Page 88 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

She opened her mouth, loosening an agonized groan that brought wicked attention to her side. To that branch lodged below her ribs that sent white-hot pain spurting from the wound.

The branch—it wasn’t long. She didn’t need to snap it to avoid it catching on anything. But she couldn't remove it either. That could make it worse.

An animalistic growl snarled through her gritted teeth as she forced herself through the pain to sit up and roll to her shaking hands and knees.

This wasn’t how she would die.This is not how a lioness dies.

‘You are sunstorms and starfire. Refuse to surrender.’Stars, hearing Garrik’s voice … feeling him there …

Pushing up from the forest floor, she attempted to steady herself, but the world seemed to press down on her shoulders and strike another blow. Any balance she hoped for was completely gone. Her only hope was to crawl.

Alora sucked in sharp breaths like shattered glass, spitting droplets of blood between her teeth. With each wavering press of her palms or step of her knees, Elysian seemed to laugh. Making it all but six feet before her body gave out.

In the fall … she hadn’t noticed a shadow moving. Hadn’t heard the footsteps.

Boots crowded her vision now.

Slowly, Alora struggled to lift her head. Her breathing uneven, a sliver of hope sparked inside her heart at the slow survey of the figure.

Black boots. Black pants.

The figure crouched over her, and she almost cried out.Almost.

A leather glove stroked blood-matted hair behind her ear. It traveled across the sliced flesh of her bleeding cheek to tenderly trace her lips before it fell to her neck and stroked there, too.

Tears of hope fell as she blinked and struggled to look up into the moonlit face dipping from the darkness.

That hand stroking her neck began to squeeze cruelly, cutting off what little air she could breathe before a horrifyingly familiar voice snickered, “Going somewhere, princess?”

The shadows around Garrik had not stopped whorling. They had torn viciously through camp like a life-ending flood after his attempts to reach Alora had failed. Like a burst of light across the sky, Garrik’s Smokeshadows had exploded through the night sky, snuffing out every star until it was a blackened abyss. Scouring the expanse of the surroundingforest as far as every edge of Elysian land and seas, around every tree and river, down every cliff, and across every mountain.

When they had returned empty-handed, he did not allow himself a second to panic. Instead, he became ash and clouds of shadows, settling himself inside his tent covered by an impenetrable shield. Blocking out every sound and distraction around him to release a burst of power. His mind had scanned and searched as his shadows did. Reaching out, calling to starfire—to her—her magic as he had done to locate every Mystic within his legion and beyond.

Garrik’s chest tightened. For the first time in years, he could hardly breathe.

She was nowhere.

Nowhere.

At first, he thought it simply a game. One he would gladly play, even when distracted by reviewing Kadamarian strategies from the war tent. He had reclined comfortably in his chair while condensation collected around his fingertips on his glass of vanilla and oak, beaming at the thought of her toying with him. Asking where he went as if she had returned to the valley searching for him.

Andfuck… if that did not have him needing to adjust himself at the memory of what he had done to her hours before. But her voice … something had changed. It had become muffled, as if she had entered a cave or dove into a roaring ocean and was swept away.

Then she was gone.

Just.Gone.

“No one has seen her.” Thalon quavered, disbelief stealing his golden eyes.

They gazed upon the valley, the same one where Garrik had last laid eyes on Alora, the camp glowing behind them. Silver watched his brother run inked hands through his Earnedand braided locks, then traced the shadow brightening behind Thalon’s back.

Garrik had only seen that shadow fully manifest a few times in his life. Once at the threat of war, when the High King received a missive of an uprising and overtook the Kingdom of Illmataria. Thalon had been ordered to oversee the siege of the castle within their highest floating city. Where the king and queen knelt before Magnelis—the Savage Prince at his side—as Zayn watched his beloved Sitara … Watched Garrik’s sword falling to her neck …

Then, another time, when Magnelis had thrown his son from the tallest castle turret and ordered Thalon to bring him back after he had succumbed to the stones below. Bloody, broken, and useless. A punishment—a gift—when they had dragged him from his horrendous dungeon, but their attempts to alter his refusal to obey the High King were futile.

Thalon looked at him, speechless. Flexing his back with fear …actual fearin his eyes.

Garrik had only seen that look a few times, too. And was certain his own features mirrored the same.

---