Page 173 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
“That doesn’t mean she can’t die,” Elias countered.
I agreed. All while Eiran’s words of the mages needing their vengeance swam in my head. I wasn’t sure how that would pan out, what it would look like, or how it’d hurt the man I was in love with.
“We go back home,” Elias said, and my heart fluttered at the way he called my realm home. “We fight,and not a single one of us dies.” His words were a command none of us wished to defy.
“I’m not going with you,” Alastor said. “I’m not strong enough to fight, but Theodora, I can send you what’s left of my magic through the veil so that you absorb it as you need it.” He swallowed hard.
“I’ve had magic for less than twenty-four hours,” I argued, ignoring how Leanora had told me to bring her brother, but I wouldn’t push him into going. “In the dungeon, my magic either followed Elias or you. I don’t know how to use it on my own.”
“You’ve had it your entire life,” he countered. “Trust your magic to guide you. Through our connection, I’ll know if things go bad and will destroy the orb if needed.”
When I shook my head, he gripped my fingers, and I felt his magic trickle inside me.
“For thousands of years, I’ve been a puppet, incapable of making a single decision,” he said. “This is my choice.”
I nodded and let go. I hadn’t expected to feel anything toward this mage I’d never met. Hadn’t thought his life or death would matter to me. It was strange to know I cared enough to want him to live and experience life—a real life, where he got to make his own choices, just as he was doing now.Because I can understand his grief.I knew what it was like to lose something...someoneprecious. Similarly to feel so alone. Desolate.And I won’t allow that to continue.
Chapter
Thirty-One
ELIAS
With my own two hands,I’d killed creatures and other threats to the kingdom. I was born to. All because my parents, my uncle, and the Elders wanted more than what was given to them. In the end, they’d betrayed us for nothing. They’d caused this destruction for nothing.
The thunderbirds’s blood was on their hands. The fae in the dungeon cells, their blood and torment were also their doing. And this, the humans in their realm?
It didn’t change anything. Leanora still had to die. Then I’d deal with the arrogancy, the idiocy of my parents and uncle.
Once I killed Leanora, the fae would learn the truth. All the truths, including those that hurt my family. And the dragons, they’d go back to being just another creature from our realm. Magical, but nothing more.
Nalari’s irritation at my thoughts stirred inside me, but we could argue about it later.
I held Teddy’s hand the way she’d held mine in Niev. I tried to offer her some reassurance, but her world, her town that had become my home, was beyond destruction, thestreets lifted and ripped apart, like the way the streets of Niev were. The square was nothing but a rubble of ruination, already covered in thick sheets of snow. The shops were gone. The fields that had once harvested the vegetation that kept the people alive were incinerated, burned by a fire that went beyond what the eye could see.
The people, though, frozen in states of shock or terror, shook me. Eyes unblinking with a hazy film of gray. Bodies unmoving, without breathing. I listened for their heartbeat, for the swish of their blood flowing, but nothing came. They were alive, though. I felt it.
One fae appeared and ran toward me wearing the leathers we fought in back in Niev. Several others, who also wore our fighting leathers, followed her.
Unsure if Leanora had entrapped their minds the way she had mine, I pulled out my sword. Beside me, Brenton did the same while Teddy grabbed her gun. Nalari let out a deep growl that the other dragons mirrored.
Seeing our weapons, the fae stopped several feet before us. One, a male I recognized as Hayden, whose face was lined with cuts, held his hands up.
“We tried to help them,” he said, his words shaking with nerves. “But. . .” He shook his head. “There was nothing there to fight. Fires erupted everywhere without warning. The streets and buildings crumbled on their own. I—we don’t know what happened. Why they’re frozen or anything.”
“We got as many out of the buildings as we could,” a female named Ximena said.
“The homes are like this too?” Teddy asked.
Hayden nodded. “Those of us who could bend space took as many out of their homes as we could. We couldn’t get them all, though.” He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
Teddy bit down on her lower lip. When Brenton pulled her to his side, she went to him, her grip on my hand still tight.
Sorrow clashed with the brewing anger, which rose and rose with no one to direct it to. Leanora had said she’d be here, but all I saw was the evidence of her destruction.
“I’ll go check on—” Brenton started, but he didn’t need to finish.
Giving Teddy a final squeeze, he ran through the mix of frozen people and went to Donnie and Ryenne’s home, where I hoped he’d also find Javier and the girls.
