Page 64 of A Reign of Roses
This time, though, I ran toward the feathered beast. I wasn’t sure if enough power had returned to me, but I had no other ideas. I’d dig deep and see what I could mine…Aiming for one of those wings, I tried to grasp on to the feathers, dodging the claws—
But the strix must have sensed my footfalls or heard my racing breaths, and it clawed through my dress and sent me flying backward into cold, hard stone.
“What was that?” Wyn screamed, rushing to my side.
“I was wrong,” I gasped on an inhale.
“You think?” Wyn spit blood onto the ground, his sweaty, dark brows highlighted by faint city lights.
“Its other senses are heightened.” The strix shrieked again and debris rained down above us. “Do you think you can blast the passage open wider with your lighte?”
“Yes, but—”
“And can you distract the beast? I think I can climb its wings.”
“Why would you dothat?”
I gritted my teeth and pushed myself to stand. “I have an idea.”
“An idea that will result in our dismemberment?” Wyn’s voice was edging on hysterical.
I considered his question, backing up as the strix prowled closer, claws outstretched. “I hope not.”
Wyn sighed and leveled his gaze at the beast. “Hurry.”
I didn’t give the kingsguard a chance to change his mind as I hurtled for the other side of the cavern. That exit, that corridor illuminated with streetlight.
“Here, birdy!” Wyn called out to the blind creature, his voice echoing against the cavern walls as he rapped his fists against them. “Over here!”
Another deafening shriek. That howl so violent it shook the bones beneath my skin. The strix took off after him, flapping wings that couldn’t move quite well enough in the space, shuffling those deadly, clawed feet.
And I waited.
Waited, as my heart thundered in my ears, unable to inhale a single breath. Until the creature flung its wing out, scrambling toward Wyn with those terrifyingly gangly arms.
I dove, latching on to the feathered, owllike wing, holding tight as it swung me this way and that. I climbed, fingers digging through the plumes until I sat atop the howling beast. And as it thrashed and screeched, I held my hands across the strix’s dry, empty eyes and pushed any lighte I had left through my fingertips.
The creature balked and stumbled backward, its spindly arm swinging up to swat at me and lash a single razor-sharp claw across my midsection, ripping me open.
Even as pain exploded in me—I held on to the creature’s eyes through clenched teeth and felt my lighte bloom behind its eyelids.
This was what my power had always been for. Not destruction. Not fear.
My lighte glowed and I swore I heard the sharp intake of Wyn’s shocked breath before the creature bucked once more and I toppled to the ground in a heap.
And then…
Silence.
Wyn’s hurried footfalls sounded behind me. He fell to the ground and held a hand to my stomach, repeating over and over thathe never should have listened to me. That we should have killed the beast when we had the chance.
But all I could hear was the silence. The sound of a strix that I knew—knew in my very soul—was blinking eyes open to see for the first time in who knew how long. That silence, thatfreedomcontinued to echo through my ears as Wyn scooped me into his arms. “Oh, Gods above,” he murmured.
I knew what he meant, even as my eyes rolled back in my head. And try as I might, the more I pressed my own palms to the weeping tear in my stomach—there was no healing power left. Any meager lighte that had regenerated since I blew the receptacle had been used on the strix.
Unlike the Fae king, by all accounts, I was not immortal. My life was not tethered to the Blade of the Sun by prophecy, like his. And while full-blooded Fae lived longer than any other beings, and my healing abilities had gotten me out of more close calls than I could count, there were some injuries and ailments that took their toll faster than any Fae could heal.
I was half-aware of Wyn’s flash of violet lighte. There was a mighty rumble and the sound of boulders groaning as he split the rocky corridor open. Once it settled, he carried me through the winding corridor until warm fog kissed my face and ashy, mild air funneled in through my nose.
