Page 139 of Moonmarked

The dragon bone chain sat coiled at the center of the circle she’d made, waiting. Becoming paler and paler the more my guilt grew.

There was a chance that this would kill Raja. There was a chance it wouldn’t work, even with bones of dragons to amplify her magic and take the hit this seal inked into my skin would no doubt deliver before breaking.

“This is going to hurt,” Raja muttered, crouching low to smear a thick line of ash across the outer edge of the circle. “And I don’t mean the kind of hurt you can grit your teeth through, Rune. This is going to rip through every nerveyou’ve got and keep going until it finds what’s left of your soul.”

I stepped inside the circle without hesitation. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

She stood and looked at me—reallylookedat me—something between frustration and fierceness in her dark eyes. “Stay conscious. You pass out before it’s done, you die.”

I knew it was going to be easier said than done, but I nodded anyway. “Noted.”

Raja took her place in the circle opposite me, a small knife I’d made for her in her hand. The blade was made of what we calledzemn,Verenthia’s lightest metal, and it was her favorite, laced with threads of shadow magic.

“This is the last time I’ll ask.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “You want me to stop, say it now.”

Drowning the guilt and the second guessing as best as I could, I said, “Do it.”

Raja slashed a line across her palm first, her blood dark and thick as it spilled over the dragon bone links. The chain snapped to life instantly, glowing bright enough to blind me.

That, I hadn’t expected, but Raja didn’t look surprised at all.

Then came my turn.

I didn’t flinch as the blade bit into my skin, a thin line on the side of my neck where it connected with my shoulder, right over the ink that reinforced the seal and the lock that had been put on me.

The very next second, fire ripped through my veins—no, not fire. Something worse.

Raw magic,untamed and wild, screaming throughevery sealed pathway my father’s curse had locked down for years.

I tasted blood on my tongue and my legs shook as the power tried to tear me apart from the inside.

Fuck, it wasmuchworse than I’d expected.

“Stay with me, Rune…”

Raja’s voice came through the storm in my head, distant, like I was already in a different place. Like I’d already traveled worlds.

My vision blurred, tilting between light and infinite darkness.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood, and how long I tried to push through, how long Raja kept calling for me to stand, not fall, keep my mind awake at all costs.

I don’t know how long until, beyond it all, Iheardthe seal etched on my skin beginning to fracture.

It’s working.

I forced my lungs to drag in air, every breath a battle. But in my mind, I’d already decided that I would not die here today, not with Nilah still in the Seelie Court. Not with her life balanced on the edge of a blade. One final push and I tried to cling to the weak sun rays barely slipping through the ruined windows, as if they were a concrete thing, rope that could pull me out of this madness.

One last breath and my body had turned completely numb.

I felt the push of Raja’s magic as it put pressure on the seal. I felt it now, going through me, wrapping around my entire body like invisible chains reinforced by the ink. It was there, and it was so fucking strong.Toostrong.

Raja kept begging me to stay with her, to stay on my feet.

I couldn’t.

My bodydissolvedunder the pressure of the magic that suddenly exploded inside me. I hit the ground on my side, felt the wood against my cheek, felt my mind shutting down faster than I could even think for one last time about trying to stay conscious.

But just before I forgot myself completely, I saw another flash in that darkness, heard another voice, one I hadn’t in such a long, long time…

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