Page 108 of Synodic

Everything has a cost,Rayal had said. And I was paying with my life.

I didn’t know if I would survive this, but the thought of freeing Rowen, Rayal, and the other prisoners from the crypts was enough to pacify my dread. Or accept it.

I raised my arm, my skin glowing in blinding rays of incandescent silver. “You wanted a spark?” I shrieked as my hair cracked and whipped around me. “Well, here it is!”

My power was a foreign entity I had almost no control over as it unleashed from my body in a heavenly torrent. I directed my blinding beam right at Fou’s lovely face, but at the last possible second, an invisible hand of air gripped my wrist and pushed my arm upward, throwing off my aim. And instead of hitting Aliphoura square between the eyes as intended, my blast rammed into the crystal ceiling.

What I’d just done had left me depleted, empty, and spent. There was nothing left, and I folded down to my knees.

Everything I had to give, I gave. I gave it all.

And I had missed.

39

The cavern trembled with a quaking roar, rocking us all where we stood.

“What are you waiting for?” Aliphoura shrieked on the heels of the aftershock, displaying her first show of fear. “Get them!”

Her fleet stalked toward me with their weapons raised, clearly shaken but obedient to the core. Now, with orders to kill.

Rowen charged towards me in a stumbling sprint as bits of roof dripped on our heads in veins of glittering sand. Even if he made it to me in time, there was no way to defend ourselves against the armada headed my way. We were exhausted, trapped, and weaponless.

Before either could reach me, a more violent second tremor shook the chamber, splitting the ceiling that hung precariously overhead. Fou’s men stopped to cover themselves against the jagged pieces of crystal that rained down upon us like splintered icicles.

My lost aim had invariably sealed all our fates—the Crystal Crypts were caving in, and they would bury us all.

Rowen dove into me, knocking me flat on my back. Using his body as a shield, he lay over me, taking the brunt of the falling crystal blades. I wanted to move, to trade places with him, but my limbs were heavy anchors holding me down.

“I’m so sorry, Keira,” he said, looking into my eyes, wincing and grunting as his back and neck were sliced open. Blood dripped down and around his neck, and a vein bulged from his strained forehead. “You have to know. That kiss. What I said. It meant nothing. My soul would be forever tormented if you never knew. You mean everything to me.”

The look on his face alone told me he had just uttered his final confession—we weren’t making it out alive.

“I know,” I said. And I did.

“I missed my chance with you in this world,” he said, holding me tight. “I’ll find you in the next, and when I do, I swear I’ll never let you go.”

“In another life,” I agreed as his tears crashed and collided with mine; some distant part of my brain knowing Aliphoura was shrieking orders to kill.

“Just look at me, love,” Rowen breathed as our fate closed in around us.

I immersed myself in the smoky green of his eyes. It was a waiting game now, with little importance as to whether her loyal guard got to us first or the cave collapsed. We were already dead.

Suddenly, another blast larger than the rest erupted throughout the underground chamber, blowing my hair about Rowen’s face and dowsing us in bits of rock and dust. Rowen completely collapsed down on me and threw his arms around my head, burying his nose in my neck as the earthy shrapnel swarmed us in a mushroom cloud of sand and stone.

Disoriented and wondering if I was already dead, I peeked through Rowen’s arms. The entire side of the cavern had been blasted open.

Squinting through the raining dirt and crystals was Nepta, leading a pack of Wyn warriors through the threshold of the Crystal Crypts. Dust whirled around them in a giant plume of black powder and motes of speckled light.

“Kill them. Kill them all,” Aliphoura wailed in a retreating shriveling mess, far from the vision of cool perfection she so consciously cultivated.

The relief of the Wyn’s presence was short lived. The force from the blast only accelerated the cave collapsing down upon us all, and if Fou’s guard didn’t stand down, we would have a savage war on our hands; the casualties too precious to fathom.

The continual stream of slicing and impaling crystals didn’t deter the sentinels in the slightest, they had their queen’s orders, and they would follow them through to the death.

Nepta raised her arm in a sweeping motion, stilling the pointed shards in midair. Slowly and in perfect unison, they all turned like a swarm of murderous hornets, their deadly tips poised right at Aliphoura’s men.

Controlling the trajectory of the crystal knives, Nepta brought the sharp edges down upon the soldiers’ jugulars. Nepta was truly a terrifying marvel to witness, the way she knew exactly where to point and target the lethal objects based on vibrations and sound alone.

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