Page 164 of Visions of Darkness

No barriers left.

“You should try to sleep,” I murmured where my lips were pressed to her forehead. “I’ll be awake, watching over you.”

Aria barely shook her head, and she took my hand and wove our fingers together. She pressed our hands tight between us. “Come with me, Pax. If you hold me like this? I’ll be with you wherever you are. I can feel it.”

Anxiety had that ball of razors taking a tumble down my throat again. “I’m terrified of losing you there.”

“You won’t,” she promised, and she lifted our hands and kissed across my knuckles. “You won’t. Just hold on to me.”

Somehow, I managed to pull her even closer, and I dipped down and kissed her, my fingers threaded in her hair and my spirit tangled in her soul.

I inhaled her, took her into my lungs.

Coconut and the girl.

And I whispered, “I won’t. You are what my heart knows.”

Chapter Forty-One

Aria

Tearsith

She and Pax ran through the bowels of Faydor, their feet pounding across the lifeless desolation. Cruelties moaned and wept, and they slowed only to slay the Kruen they passed, quick and succinct as they tracked.

Their ears were tuned. Listening for the one who would seek to extinguish the life force that beat frantically through her veins.

Pax had begged her to stay in Tearsith after what had happened, but her heart understood its call, and she knew they had no time to waste.

Refusing, she had stepped through the threshold and fallen into the depths.

They might try to pretend, but she was no princess, and she couldn’t afford to be pampered.

Now they raced into the abyss.

Deeper and deeper.

Winding through the craggy plane, dodging the wiry elms and enormous boulders as they cut down as many Kruen as they could.

Voices echoing from her right slowed her.

Familiar voices that called their names. “Aria! Pax!”

“Timothy and Dani,” Pax rushed, glancing back at Aria in surprise. It was rare to find another during the hunt with the way they spread out, their speed so much faster than anything they could match during the day, covering miles and miles of decay-rotted eternity.

Aria ran in their direction with Pax’s hand held firmly in hers. Only they skidded to a stop when they came to where Timothy panted and Dani wept. Torment blazed in Timothy’s pale, pale eyes. “I’m so sorry, Aria. We found it again, but we couldn’t bind it. It’s so strong. Stronger than anything we’ve ever encountered before. I’m afraid it might be greater than our abilities.”

She heard what he said without him fully issuing the words.

It couldn’t be stopped.

It couldn’t be smashed.

Despair wound through her consciousness, making her knees sag with the weight of what he was saying. But more so, it was the gutting sympathy that coated Dani’s gaze that made the ground tremble beneath Aria’s feet.

It felt as if she were standing in a war zone beneath the barrage of a thousand bombs that fell from the sky.

Tumultuous waves slammed into her again and again.

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