Page 207 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

Light that obliteratedeverythingbefore it.

Trees turned to ash, earth was scorched and cracked, and the few fey and griffins foolish enough to linger were incinerated with the exception of all those near Amira.

Ornella’s rage and fury was such as I had never heard until she hit some kind of edge to her magic and abruptly hit her knees, gasping in breaths that sounded painful.

But the elf was gone. I did not think they were dead, but they had fled before Ornella’s wrath.

Ciaran grabbed me, heaving me up over his shoulder as he retreated to a portal where Darragh had Ornella who was kicking and pounding on his back.

“Don’t leave him! We can’t leave without Sage!”

Her screams were ignored as we all swept into a portal and fell to the floor of my tent where I felt Nuala grabbing my face. She was yelling something at me, but I could not hear or understand.

I lost Sage. My cousin wasgone.

Chapter fifty-four

HE PROMISED

Ornella

“Ornella! Ornella!”

I was not sure when the person shouting in my face managed to get my attention, but I realized it was Nuala. She was gripping my cheeks so hard that her fingernails were biting into my skin.

“Breathe. Justbreathe,” she instructed me. Her voice sounded so calm, but her mismatching eyes were frantic.

“Sage.”

“I know. Iknow, Nell! But right now, Rian needs you. Please! He needs you to use Sage’s magic to remove the starlight from inside him. If you—”

“Sage.”

“Ornella,” she insisted sternly, looking so desperate as she shook me. “You are the only one who can save Rian. Sage would want you to save his cousin.Please!”

Yes. He would want that.

I felt fractured. Misshapen and wrong. Broken and jagged and shattered all over the place. My hands were shaking badly as I looked around me unseeingly. I wasn’t even sure where we werealthough I had the vaguest sense that I should recognize it. My mind was blurry.

“Over here. Please hurry,” insisted Nuala as she guided me toward Rian who was laying on the floor. His armour and shirt had been torn off, and there was a bright gleam in his chest. “You will need to reach in for the starlight,” Nuala reiterated helpfully. “Éadrom, stay back!”

I could not recall why this was necessary. I knew it had been put there but couldn’t seem to gain enough purchase in my own mind to remember why it happened.

“Okay,” I mumbled and lifted my shaking hands over Rian because all I knew for certain was that Sage would want his cousin healed. “I won’t overdo it. I promised.”

The words trembled off my lips in a mantra that I did not really understand as I tried to heal Rian.

“Ornella, you need to use Sage’s Light magic first,” explained Nuala insistently.

“Sage.”

“You have to use his Light magic to take that thing out of Rian quickly,please,try and focus,” Nuala urged me.

I started to cry. Overwhelmed and not knowing what the hell I was doing and not understanding why I felt like I was completely shattered.

“Sage.”

My home. My mate. He was gone.

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