Ella could only inhale shallowly into her tight chest as she approached Rian. His empty gaze settled on her, glinting with reflected light from the fire but devoid of any warmth, recognition, or sentiment. He tracked her with cool, almost predatory detachment, sending a shiver spilling down her spine.
Qae was right—while they might want to believe this Rian wouldn’t do anything to harm them, they certainly couldn’t trust that blindly. He was a soulless shell. A weapon with no reference for loyalty, or honor, or love.
She let her power unfurl within her, warmth inundating her body, energy fizzing through her veins like bubbles in her bloodstream. Rian’s posture tensed as though he’d sensed a threat, his attention zeroing in on her in a new way. His hands curled into fists, and she could feel the menace rolling off him.
Ella swallowed against the nervous tension thickening in her throat. Rian stalked an intimidating step toward her, and an echo of Varean’s alarm slammed through their entanglement. She held a hand up when she sensed his intent to intervene and waited as Rian approached, her heart feeling like it was going to pound right out of her chest. Her instincts were telling her to run, but instead she locked her muscles and firmed up her resolve. She was the only one who had a chance of saving him from this. She couldn’t fail.
The ghostly chill of his aura reached her first, wrapping around her ankles and sliding up, sending an icy shiver rippling across her skin, at odds with the heat of her power building in her veins. She stood her ground, planting her feet; she had to maintain control. Instead of attacking the darkness, she had to reach Rian’s true self.
He stopped less than a step from her, dead eyes searing into her like the freezing-cold burn of a permafrost. With preternatural speed, he wrapped a hand around her throat and dragged her into him. His touch was chilly, like the reaper himself, promising nothing but death. The dark emptiness within him tugged at her soul, drawing her warmth and energy into the black hole at the center of his being, extinguishing all life and light without prejudice.
Sheer horror burned coldly though her insides, terrifying her that she’d become lost to the darkness. She could see it now, the true danger that lurked within him. The thing she’d been afraid of all along—that opening herself up to Rian would see her lost and annihilated.
“Ella.” Varean’s voice was a warning rumble somewhere behind her, but she sensed he hadn’t attempted to get any closer.
The tug on her soul increased, a rending pain growing in pressure within her. The fleeting thought that there’d be nothing left of her by the time this finished crossed her mind, quick, light, and fragile as a nightingale, its wings broken by a ravaging storm. But it was too late to back out.
There was no other option. This was the only way to get Rian back. Even if she destroyed herself in the process.
But she wasn’t alone. The entanglement had formed between three of them. Was this the reason for it, because both she and Rian needed an anchor? She hadn’t planned to drag Varean into this, but she couldn’t see a way of succeeding without him. It still might not work; she still might end up taking Varean down with her.
“Anchor me, Varean, for as long as you can.”
He walked over to stand right next to her, their arms brushing lightly, but otherwise not touching. Rian glanced between the two of them, and she could practically see his hackles rising. If they were going to do this, they needed to do it now, before the darkness in Rian felt threatened enough to make him act.
She firmed up the gossamer threads of their entanglement and felt Varean take hold, take charge, and secure them deep within himself.
Ella released the hold on her powers, opening herself up in a manner she’d been specifically taught not to do. While it was a surefire way to access every atom of her abilities, it also left her wide-open to attack on her very essence, her soul, heart, and mind. She was no longer aware of any physical reality; she existed as nothing but a transcendental force.
The darkness within Rian recoiled even as its hunger increased tenfold, greedy to devour the light and energy
pouring through her. A honey trap she hadn’t realized she’d be able to spring.
Where less than a rotation ago, she’d unknowingly drifted into the nexus of their entanglement through a dream—to that place between planes—this time, she blasted straight through. The inelegant destruction of mystical barriers laid waste to the metaphysical construct Rian’s soul had fled to when he’d given his body over to the darkness.
The backlash was a celestial shockwave, like the cutting, concussive blast of a sun going supernova. The darkness within Rian howled—though not in a way that could be heard by human ears—making her bones ache. It reverberated on a cosmic level, rumbling the ground beneath her feet, shuddering through the atmosphere, and wailing into the deepest reaches of space and time.
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