Page 114 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
Javier tugged on my arm, but I stayed rooted in place, the dagger hanging uselessly in my hand.
I drew my brows together.“Leanora,”I answered automatically.
“What am I?”she prompted.
“Tenebris, first of your kind.”
Nalari’s roar was like a clap of thunder. Her wings flapped harder as she angled her body toward us.
The monster sliced my shoulder with one of its razor-like claws. Fire erupted where I bled from the deep gash. Still, I didn’t move, couldn’t move despite the way Javier tugged on my hand.
It was like I was rooted in place. Leanora. Leanora held me there. Leanora, who I waited for.
From behind us, I heard Victoria cry out my name. I should go to her. I wanted to go to her, but I couldn’t move.
I turned to face Javier, and nothing came out when I opened my mouth to speak. My throat closed as if someone strangled me, and all I managed was a low squeak. I widened my eyes, pushing Javier away, hoping he understood I wanted him to leave. To get himself and the girls to safety.
He tugged on my hand again, but my legs wouldn’t budge. My chest tightened at the way Victoria called to me with a loud shriek.
Just as Nalari barreled into the creature, Elias leaped off her back and tackled Javier and me to the ground. We rolled down the hill before suddenly stopping. I gasped in an eager breath, grateful when air passed through my throat to my lungs. The fall should’ve hurt, but Elias somehow sheltered me from it.
On top of me, he took in his own raspy breath. Wanting to keep him with me, I gripped his loose-fitting shirt. He’d lost weight. A lot. The planes on his face were sharper. His muscles twitched at the light graze of my fingers on his skin, but his frame was thinner. His eyes, the color of coal, faded to a dark violet before he shook his head, and they returned to that deadly color.
I clung to his shirt, only letting go when he leaped off me to plunge his sword into the hardened shell that made up the creature’s body. He used that leverage to jump onto its enormous head with an agility that startled me. It tried to shake Elias off it, using its spindly fingers to grab him.
I watched, fear raking its fingers through me so that I trembled.
Somehow, Elias managed to hold on and climb the large creature until he drove his sword into its neck.
The creature screeched an awful sound that made my ears hurt. Its trunk-like legs stumbled as it struggled to stay upright. Just as Elias jumped off it, it crashed to the ground, and the other tree-like monster seemed to melt into the woods behind it.
Elias rolled and tumbled down the hill before he stopped. On his hands and knees, he pushed himself off the snowy ground and turned toward Nalari, whose glare could’ve burned right through me.
I whispered his name.
He fisted a hand by his side but didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge me.
With my limbs trembling, I helped Javier up, and while he ran back to his sisters, Victoria ran to me.
“Eli,” she shouted. Okay, not to me.
This time, he turned around slowly. He waited patiently for her to reach him, his softening gaze on the little girl. Just as she went to hug his legs, he dropped his knees to the ground and held her to him.
I stood there, remembering how it felt to be in his embrace. Wishing it was me he hugged.
Nalari stepped closer to them, wrapping her tail in front of them as if to protect them. Him. From me. White smokebillowed from her nostrils and her glare became even more menacing.
With a braveness I didn’t feel, I forced my steps forward. I ran my hand through Victoria’s tangled hair, all while staring at the peace in Elias’s expression.
“You came,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “You saved us.”
He hugged her tighter, his eyes closed and brows pinched together.
“I’ll always do what I must to protect you.” His eyes, now back to their beautiful violet color, fluttered open to peer up at me. “And Teddy.”
It would be so easy to run my hands through his hair. To touch his cheek that carried a deep, angry scratch.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
