Page 20 of A Realm of Shattered Lies

She’s pardoned me of so much more than I’d imagined was forgivable. She would. Asha will forgive me.

But she won’t understand.

She’ll do what she always does and blame herself. She’ll take Blaise’s death on as if it were her own.

If I kill Blaise, Asha will spend the rest of her immortal existence mourning her.

Just then, something clicks in my mind, and it’s like a door being slammed open, the rest of my consciousness freed to flood back in.

My hand is still closed around Blaise’s heart.

Horror overcomes me, and I uncurl my fingers, extracting my hand from her chest before I can do any more damage.

Something screams, and Evander covers his ears. It takes me a moment to realize I have, too.

Shadows swirl about the room, encompassing us, and the air is sucked from my lungs. The dark tendrils shoot into Evander’s nose and mouth, and I’m brought back to the image of Calias drowning Asha and Fin.

No, no, no.

Evander’s mouth widens, like he’s crying out, but no sound emerges.

Another band of shadows shoots for Blaise’s heart, as though Marthala will rip it out herself if she has to.

The shadows don’t get to her.

Because I erupt into Flame.

CHAPTER 7

NOX

It takes me a moment after the pain to absorb the facts of my current situation.

I’m at the bottom of a pit, one whose walls reach too high for me to climb.

Someone threw me down here. That explains the splitting headache.

Last of all, and most importantly, the instinct carved into the back of my consciousness—the one I never quite turn off—sounds an alarm.

Because the sun is about to rise, and there’s no shade in sight.

“How did you get out?”

Zora’s voice knocks me back to reality. Or, this reality, at least. I shoot to my feet, my pounding head keeping my feet from being completely steady.

“Zora, you have to help me out of here,” I say, though I know immediately it’s no use. No use, because she’s the one who dumped me here.

She paces at the ledge of the pit, clawing her fingers through her cropped hair like she’s trying to yank a realization from her mind, one she’d rather toss into this pit with me before leaving me to burn.

“How did you get out?” she asks, again spinning toward me, staring down at me from above with a crazed expression warping her typically warm features.

I choose my words carefully. “I’m not out of this pit. But I need you to help me get out, and quickly.”

“Not out of the pit,” she practically yells. “Out of my head. How did you get out of my head?”

Words fail to reach my lips. My skull is still pounding, panic making my heart race. I’m having a hard time focusing on anything other than my primal awareness of the location of the sun.

“I’ll explain everything,” I say, though I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Just toss me a vine so I can climb out, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

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