Page 150 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
“Where’s Teddy?” I asked Nalari.
Her large head swished from side to side, searching.
“Nalari!” I shouted. “Where’s Teddy?”
Rather than answer me, Nalari slammed the side of her face against Adela, ripping through her side with her large claws. Adela flapped her massive wings, lunging for Nalari, and when she splayed Nalari on her back, Nalari breathed fire on the Elder.
“Nalari, where’s Teddy?”I asked again, fear snaking through my veins, cleaving my head and heart in half.
“You,”Nalari bellowed at the Elder.
Adela edged a claw into Nalari’s neck before she slowly backed off her. Nalari stood slowly, keeping a watchful eye on Adela as she shook her body.
“She’s in the astral realm,”Nalari said.“I was to fight alongside her to bring Brenton back for you, but the Guardian of Death evicted me.”
“She can’t fight the Guardian of Death,”I hissed.“She won’t?—”
She wouldn’t make it. Wouldn’t survive it.
“This was her choice,”Nalari said quietly.“She wanted to do this for you. For Brenton. For your friends. I thought if I fought alongside her, we could win. I?—”
“Bring her back,” I pleaded. “Or send me to her.”
I glared up at Adela, both begging her and hating her with the same breath.
“No!”
I whirled around to find Brenton standing, screaming, shaking.
“No,” he yelled again.
Surprised, Everly and George ran to him, but he scrambled past them, falling twice before he reached Teddy. He dropped to his knees in front of her and shook her limp shoulders.
“No,” he belted again.
I felt his dread in my bones. In the essence of my soul.
His eyes filled with that same terrible fear. He faced the Guardians, sword out and ready to wage war on them.
“Who sent her to that realm?” he demanded, panting hard while he gripped his stomach.
His magic swam from the tips of his fingers like gray smoke that he trailed over Nalari and Adela. Standing beside him, I called on my own magic and laced snow around Adela’s throat.
“Send me to her.” It wasn’t a request, but I would’ve fallen to my knees and begged if Adela asked me to.
George circled his magic around Adela. I knew Everly couldn’t do that against her own Guardian, no matter how incensed she was because of what her Guardian had caused.“I can’t,”Adela snarled.“Elias, you are destined to be the strongest fae. The only one who can stop our demise against the mage who seeks out your mate. I cannot send you where you may die.”
“My mate could die because of you,” I growled.
“I am willing to sacrifice her life so that the rest of us may live.”
A sacrifice I would never be willing to make. I’d rather damn every realm to ash and have her sit on a throne made of cinders than lose her.
Brenton growled and his magic erupted with an angry flare of smoke that scalded my skin. Hishazel eyes were an abyss of black and I could feel the terror and fury that built inside him.
“Bring her back.” His magic launched through Adela’s nostrils, stealing her of breath while also burning her wherever the tendrils touched. “I will burn you to the ground, dragon.”
Nalari’s magic joined the frenzy. Still Adela glared at me with the same loathing I felt for her.
