Page 85 of When Storms Ruin

To defeat Donika once and for all.

I would never get those two days back that I laid motionless in the hospital bed, drained of energy and magic. Donika knew where we were now, and we needed to collect our dead and move on before she sent another force after us.

They had laid Tyr to rest, and I hadn’t been there for that, either. I said a silent prayer that he would forgive me, if we ever met again. That the mother would protect him and watch over him. He was innocent, and he deserved his final rites. He had been only a boy, and his life had been needlessly snuffed out.

As had so many others.

It wasn’t lost on me that I had killed our own when my storm had turned on me, controlling me and filling me witha bloodlust I had never known before. The grief from those events weighed on me each and every day I spent recovering in the hospital. That I was no better than Donika…that I had killed innocents, occupied my every thought.

We had lost a lot of lives during the battle, but Donika’s army had lost more. We knew her numbers were much greater than those she sent to fight us, but the thought of her remaining soldiers returning with their tails tucked between their legs brought a small smile to my lips.

Liss had a place in Siraleth where we would be safe, and Donika wouldn’t be searching for us there. We were splitting up, most of the resistance staying here in the city, and the council and a few other members traveling to Siraleth. Siraleth was still in ruins. There wasn’t enough housing there for all of us.

Isaac’s friend had secured several safe houses to split up the remainder of our numbers here in Prins, but we would need to keep a low profile. Liss’ place in Siraleth was close to the portal, so we could use that to our advantage if need be. One thing we could be certain of after all of this was that Donika herself wasn’t able to travel to the mortal realm.

Her soldiers could follow us there,but she couldn’t.

We needed time to heal and regroup, and we couldn’t do that under the watchful eyes of her spies. I was desperate to see Nik, but they hadn’t let me leave my hospital bed in days. I still felt weak, my limbs heavy, and my magic was almost…sore.As if it hurt to pull on it, and it needed its own time to heal.

When I first awoke, I feltnothing, and I feared my magic would never come back to me. That it would rebuke me for trying to give it away in order to save Nik’s life.

As it turns out…my magic had a soft spot for him, too.

Tess had returned to the town house with a heavy guard to retrieve the grimoire. It hadn’t wanted to go with her at first, giving her quite the difficult time, but it eventually relented. It was safely tucked beneath my hospital pillow, and it was the only thing I truly needed when we traveled to Siraleth.

I had tucked the key spell back into the front of the book, and the next time I had gone to open it, the spell was right where it should have been all along. There was no longer a tear in the pages, as if it had never been missing at all. Liss had some knowledge about this particular spell, and I couldn’t wait to get to Siraleth to pick her brain about it. I wasn’t good at staying put and resting. I was anxious to get back to work. To regain my strength, master this key spell and find a loophole to bind my magic, and come up with a new plan of attack.

I wouldn’t let Donika win.

I had killed Fletcher, and I hoped at leastthathad sent her a message.

I was not backing down.

The members of the resistance felt the same, their thirst for Donika’s blood renewed by the blood she had spilled that night in Prins. I still needed to find more literature on dream walking, and how Corian was able to find us in the first place. Liss said there was a library left untouched in Siraleth, filled with old tomes, and I was anxious to get my hands on them.

Tess hadn’t left my side in the hospital, and I was happy to see Isaac and Zion’s faces when they had visited me. Liss had visited me as well, but most of her time had been spent by Nik’s bedside, healing him. It had taken a lot of her energy, too. She had been healing everyone since the battle, and she needed to let her magic recuperate. We were all feeling weakened and worn down in the days that followed.

A part of me wondered why Donika hadn’t sent any Noctani or Araneoch to do her bidding. With her monsters in tow, she easily could have wiped out our entire resistance. Had she sent this force of soldiers as a test? To see how many of us there were that would stand against her?

Word had spread about the resistance after the battle, and our numbers were growing by the day, more and more Shades joining our forces. Those that had lost a loved one in the battle had chosen to take up arms against her, and we were thankful for those that chose to step up.

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” Tess asked, glancing at me over the top of her magazine. She had her long legs stretched out in front of her on the hospital bed across from mine.

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get anyrestwith these fluorescent lights beaming into my eyeballs,” I told her, crossing my arms and glaring at the ceiling pointedly.

Tess laughed, tossing the magazine to the foot of the bed. “Have you found anything in the grimoire about the dream walking?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I searched all morning and came up with nothing. I’m hoping the books Liss has in the library in Siraleth will help.”

Tess nodded. “I, for one, can’t wait for you to get better so we can get out of here.”

“It isn’t onlymethat is still weak,” I reminded her.

“I know,” she replied, swallowing hard. “There are so many here that aren’t strong enough to travel.”

But we wouldn’t have to wait on them, since there was only a small contingency of us traveling to Siraleth.

The others didn’t know where we were going. We wanted to keep our location as secret as possible, which meant only those of us going knew the details.

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