Page 150 of House of Embers
Bastian still hadn’t moved, and then he tipped his head back and heroared.
Alura couldn’t stop the satisfied smile even with the horrible absence in her chest.
“Even playing field,” Alura muttered. “Your move.”
***
Fordham reached for Kerrigan in the frost. Her body had gone limp as the ice rushed across the crypt.
“Kerrigan!” he yelled.
The crown was still on her head. He couldn’t wrench it off. He was going to lose her. He couldn’t lose her.
“Please,” he gasped. “Please, don’t take her. Not her goodness or her hope or her life. Not a single part of her. We need her. I need her.”
Then he felt aclickas if her magic had latched on to him.
It wasn’t the bond. He could still feel her through their mating bond. That was the only way he knew that she was still living, because she had stopped breathing, as if her entire body had gone into stasis. But the mating bond said she was alive and well. It made no sense. And this click made no sense either.
That was when he realized what it was—his bond to Netta.
He burrowed down into that bond, felt where his dragon settled into his chest, and leaned into it.
Her voice was soft in his mind.“Has she done it?”
“I don’t know. She is incapacitated. I might lose her.”
“You could never lose her.”
Netta put warmth down the bond.
And then with a terrifying efficiency, theclickhappened again, and the bond was severed.
His hand went to his chest as agony swept through him. Not from the loss. It felt more like it had never been there. Never existed at all. But that hurt more than ever. Because Netta was a part of him. Had been since they had locked eyes in the cavern at the end of the tournament. She washis.
And now…she wasn’t.
“What have you done?” Fordham whispered to Kerrigan.
Irena’s stone sarcophagus cracked down the middle. The ancestor of his house had been shattered. The crown at her temple was broken.
A gasp came from Kerrigan, and then with aclink, the crown fell off her head.
“Kerrigan!” Fordham cried, throwing his arms around her.
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
“What was the price?” he asked as his hands ran over her body like he could see through her to what had happened and what had been taken.
“The end of the bargain,” Kerrigan said simply. “You can’t reach Netta, can you?”
“No,” he confessed. “I thought you were just going to change the binding.”
“I couldn’t,” she said, her skin going pale as she tried to move.
“Stay here with me.”
“I could only…break it,” she whispered. “That was the only option.”
