Page 143 of Storm of Fury
There was no more humming.
No more violent cascade of colors.
The portal was closed, but it had been opened once, and as he looked at each rune stone in turn, he saw shivers of the boulder crumble into fine powder. No more runes lay dormant there, waiting for the moonlight to strike them just so….
And he could sense a heaviness in the air, as if power stirred through the mountain, just waiting….
“Ishtar.” He was breathing heavily. “What did you do? Who is the voice in the moon?”
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“You can tell me. I’m your brother. Your twin brother.”
And then she said a name that made the bottom of his stomach drop through his boots. “He calls himself Tyndyr.”
The King of Álfheimr’s most brutal warlord.
* * *
“Don’t you dare die,”Sirius snapped to his mother, blood welling between his fingers as he tried desperately to stop the bleeding.
Her heart. The spear had nicked her heart and he poured his magic into her, trying desperately to stem the blood flow internally and heal each and every last broken capillary. It was taking too long, and he wasn’t fast enough.
Every time he patched a vessel, another required urgent attention, and then the first one would start to leak. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t save her—
Zorja clapped a weak hand over hers. “Let me go,” she whispered in his mind. “You’re overtaxing yourself.”
No.
“I’m the fucking Blackfrost,” he snapped, as a pain began to grow behind his eye. “I can do this!”
“I loved you.” He could sense flickering memories pouring through their bond—a little boy running through grass and laughing.Him. And he could feel the smile on her face as she watched him, feel the love that poured down the bond between them. “I loved you so much it broke my heart to leave you. But I had to. I wanted… you to know that.”
He shoved her out of his mind so he could concentrate.
It was too late. Her heart pulsed once. Twice. And he was more killer than healer, though healing was merely a matter of reversing the flows.
For all his power he was absolutely fucking helpless right now.
Bare feet padded toward him and Ishtar appeared, her gaze locked on Zorja. Marduk hovered at her side and though he looked troubled, his face paled when he saw the body in Sirius’s lap.
“I can’t heal her,” he whispered to Marduk, though he meant the words for himself.
Not fast enough to prevent the bleeding.
A wheezing breath escaped Zorja, her hand half-lifted toward Ishtar. And then he felt her body slacken into his arms as she gave one last exhale.
No. No.
His grip around Zorja tightened as he hauled her into his arms. “I love you.” The words broke over his tongue, but it was too late. For she was gone and he’d never had a chance to speak them, because of his own fucking pride—
He felt Malin reach out to him across the distance as if she’d sensed his sorrow, the gentle caress of her touch wrapping around him as she realized what had happened. “Oh, Sirius,” she whispered in his head. “I’m so sorry.”
And suddenly it didn’t matter that his mother had never been there.
She had chosen an innocent child’s life over his, because she had believed that what she was doing was right. And she’d failed them both in so many ways, but he forgave her for it.
Only now, it was too late.
