Page 67 of Witch Unbound
“And made things worse,” Lauris retorted. “If we’d waited…”
“Then what?” Rune snapped. “You think they’d have let her go?”
“Maybe…” I stared at my friend’s lifeless form. My heart felt too big for my chest as it swelled with grief. “Maybe I should have waited. I…Bramble…” I reached for her but Lauris stepped away, hugging her lifeless body to his chest.
My eyes welled and I blinked back the hot tears, resolve churning inside me. “I can get her back. I can go to Tarrifel and get her back.”
Lauris stilled. “You can do that?”
I nodded eagerly, reaching for my friend. This time Lauris let me touch her. She was still warm. Skin clammy.
I cupped her face and made the jump.
“Well?” Lauris asked. “What’s happening?”
I frowned and tried again.
Nothing. “No, no, no. Please. Let me do this.” I tried again and again until my chest was shaking with grief and my face was wet with tears. My knees hit the ground, and Rune wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest, rocking me back and forth.
Lauris’s sobs mingled with ours as he fell to his knees with Bramble. I pulled away from Rune to look at my friend, so fucking small and delicate, so fierce. She couldn’t be gone. But she was.
She was gone and it was my fault. “I’m sorry. Bramble, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Rune took a shuddering breath and squeezed my shoulder. “We need to get out of this forest. And we need to do it now.”
Lauris pulled himself up and started walking toward the rift, his movements jerky and stiff with rage. “I’m taking her home.”
There was a flash of light and he was thrown back onto his ass, with Bramble clutched in his arms.
The rift was gone.
“Fuck.” Rune raked a hand through his hair.
We needed to get out of this forest. If the Magiguard had come this way, what was to say they hadn’t been attacked by something in these woods? What’s to say they were still alive? With the rift gone, we had to keep moving forward. But what about Bramble?
Lauris was up and glaring at me as if reading my thoughts. “We’re not leaving her.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “You think I’d…” Anger lashed at my throat, hot and bilious. “Fuck you, Lauris. Fuck you.” My eyes burned with indignation. “She was my friend. I cared about her. You do not have the monopoly on grief.” A raw sob broke from my throat and Rune wrapped his arm around my shoulders, hugging me to him.
“This way!” Wren piped up from the ground.
With grief and guilt clouding my mind, I’d almost forgotten about our guide. I zeroed in on him and the weird orb of light floating by his head.
He looked at us with a frown. “Come on. Quick, before the slenderwhip wakes.”
“What’s a slender—”
“Hurry!” Wren set off with purpose, practically jogging after the bounding orb of light.
My gaze fell to Bramble in Lauris’s arms, and I nodded. “Go. We’ll make up the rear.”
Lauris headed after Wren, and Rune and I followed. I trusted Wren, and right now I didn’t have the mental fortitude to think for myself.
Bramble was dead.
A sharp pain lanced through my chest, bringing fresh tears to my eyes.
“You got this, Cora,” Rune said. “We grieve after. Not now. We can’t do this now.”
