Page 79 of Immortal Origins
His voice wasn’t his own, but the boy obeyed. Terrified and frozen where he stood.
Akadian was on the metal mage before he could even grin in victory, his hands only inches away from cutting her throat. The prince wrapped his fingers around the man’s throat, lifting him into the air as though he weighed nothing. His fingernails grew into claws that dug into the helpless man’s skin, coating the prince’s fingers in his blood.
“Akadian,” she whispered weakly through watery eyes.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.” He glanced at her, doing his best not to let the terror he felt when he looked at her show on his face. He didn’t want to frighten her.
“You came,” she cried as the sobs beat her chest.
By all of the gods he would never let anyone hurt her again.
He refused to see her like this ever again.
“Of course I did,” he nodded, pulling one of the metal mage’s blades from his hip, the prince admired the metal in the moonlight. Obsidian. So, they were from Nethyr. He clenched the dagger and pressed it into the mage’s chest, reveling in the way his skin split apart as the man thrashed against him. Holding him still was almost too easy. Hunter so quickly turned prey. “I’m going to make you feel everything she felt and so much worse. For every mark on her body I’ll cut you so deep no one will be able to recognize you when I’m done.”
The power Akadian struggled to hold back flared with his anger, radiating into the air as the plants around him recoiled from the heat that surged from his skin. How he longed to let it burn…
Burn…
The mage coughed, his blood splattering Akadian’s face. The sight of the hunter who’d been so convinced he had the upper hand just momentsago was too much. Akadian threw back his head and laughed. “You don’t get to die yet,” he told him through barred teeth. “I’m not evencloseto done with you.”
The prince dragged the dagger in his hand down the man’s face who twisted deliciously against his fist, screaming as blood soaked the dragon leathers he had no right to wear. The prince couldn’t help himself, it was as though something took over him and he released his grip on the hunter’s throat just enough to be able to hear the full force of his screams. The chorus filled the air in a perfect song. “I’m going to watch you die.” His voice was barely his own when he pointed a dagger at Ambrose before slamming it to the hilt into the man’s thigh. “Sheis going to watch you die. And I’m going to enjoy every delicious second of it.”
“Akadian…”
Her voice broke him out of the trance he was in. When he turned around, he found her barely holding onto consciousness. She lay there… so broken and bleeding. The beat in his chest skipped as his clawed fingers clenched and the mage’s windpipe broke beneath his grip. Fear like the prince had never known consumed him and he pulled the mage’s bloody face close to his and whispered, “It’s your lucky day.”
Then, he sliced the hunter’s throat from ear to ear.
Chapter 29
Pure peace washed over Ambrose as all the pain in her body vanished and she opened her eyes. A small gasp escaped her lips as a beautiful landscape of every color washed the hills around her. Plants and flowers of every kind as the light of the sun and moon mixed into rays of silver and gold over what was no longer a garden, but vast hills extending for as far as she could see. Her pulse raced as she followed the pulsing that led her back to a tree bathed in golden light. She didn’t understand how she was standing there, being so far away from the palace. This place felt as though it existed nowhere and everywhere all at once. It felt like home.
She gasped as she reached the tree and fell to her knees at the base. Running her hands over the bark, her fingers tingled slightly as she touched it. The vibration inside of it a perfect crescendo with the one inside of her.
“I’m back…” she whispered in awe.
“Yes,” the spirit soothed.
“How is this possible?” she asked, looking around to see everything the same as the last time she’d been there, but so much bigger. An entire forest stretched out before her as beautiful as the tree. She focused on committing as much of it to memory as she could.
“Many things are possible, young mage,” the tree hummed with a magickal tune Ambrose could’ve let herself get completely lost in.
“Did I save him? Is the dragon okay?” Tears stung the back of her eyes.
“The dragon lives to see another day,” they said with something that resembled pride.
“Thank the gods,” she sobbed. She did it.
“Your gods had no handin it,” they assured her. “You saved him.”
“Am I dead?” she asked, prepared for the answer. Maybe even welcome it.
“Would you like to be?” Their voices blended together in a perfect melody.
Ambrose thought about it. This place was everything. She ran her hands over the grass, like strands of silk between her fingers. Here she felt no fear. No pain. There seemed to be no suffering at all. She could let herself stay here forever with this spirit. Something about it felt like a home she’d always known, but somehow forgot long ago. She didn’t want to forget again. Though, she was sure she’d never been here—it was a world of its own—a longing deep in her chest missed everything about it. She couldn’t explain the overwhelming love and grief that gripped her in this place.
Ocean blue eyes flashed across her mind and her hands stained with blood. The sight of Artie on top of his wife’s body. Children without a mother. Adym and Ernaline. The bodies in the woods. Felius. Antony. Her hand traced the servant mark that she knew tens of thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—bore in the empire.
