Page 141 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

DOROTHEE

I foughtwith everything I had, but my strength was waning and Anwir’s hold was too strong.

He dragged me back deep inside the maze, the vines parting for him straight to the centre.

“Let go of me!” I demanded, kicking his shins with the heels of my feet, but barefoot I wasn’t doing much to hurt him and I couldn’t use my arms, which were caged in the stronghold of his.

Perhaps I was going mad with fear, but the wind was starting to whisper my name. Calling and tugging on the strings attached to my soul.

Was it the wind, or was it death?

“We were early, you know? This hunt was rather pleasing for me because now we’re on time,” Anwir told me, and I could hear the sick smile he wore in his voice.

The vines shifted one last time, and suddenly, we were back in the centre of the maze, where the statue of Asteria stood above the altar, the dagger now gone, stolen by the Kingstone heir.

“Look at the stars, Dorothee. Do you hear them calling you to join? To come home.” I thrashed against him as we came closerand closer to the stone altar. Fear was suffocating me and all hope was lost.

This was truly it.

I would die on this altar.

All of this because humanity’s greed for power is greater than love in the universe we exist in, and I was the one who had to pay the price for it tonight.

Anwir threw me down on the icy stone, and I screamed at having the control over my limbs back, just for it to be taken from me by vines binding shackles around my arms and legs. Tying me to the table of sacrifices. Forcing me to look at the stars that greedily awaited to be witness to my death.

“It’s almost poetic. Your family has been portrayed by the star for centuries. De Loughrey women have always been so terribly mesmerising to the Kingstone men in my family that their vocabulary to describe their beauty was stolen from the cosmos.” I watched him as he walked towards the Book of Shadows lying on the ground and placing the open page by my side on the altar. “Fallen stars aren’t meant to walk on earth’s ground forever, Dorothee. It destroys the balance.”

“You were the one praising how important balance is in this world. That’s hypocritical,” I hissed, fighting the binds, only for thorns to bury themselves deep in my flesh.

Tears ran down the side of my temples and the world started to grow colder.

Please—don’t let this be the end.

I want to live, I wish to make memories and build a life of love with my friends andhim.

“Perhaps I am. But I’m doing this for the greater good, I’m doing this for him so that he can finish what he’s started and failed so terribly because of love. The greatest weakness of humanity.” Anwir shifted the hold of Asteria’s dagger so that the tip pointed at the floor.

At me.

I had to think of something. Come up with a plan to stop this. If he killed me, he’d break the shackles taming the gifts the moon goddess had blessed our bloodlines with.

Yes, I feared death, I didn’t want my life to be ripped out of my hands when I had just found solace in the form of my friends and the boy who was the keeper of my heart. But I also feared what would become of all of them and this school if Anwir succeeded.

By all the lies, I was certain that we only knew half of the consequences of the prophecy being fulfilled.

Anwir started to read words from the Book of Shadows I physically couldn’t understand over the fear ringing in my ears.

I closed my eyes and mumbled a prayer to the beings who have written this fate. A greater woman would have accepted her fate, but I wasn’t either great nor noble enough to take my death fearlessly.

I beg you to change the prophecy.I’d do anything.

“Sidus quod furatus dici et custodire promissionem!” The Kingstone heir yelled into the night.

“Doe!” Archer.

My eyes flew open at the sound of his voice and I looked straight in the direction where it was coming from.

He came.

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