Page 119 of Bright Soul

My hands were shaking. It was so cold, bitterly so. The Void’s presence made it nearly impossible to untie both knots, and it took my whole control for a few crucial moments.

Cress’s alarm and pain tore through me. I gasped for air, dropping the soul back into its body.

Myuna had my mate in her hand, crushing her with overlong fingers. The Void swirled around them both, closing into a cage while the goddess gloated. And then they disappeared together.

My mating bond intensified with agony, urgency, and distance all at once, a shrill tone at the back of my head. Sunlight returned to the chamber as I ripped my power back, appearing in an instant where Myuna had stood and catching Flame to swipe both of my swords where only Void mist remained.

I had my shadowborn form back in an instant, turning the wolfish maw toward Auric where he stood behind our allies’ defensive line. I was before him in the next instant, letting my shadows hold my swords. I grabbed the front of his suit, dragging his stout body up so we were face to face. “Send me after her,” I snarled.

“It’s too la—”

“Right now,” I shouted at him.

“She’s already halfway to—”

White-hot pain sheered down my back and my fingers clenched, tearing his clothes. He slipped out of my grip as I bent over, breathing heavily.

Cress!

She was dying. My bonds to her pulled taut. Energy flowed from me into the endless nothing, a tether of pure life force.Something—Myuna—guzzled the power greedily on the other side.

“If you’ve ever valued our friendship,” I rasped. “You will open the way.”

Figures crowded us. “I’m going with you,” Geo rumbled.

Ben helped support me upright. His face was dangerously wan, but his tone brooked no argument. “Me too.”

Instead of arguing further, Auric drew the Void’s presence back. Cold mist enveloped his fingers and it was the work of moments to open a rip in reality and expand its yawning black mouth wide enough to fit us one at a time. “I will leave you in the Void if there’s any sign of Myuna returning here,” he said, deadly serious.

“Fine,” I said, taking hold of my sword hilts.

Auric shouldered between the rip and me. “I will reverse part of the spell, so you can find her.”

“I’ll find her. No one should follow, though,” I growled. He nodded and stepped aside for Geo, Ben, and me.

On the other side, the rip was an oval of brightness in a world of encroaching cold and nothingness. “Whoa,” Ben murmured, bending to try to touch a ground that wasn’t there.

“Stop fucking around. Follow me and stay close,” I snapped, following the call of my mating bond. Ben recoiled, shocked, but did as I said.

I’d be able to find Cress even in the endlessness of the Void. Nothing, not even the whisper of voices and visions, would stop my forward charge.

I didn’t dare disappear into shadows to move faster, considering the other pieces of Cress’s heart ran to keep pace behind me. Without me, they’d be lost here in minutes and then reduced to laughing echoes. If one of us died, we’d all haunt the Void for eternity.

I spread my magic instead, forming a bubble of relative safety from the Void’s madness. As long as they didn’t listen too closely or stray to chase a vision, we stood a chance of making it to Cress in time.

“What is this place?” It was Roe’s voice. I flinched at the sound and glanced over my shoulder. It was the real her. She’d retracted her crystal armor into its pendant and sprinted to join us alongside Wren and Áine.

My blood ran as hot as liquid flame. “You should not be here,” I said harshly. “I thought I made it clear thatno one should’ve followed us!”

Roe puffed along, shrugging off my anger. “Cress is my coven mate and I wasn’t about to leave her behind…no matter where the hell we are.” She had a chipper enough tone, like a run through the Void was a Saturday morning jog, not a dip into a location of near-guaranteed insanity and death.

“Don’t worry.” Wren’s voice was a lot more labored. “The blue dude cut everyone else off. It’s just us.”

I grunted. It was the least he could do, after banishing my mate to the Void with the likes of Myuna. If we survived this, he’d be lucky if I didn’t gut him like a fish for the oversight.

And if we didn’t…

I felt the currents of magic around us shifting. Cress’s presence was coming toward us as Auric reversed his spell, as promised. She was no longer left halfway to Soiluire, where she’d perish long before we’d manage to find her. In fact, we were drawing close enough to hear the echoes of distortion from what had to be Myuna’s voice.

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