Page 163 of Tower of Ash and Darkness
Fear claws at me, sharp and sudden, but beneath it stirs something fiercer—an unwavering resolve that refuses to be silenced. I think of Callum, Casper, Gwyn, Jason. I think of the risks they’re taking, all because of me. I take a steadying breath, the decision forming in my mind like steel being forged in fire.
I won’t allow anyone else to get hurt because of me.
I can’t.
36
LAILAH
With trembling hands, I grab Zander’s reins and swiftly haul myself onto his back.
“Lailah, what are you doing?” Jason’s voice trembles, fear woven into every word. My breath quivers as I murmur the words—not just a plea, but a spell, laced in the old witch tongue, the kind that twists the wind and bends the will of beasts. The language feels foreign and familiar all at once, curling over my tongue with power I barely understand.
“Onaktuni onaktunai.”
It surges from me like an instinct, a command wrapped in desperation, and Zander responds without hesitation—muscles undulating, hooves slamming the earth harder as he drives forward, faster, faster, as if the spell has lit something wild within him. The wind howls, cutting against my skin, carrying the echo of my voice as I repeat the words over and over, a prayer steeped in desperation. Each syllable feels like a thread tying me to something dark and ancient, pulling me beyond fear, beyond reason.
“Ride true. Ride strong,” I whisper.
Zander pushes harder, his hooves striking the earth with arhythm that feels like the heartbeat of the wild. The world around us blurs as if the very air holds its breath.
The path ahead stretches endlessly, each moment dragging on like an eternity. The sun filters weakly through the trees, its light fractured by the shifting shadows, painting the forest in hues of despair. The air hangs heavy, thick with the scent of sodden soil and the acrid tang of adrenaline.
The only thing binding me to reality is Zander’s relentless rhythm beneath me and the fragile hope that somehow, we’ll reach them in time. As we draw closer, my heart clenches, stuttering painfully in my ribs.
The scene before me unfolds like a vision from a nightmare.
Callum kneels motionless, an arrow buried deep in his chest, its shaft black as night. The crimson pooling beneath him seeps into the earth, staining it like spilled ink across a sacred page. The world feels wrong, distorted, as if time itself is recoiling from the horror. Each step toward him feels heavy, like wading through quicksand that drags me deeper into unrelenting horror.
I dismount in a daze, Zander’s reins slipping from my fingers. The ground meets my boots in eerie silence, and I move toward Callum, my breath catching with every heartbeat that does not come from him.
His gaze meets mine—dull, fading, but still clinging to life—as I drop to my knees beside him. My eyes blur, tears beginning to prick as my face twists in disbelief. I stare down at him—the blood, the arrow, the awful stillness—and something inside me begins to crack.
When I look up, the world feels darker, merciless.
Casper looms over Vanessa, his hand clamped around her throat with merciless strength. Her head is tilted back, exposing her neck, bruises already blooming beneath the pressure of his fingers.
And yet—she’s smiling.
That sick, twisted smile that doesn’t just churn my stomach, but cuts straight through me. It’s grotesque, almost otherworldly, as though she’s drinking in the chaos with delight.
My vision warps, the edges of the world dissolving into shadow. Rage and despair coil inside me like serpents, writhing tighter, fusing into something monstrous—something ready to tear me apart from the inside out. Then it happens. My magic rips free, feral and unhinged, a violent eruption of darkness that sears through my veins and screams from my fingertips. It tears into the sky like a curse unleashed.
A veil of black, opaque and unnatural, swallows the heavens whole, casting the world into a starless void. The earth convulses beneath the surge, groaning under the weight of my wrath. The air grows dense and strangling—even the wind dares not stir, as if the world itself is too afraid to breathe.
Everything stops.
Eyes turn skyward, as the world shifts, eerie and foreboding, like a scale tipped toward the unknown. I sense them, their eyes frozen in a mix of awe and dread, as if waiting for the world to crack open.
And then I feel it—like a whisper slithering through the chaos—my magic feels it. A faint heartbeat.
Callum.
The rhythm is barely there, fragile as a dying flame, slipping further with every breath I waste. It claws at me, yanks my soul away from the rage, from Vanessa, from everything but him.
I look down.
The black shaft of the arrow juts from his chest like a cruel marker of death, and for a moment, I can’t tell if the darkness around us is my doing or a veil preparing to claim him.
