Page 77 of Bound By Darkness

A few sentinels charged at me, but casting tore them in half before they loosened their first cries.

How had I forgotten its mastery? Its wails of pleasure as it tore through my skin. I’d forgotten how it felt to be this strong. To rely on the casting I’d inherited from my father as I descended from Death.

The gates were still steaming hot from the blast I’d assumed they had caused—the women I’d met in the tower. I did not look back as I exited the blazing metal. I would not give this place an ounce more of my suffering as I headed toward the oak trees?—

Two figures darted from the shadows, a handful of prisoners remaining within the oak’s shade.

“Where did you run off to?” Iyanna spat, her white eyes furiously blinking.

Holding my gaze steady, I lifted my shoulders in front of the two warriors. “I went to see a friend.”

Naexi’s brow quirked, but she remained silent as her lips rested in a thin line.

My fingers curled, nails stabbing flesh as I let their gazes sink into me. “I want to join you, the rebels.”

Iyanna’s face relaxed, a great breath expelling from her chest as if in relief before forced laughter echoed from her lips. “We aren’t the rebels, girl. We’re something far more promising.”

Chapter 22

Silver Eyes

IVAN

The carriage joltedas it veered on the gravel road, dust flinging from the massive wheels.

Fin laid out at the back, two medics swarming over him with various herbs and salves. They had managed to stop the external bleeding upon arrival, but the internal bleeding required surgery in Laias… of what remained of the bustling city.

The carriage veered left again as the city came into view. It was a city of rubble, and the castle was a pile of shattered glass and stone. The rebels had laid waste to it two days earlier.

The informationshehad given me was incorrect and it wasn’t the first time she’d lied.

My hands burned, the scars flaring as I opened and closed my fists rapidly to quell the discomfort lingering there. It dulled it slightly as I glanced at Thalia beside me.

She stirred against me, her eyes roaming back and forth beneath her eyelids. Her head tilted forward, those amber curls spilling over my shoulder as the wheels hit rock.

She had suddenly collapsed in the forest, the full brunt ofexhaustion overtaking her with the display of casting she’d expelled at the rebel.

Heat boiled within me at the memory of his hands, his power wrapping itself around her in possession while I watched helplessly from the ground.

They weren’t even supposed to be here.

Without the display of her casting, she would have been taken. She needed more training, and what had occurred in the forest proved it.

Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I tucked her underneath, relishing the closeness… the feeling of her.

The darkness had not swallowed her whole.

Vivid images replayed in my mind at her bound against the forest floor, tendrils of dark stuffing their inky fingers down her throat. Her mouth had opened in a silent scream as her eyes glazed over, night sweeping the land.

All I could picture was her dead. A burden I was too ashamed to admit.

I’d grown fond of her company. Her snarky remarks. The way she flicked her hair over her ear in frustration or how her nose crinkled when Fin made a joke. The thought of it becoming nonexistent in this world was a crime.

Even when the darkness seeped into my bones, the icy chill worse than Raha’s frozen lakes, I had held firm. I held firm?—

“Excuse me?” a young girl said, her doe eyes staring at me with anticipation. She shifted where she sat, her gaze darting with the ebb and flow of faelight streaming through the thinning trees.

Dressed in a plain tunic and pants, the unmistakable healing crest rested above her heart, glittering in hues of blue. Her brown hair neatly rested in two braids, the ends falling below her chest.

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