Page 104 of Fate and Flame
I pulled Nadra away from him as Rhogan stepped in.
“How?” Gaea cried, her feline eyes opened and locked on Nadra.
“It’s a long story.” She shrugged, refusing to offer more as she took my hand and pulled me and Rhogan away. Toward Kai, who had sat on the ground with his back to everyone. He tucked his knees to his chest and tried to hide his face as Wren sat beside him.
“What happened?” she whispered.
His shoulders shook. The warrior was crying. Greeve came, offering solace to his friend. Soon, everyone but Ara, who still stood, staring into the forest, sat in a circle around him, waiting.
“Tell us.” Greeve leaned a shoulder into him.
“It was a secrar,” Gaea said first. “The first creature was a vysa.”
Rhogan took a deep breath beside me, his wings twitching.
“The vysa turned Kai against us, and Ara and I had to keep him occupied while Fen . . .” Her voice shook. She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut as if the memory was wrapped in physical pain. “Fen had to shatter the vysa’s shield. He did, but then Ara had to use her magic to kill him. He was too big. Too powerful. Her magic hurts her.”Gaea’s voice faded away as she looked into the evening sky. Greeve wrapped an arm around her, and she continued, though quiet. “Her magic overwhelmed her, and she needed Fen. But he couldn’t protect her when the secrar came. We think it was feeding off her emotions. That’s how it found us, the leech. We didn’t know she was struggling until it was too late.”
“The creature stole Gaea’s magic almost instantly,” Kai murmured, saving her from having to speak the words. He looked to Greeve. “I tried to save her. I swear I did.”
“You did save me,” she whispered.
“Fen was standing in front of Ara, using the little bit of magic he had left to try to shield her on the ground. But when I blocked the secrar from killing Gaea after it stole her magic, it turned on me.” He ran his hands through his hair, burying his face into his arms and began to sob again.
“Fen left Ara on the ground to take the final magical blow, saving Kai and sacrificing himself instead,” she whispered, turning to look toward Ara, who still hadn’t moved. “And then Kai killed it before it killed the rest of us.”
“I’m not a hero. If he dies, it’s my fault,” Kai said quietly, tears tracking down his face.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ara
Icould still hear them, the words they spoke. But I was numb. Numb to it all as I stared into the new crippled edge of the forest. Half of it was gone, blown to ash because of my terrible magic. But so was Fen, so I didn’t care. A deafening silence crept over me. I could feel myself screaming and screaming in my mind, yet I didn’t move, wasn’t even sure if I was breathing. I reached for the familiar link that had carried me for so long, but still, only hollowness echoed back. That was all that was left of me, a vacancy of where he had been.
I had told him I loved him, but I can’t remember if he said it back. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d uttered those words to me. The last time I felt his lips pressed to mine. His hands in my own. He had told me he didn’t want days or weeks. He wanted a lifetime. The vision that I had shown him. He wanted that too. He wanted it all and had gotten nothing.
Please. Please come back to me.
Silence.
The sun began to set. The voices behind me grew hushed. Someone came and wrapped an arm around me, but their body weight only added to my own until they stepped away. I heard mumbles of voices. Eventually, my legs gave out and I fell to my knees on the charred ground, still watching the forest for any type of movement. Still hoping, praying to one of the many gods I couldn’t name for a miracle. A blanket fell over my shoulders. I closed my eyes, the memory of emerald filling my mind. I replayed everything.
“Hello you,” he had said the first time I’d seen him. So familiar. He’d known me my whole life. He had waited for me, so I would wait for him. And if he did not come back to me, if the northern king had taken my mate, I would walk. I would crawl. I would dig my way into his gods-damned castle and I’d blow that motherfucker to pieces. Then I would destroy the world.
“You must come now,” a voice said, pulling me toward the forest.
I stood. My movements were hardly a thought as my heavy feet dragged and I stumbled. I thought he would come back. I thought he would be the one to walk out of that forest. Instead, I had been called. And I knew why. I could feel it. Or the lack thereof. The tiny flame within me flickered and dimmed. The bond, nothing more than a memory.
No one followed. I wasn’t sure if it was because they left, they fell asleep, or they knew after I said goodbye to my mate, I would no longer be safe to be around. Without Fen, we weren’t a family anymore. The lump in my throat continued to hinder my swallowing as I moved forward, unable to take a full breath into my lungs. I passed tree after tree as Ofra’s magic pulled me.
“You’ve come a long way since last I saw you,” she said as the forest fell away and I stood in the middle of the pixie glen.
He was there, lying on the ground as I once had after my parents died. Ofra’s long black hair flowed around her as she motioned to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Maybe I should have just stayed here when you had asked me to. Maybe none of this would have happened.”
“Fate is not that simple, Ara. You either fulfill it or you die.”
Or both, I told myself.
