Page 110 of The Lands Defying
Just sinking down, down, down.
The Unforgivable Sea has a new soul, only this time, it didn’t willingly go in its deadly embrace.
Thirty
Darius
I heave myself up the cliffside and then lay on my back, my body exhausted. Still, I roll over on my side, my eyes going back to the water’s surface, still looking, still searching.
Always searching.
It’s been days of nothing.
Gripping my chest, I feel the emptiness within it as I dig my fingers into the dirt with my other hand, begging once again for Cazier to go to her, to keep her safe, to keep her breathing and bring her back to me.
And yet I still don’t see her, or feel her.
I never thought I would beg for anything, but for her, I would get down on my knees, bare my neck, and plead to the Gods.
Gripping the sides of the cliff, I move to sit up and dangle my feet over the edge. Everything stopped when she fell, the look on her face of defeat and resignation. I haven’t done anything apart from look for Rhea ever since.
My men are scouring the shores in case she ends up there, and the rest have been told to guard Vokheim in case of an attack. With Mathew and Frederick disappearing, and the many guardsthat were at that place in The Deadlands, it’s likely someone ported out and Charles has been told of my betrayal.
But as long as I can keep looking for her, everything else will have to wait. Including Charles and the people of Vrohkaria.
They can burn for all I care, nothing matters but her.
A figure appears further down the cliff’s edge, and I see Josh looking into the waters below with her other pack members.
I snarl.
He must have come back from seeing the Kid. The Kid that hurt Rhea, the Kid that should be dead.
I haven’t seen him yet. I’ll kill him if I do. I would tear him limb from fucking limb and throw what’s left of him into the Unforgivable Sea bit by bit.
The only thing stopping me isher.
If he wasn’t there, she would be fucking here.
She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, I chant to myself, trying to keep the rage from overflowing.
If I let it out, I won’t think clearly, and if I don’t think clearly, how could I ever find her?
Yet my chest feels like it’s caving in, my heart dying within as it beats a slow, cold rhythm. There is no warmth. No softness that it feels like when she’s around.
Nothing but coldness, which is what I felt before I found her.
No.
This is worse than what I felt before.
Before I set eyes on her, after my mother and sister died, I was a walking vengeance in a body of flesh.
Now without her…
I’m a walking corpse who won’t feel if you cut me, a dried, withered husk left to rot— but only left with rage.
No life flows within my veins.
