground. I heard nothing but my own thoughts, and they were completely focused on releasing that magic into the soil. Just like Syra had done—she’d released all of hers into Ennaris, but she’d ordered it to fall then.

Now, the best I could do was pray that it would heal. With that magic that belonged to it, I prayed that Ennaris would heal.

Then I passed out.

Fire.

Fire everywhere.

Something was burning—no.

Everythingwas burning.

My eyes opened wide, and I looked around me, at the trees on fire, the branches moving as if they were trying to put those flames out. As if they were trying to get away, to survive.

Fessa was no longer there, and the grass on the ground all around me was burning, too. I managed to push myself up just a little, just to see the smokeless flames dancing on everything. Consuming everything.

No sky and no people and no nothing—just fire.

What have I done?!

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