Page 38 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

The blistering cold surged through, instantly developing a frost on every surface it touched.

Dread chilled her bones more than the outside air. More than the storm behind them.

Winter had arrived long ago.

And now, they would either be consumed by the storm inside or die by the one outside.

Waving his hand, Aiden stepped onto the ledge and glanced down. “Come on then!”

Jade bounded down the center aisle, the rest of them close on her heels. “This is a fucking bad idea,” she screamed as wind whistled through the shattered window.

Aiden smiled. “Never stopped us before, love!” His hand found the small of her back before he nodded, and she did too. Without a word. Without turning. Without looking at anything else but each other, Jade and Aiden linked hands and jumped.

Thalon exchanged a glance with Garrik before his attention turned to Alora. Before she could protest, Thalon lifted her into his arms and stepped onto the broken ledge. She felt his back twist, squeezing—more like straining—his muscles as he stood. But Thalon whipped his head over his shoulder as he rolled them backward, then forward. Then golden eyes flashed with something like shock.

“No time.Go.” Garrik ripped his sword from the sheath?—

The stained-glass door exploded in a prism of shards, peppering the isle and pews. Embedding into the walls.

“You cannot run from me,” the voice bellowed.

The night sky stole Garrik’s eyes as his wrath detonated. “Thalon!”

And before Thalon locked a death grip around her, Alora’s eyes met Garrik’s.

Then he was standing in a broken window, his figure growing smaller and smaller and smaller until he was but a blot against the mountain. The death-storm of amethyst and navy light enclosed around him. Swallowing him whole as she and her Guardian plummeted into the white abyss below.

The world rotated. Snow and trees and rocks rolled past her, and she had the vague sense that something in her body, very soon, would snap, as she twirled and twirled and twirled.

Her hands. She knew they were bleeding. Because of the trial in the snow, perhaps other things too. And forges pounded in her head ever since it had met something hard and unforgiving.

Thalon held on to her until they slammed into a sharpened boulder. It broke them apart, sending them tumbling.

Down and down and down that mountain with nothing stopping them.

Not the snow. Not the sharp rocks. Not the trees.

Not the lake, frozen over in feet of ice?—

Alora gasped in horror as Thalon’s head slammed into a rock—hard enough to leave a gash. His body went limp like a stuffed doll and barreled for the glassy surface of the lake. She could do nothing more than tumble as he pummeled into the ice and cracked the surface. The leathers of his armor cast a smooth trail across the snow as he slid farther from shore, but somehow, he remained on top of the ice.

And she was next.

She saw the stone. Saw how her path drew her to a cliff’s edge that would throw her hundreds of feet to the frozen lake below.

With nothing in her path,nothingto stop her, Alora curled her arms around her knees and tucked her head between them. Hoping—praying—that whatever came next would be swift and painless.

Her breaths froze her throat. Heart sputtering?—

Over the edge?—

Down, down, down?—

The ice split open on impact. Swallowing her to its depths. Survival instincts screamed inside her as she fought, falling deeper into the lake until her arms and legs created enough resistance to slow her.

But it helped little—she had drifted too far down.

Darkness surrounded her, offering no inclination of where the surface was. So Alora calmed her limbs, waiting to be pulled. Waiting to float in a direction that would?—

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