Page 64 of Court of Bone and Amethyst

But I feel another surge of magic. My gaze rotates to Merla. Through the fear and glimmer of tears in the girl’s brown eyes, I see a pulse of anger.

“I will not go back!” she screams, her voice ringing across the field. “My life belongs tome!”

And then, from the tiny, broken body being dragged through the snow, an enormous pulse of magic rocks the earth.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sarielle

One moment Merlais there, her eyes fixed on mine as if trying to tell me something, the next she is gone, a massive pulse of magic blasting out of her.

The warriors holding her dissolve in the blast, as do the tents at the edge of the field. Blue light nearly blinds me, and the impact knocks me and the others off our feet. I land hard in the snow. Screams fill the air, and the nightmare roars, rearing up and backing away. The smell of burned flesh hits my nose, making my stomach turn.

Tiny, sweet Merla is dead. She’d sacrificed herself for me. For Valaron.

And I know what I have to do now.

I stagger to my feet amidst the chaos. From deep within me, my shadows burst forth. They break the bonds holding me, and I spin to face the nightmare at my back. The deadly, winged terror that could demolish the entire castle behind us, raze mountain ranges to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Zyren and Owyn climb to their feet. But my only focus is the beast in front of me.

“Bow down before your queen,” I say, my voice low, but loud enough for the thing to hear me.

“I do not take orders from you,” it growls, a voice I can hear in my head only.

I unleash my shadows, firing them into the monster. She roars as my magic hits her, and she thrashes against me, flailing in the snow. After several long moments, she falls to her knees before me. I don’t let up, letting all of my power, all of my rage, pour into her until she trembles and finally bows her head, submitting to me.

I see Avonia running toward me in my periphery, but I ignore her. Zyren and Owyn intercept, knocking her back with a dual blast of magic both deep gray and amethyst-toned. I run for the nightmare, climbing up its foreleg and onto its back, and I scream for them to follow me. The Septarus warriors, seeing their ruler on the ground, and the nightmare under my thrall, back away in fear.

Zyren and Owyn climb up behind me on the nightmare’s back, and I lean forward, uttering a command, my voice resonating with power. “Take usthere.”

And I point to the rift in the sky over the castle.

“It’s not big enough,” the nightmare growls in my head.

“It will be,” I respond.

The nightmare surges upward, its leathery wings beating the sky in powerful strokes. The icy wind whips around us, nearly sending me flying backward off the thing. Zyren and Owyn lean forward against me, all of us hugging low against the nightmare’s neck.

The rift in the sky is fast approaching, gold-green light pulsing from whatever lies on the other side of it. I raise my hands and send my shadows into the tear in the sky. My entire body shakes with the force of the magic moving through me, as if I myself am splitting in two along with the sky. I scream into the windas power pours out of me, breaks me, as I become nothing but shadow and magic.

And the rift opens, widening, just as the nightmare dives toward it.

We plummet through. The light on the other side is blinding, and for a moment I can’t see anything. But then we collide with something, and the nightmare flips head over tail, hurling all of us from its back. I fly through the air, my breath leaving my lungs, color spinning around me as I catch sight of sky and trees and…

Earth. I slam hard into the ground, a field of golden grass. I roll several times before coming to a stop. Agony makes my vision go dark as my broken shoulder is slammed again and again.

For several long moments, all I can do is suck in air. Then I manage to roll over, clawing at the grass with my fingers. My vision spins, but I pull myself upright.

Owyn is lying a few feet beyond me, and Zyren a few beyond him. The nightmare is half-buried in the ground twenty feet away, but it stirs, still alive. Owyn moves a little as well. But Zyren is completely still.

A whimper rises from my throat, and I climb to my feet. “Zyren!” I jog toward him, panic racing through my veins.

That’s when I see the two warriors standing by the rift. It hovers only a dozen feet above the ground on this side, and through it I can see the ice-blue sky over the Court of Memory. The warriors begin to stride toward me, their expressions fierce. Both of them emanate powerful magic, some of the most powerful I’ve ever felt.

I stop a few feet away from Zyren, holding up my hands. “We mean you no harm!”

I risk a glance down at him. He stirs just the tiniest bit, and I see his chest rise and fall. Relief floods me. I turn my attention back to the strangers.

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