Page 43 of Lera of Lunos
River gasped, understanding finally filling him. Leralynn had given up her magic to the moss, turning the small, annoying snowball of a parasite into a deadly avalanche strong enough to smother all the magic in the temple’s Gloom. Magic without which none of the immortal beings could survive, much less step into the Light.
The brush of moss against River’s palm had been flaming agony. With their lack of clothes and deeper, darker magic, the qoru would melt to the bone. It was brilliant. Leralynn was brilliant.
His heart pulsed with pain, remembering the gush of scarlet blood from her arm—knowing he’d never forget it as long as he lived. But there was no time for that now.
Get the quint off the moss.Get to Leralynn.
River circled again, looking for a weapon. For anything he might use to forge a path through the purple sea.
The moss to River’s left shifted, a large figure clawing free of it and dropping to its knees. “River,” Griorgi panted, reaching for him.
Ice crackled along River’s spine. Ignoring Griorgi’s outstretched hand, he ripped off the sword strapped to the king’s back and used the blade’s point to raise the male’s face toward him. Dark-brown hair, gray eyes, a scar visible beneath red, blistered skin. What must have once been a gash along the male’s shoulder was melted shut. River took it all in, waiting for the wave of hate and fury that would make this final blow so much sweeter.
All River felt was the weight of agony-filled eyes.
Bloody stars. The tip of his sword lowered.
A croak escaped Griorgi’s throat. “You want to kill me, colt, but you can’t, can you?” He coughed, spitting out blood. “That was always your weakness. Siding with the lame instead of the mighty.”
“You are right.” River let his blade clink to the stone. Waited for Griorgi’s triumphant smile. And kicked the king right into the closing portal, giving the liquid darkness one last treat before the veil between Lunos and Mors shut once more. “You’ll do better amongst your own kind, Father,” River said into nothingness, the shackles around his wrists crumbling like bits of overdried clay.
“River!” Coal’s voice. Brimming with pain. Coming from the depths of the purple sea. “River. Where are you?”
“Here.” Grabbing his father’s sword, River hacked a path in the direction of Coal’s call.
The two met several paces later, Coal stumbling free from the singeing mass. Unslinging Shade’s barely conscious body from his shoulder, Coal laid the shifter carefully on the circle of clear stone then braced his hands on his thighs, catching pain-filled breaths.
Burns covered both males’ exposed skin, though Coal seemed better for wear. Like Leralynn, whose mortal body needed no magic of its own, Coal’s body, too, had a different relationship with magic. The oddity that saved his life as a slave in Mors seemed to be giving him some protection against the moss’s drain now. “Lera?” Coal gasped. “Tye?”
River jerked his chin at the moss, straining to hear either of their voices.
Nothing.
“Leralynn!” Coal shouted.
Sword in hand, River turned in a circle, trying to mark the spot he’d last seen the girl. With the moss taller than his head, he could see no landmarks. Bloody black-filled hell. “Tye! Leralynn!” he hollered, over and over, until finally a whimpering sound too high to be one of the qoru’s croaking voices caught his ear. Heart jumping, River forged a path toward the whimper, his blade cutting into the occasional howling qoru whose melting body got in the way. Just a few steps away now. One. A savage blow and...
Xane slithered out of the moss, red-blond hair plastered to his burned face.
Swallowing a curse, River grabbed the back of the prince’s tunic and tossed him the rest of the way to the moss-free refuge. Too long. It was taking too long. “Can either of you step back into the Light?” River demanded, his own magic too drained for that small feat.
Coal and Xane both shook their heads.
River growled and turned back to the glowing moss wall, hot panic thudding through his veins. He was just about to hack along randomly when his quint bond strained, the pain doubling him in two. Coal and Shade gasped beside him, Shade rising to one elbow, his face bloodless.
No.A frighteningly familiar sensation raced through River’s veins, the darkness threatening to stop his pulse altogether. “Leralynn! Tye!” His voice grew desperate, nothing like the commander he was supposed to be. The pain in the bond grew, like one of his own limbs being torn off his body, as the invisible tether ripped. Just as it had a decade earlier, when the quint lost Kai. “Leralynn! Tye!”
The purple forest shook as if under siege, a great tiger leaping through the moss. Perhaps the animal’s fur provided protection. Or else the pain of the bond’s tear had overshadowed all else. Either way, when Tye’s tiger rushed into the clearing to deposit Leralynn’s limp form onto the stone, River’s world finally shattered.
Light flashed and Tye dropped to his knees, his sobs an echo to Shade’s fierce howl and Coal’s soul-ripping silence. River swayed, searching in vain for movement in the girl’s chest, his ears straining for a heartbeat that wouldn’t come. Couldn’t come.
For Leralynn was dead.
33
Tye
Lera was dead. Tye’smatewas dead, lying limp on the cold stone, her skin ashen from blood loss. So much blood loss that the puncture wounds Tye’s tiger made dragging her tiny body here did not even bleed. In the end, it hadn’t been the qoru that killed her, but rather the lass herself, sacrificing her life to let the males keep theirs.
