Page 129 of A Baron of Bonds
“It’s almost over!” I shouted, hoping Rev heard me as I lifted the sun high into the dome above, its heat radiating upon my face. I moved it out of my way, so that it would not burn my hands and cheeks as it did the last time I’d held it this long.
I needed to see its brilliance lay waste to the final threshold of what grew in Viridis.
I needed, more than anything in that moment, to witness the destruction of what I myself had produced—the pulsating mound of fruit trees I had summoned months ago in my grief for Viridis.
I hadn’t wanted to think about it.
I hadn’t wanted my thoughts to linger on why or how I had been able to grow my own version of the Blight.
I faced those thoughts then though, coming to terms with the Blightress’s truth that her power resided in me.
But as the trees began to fall, each one splitting down the middle, spurting black liquid down the white marble steps and igniting in a fire I did not mean to produce, I accepted the truth of myself.
I was a part of her.
I held immense power that came from her.
I was, in some way,bondedtoher.
And I would wield that power she’d given me to her end.
I would devastate all she was and had now proven herself to be, sending her depraved growth to burn and crumble into nothing more than ash and soot at my feet.
I could destroy what I had produced.
I could prove that I wasnot her.
I could show myself that I would never succumb to the wrath I held inside.
Chapter 54
Rev
My voice shatteredthrough Viridis as I called her name once again in fear.
I sprinted after her, weaving through the Growers as they bent to the ground, their limbs sinking into Viridis’s earth and replenishing it with life anew.
They’d stalled my ability to enter Viridis and Karus had gotten too far ahead.
Branches wrapped around my waist, pulling me to the ground as a Grower towered over me, hindering my effort to get to her, stopping me from saving the one soul that kept me alive.
Fuck.
That.
My power burst from my palms in a blaze of blue, blasting the Grower back from my sight, snapping its branched torso in two. A piercing cry of agony filtered through the courtyard as another branch caught my leg.
I raged, summoning a blue wall of power behind me. I snapped the branch on my thigh with my bare hands, throwing it to the new grass at my feet and sprinted forward, following the light of the sun before me.
Ten more Growers lay ahead between me and Karus.
“Move!” I roared, a line of azure flame, cold and static, piercing through their wall of thorns in their attempt to stop me from getting to her.
They wanted more time to bring Viridis back, but they did not understand the risk. They did not know that they would doom themselves—doom Felgren—if they let her fall.
Her sun rose higher into the dome of Viridis and I saw her arms open wide at the bottom of the marble steps, facing the trees she’d grown herself.
I tore through their brambles with my power and hands, now scratched and bleeding as more and more walls grew.
