Page 208 of Gift from the Source
“She will be defeated,” he says low. “If she wasn’t strong enough to hold the power within my relic, then she is not strong enough to take me on.”
A reckless laugh leaves me. Each breath expands my lungs and fills them with smoke. I choke on the tainted air and let a feral smile cross my face.
“She was strong enough. Strong enough to hold it, defeat it, and free it. There is nothing for you to reclaim because she’s already destroyed it. Just like she will do to you.”
His shoulders rise and fall with his heavy breathing. The ground beneath me vibrates from the rage coursing through him.
Those voided eyes bleed. The black trails down his face, then sinks below his skin and starts again.
My legs finally give out on me.
My knees crash into the ground with a finality that cements in my heart like stone.
“We shall see about that, Light Bender. Let’s see if her soul will come to the call of her Nexus member dying.”
She will come.
She’ll just be too late.
Tillman
“Find him, little warrior, then the two of you get your asses to us. I don’t give a fuck if you have to open a portal to pop up in front of me. You get to where we see you. Sooner rather than later.”
My mental order to Willow is followed up immediately by moving into the minds of the four Mastery members moving in on us.
The second I rip through the rune weaved through them, they hit the ground, clutching at their chests where their hearts will soon fall out.
Fucking traitors. All of them.
“Lyker, check in,”I command, focusing my thoughts on him.
A ferocious howl pierces the air. Even though it’s much farther away from me than I’d like, it’s enough for now.
The grief pumping in my chest has me both raging out of control and on high alert to everything.
One of our oldest friends has fallen.
Draken’s roar scared the shit out of me. It was so mournful, even my soul shivered. I shoved my way into his mind to see who it was.
Fuck, I wish I hadn’t now.
“Keep your back to one of us. Do not break away,” Ry yells at Oakly as another full-fledged group of Mastery members charge toward us.
As much peace of mind it gives me having my best friends and Oakly by my side, I need to lay my eyes on Willow and Cas. Not knowing what they’re facing in this onslaught is fucking with my already chaotic thoughts.
Nothing is right. Nothing is balanced.
We were just warned not even twelve hours ago about how our numbers would never hold up to theirs.
I knew it to be true.
Between Maxima’s mind and everything Pran laid out. No matter the work I’ve put in over the last few years as E.F. Leader, nothing would prepare us to be outnumbered this bad.
What else were we to do, though?
Abandon the palace and the realm now?
Not a fucking chance.
