Page 155 of Red Ruin

Can it?

A whisper bleeds through time, space, and the layers of the earth.

“Bury it,” the Supreme snarls.

The memory fast-forwards. Soldiers and mages fill in the pit. They layer arrays and white sand, bones and incantations, then rock, mortar, and the bodies of the creatures bound as guardians in their afterlives.

The soldiers place crystals and more arrays. Remy’s vision fades before their work is finished, but countless lives and treasures are sacrificed beneath the earth.

The memory shatters.

I’m snapped back into Remy’s mind-space, only now I’m closer to the hive of crooked windows.

I see Remy as a baby with ancient eyes.

Remy on the battlefield. Remy’s father. A cold, dark crypt appears again and again, and so do sprays of blood.

So many deaths.

A snap of jaws fades into darkness.

A slow-fade looking up from the ground at the giant centipede clawing out and eating his heart.

Dying by arrows.

Dying by claws.

Dying by Azrids with red eyes.

No repeats.

They’re all the ends of different lives.

How many times did his family force him to revive?

With a shuddering gasp, I shake myself out of his thrall.

Remy lies on top of me.

His eyes and thoughts are blank.

Not good, not good, not good.

“Remy. It’s over.” I heave him sideways. He falls against Vhex. Neither stirs when I climb across his chest.

With desperate silks and a hand on his jaw, I send him all my light. “You’re with me now.”

I run my power through him, soothing tangles and calling out to his soul.

I need you, okay?

Don’t kiss me and trust me like that and think I’ll let you disappear.

Remy’s pupils contract.

He blinks at me, all muzzy.

“There you are.” I pop like a balloon, exhausted.

---