Page 116 of Queen of Thorns
The Night Bringer doesn’t respond. Doesn’t speak. And I can’t tell if he’s dying—if he’s losing—or if the Light King simply cannot hit him hard enough to hurt him.
“You will not win,” a familiar voice, full of venom and power, says from so much closer than I’d expected. My heart stops again as I realize the Night Terror is here, beside me.
No, is all I can think as something rips me from the water, imprisoning me. Nails like claws piercing me in a hundred places at once.
“Rev!” Caelynn screams, but I can’t tell from where. I can’t tell much of anything anymore. Pain explodes over every inch of my body. So quickly. Too quickly, I succumb to the darkness.
Caelynn
My whole world comesto a screeching halt as Rev is taken by the massive wolf. The Night Terror stands beside the giant black canine, laughing.
I’d swam helpless, unable to see or hear anything, for far too long. And by the time my sight returned, he was gone. Limp in the monstrous creature’s jaws. The Nomad joined the fight after all.
“Rev!” I scream in a world-shattering plea.
Except, it’s not world shattering. I am nothing. Not strong enough to fight this battle. Not strong enough to even survive witnessing it. No one listens to my cries, my pleas. No one hears me.
I try anyway. I swim toward the beast crushing my mate. I can feel his pain streaking through my body like a distant echo. He will die. Rev will die if I don’t stop it. If someone doesn’t stop it.
“No, no, no,” I’m crying now, screaming. Begging anyone or anything to listen. He can’t die. Not him. Not Rev.
“Take me,” I groan. “Please take me instead.”
Booming laughter shakes me to my very core. I would know the Night Bringer’s voice anywhere. The sound has haunted me every day for a decade. Every night, I hear his bitter laughter. How gleeful it made him to rip my soul to shreds.
“I told you, my pet,” his sadistic voice reverberates through the dozens of yards between us, “I would make you beg for me to end you.”
I whimper.
“But I will not oblige.”
I continue, desperately clawing through the rippling waters, rushing back toward the center of the lake. “Rev,” I whisper, knowing my pleas will remain unheard. Unheeded. No one cares.
“I care, child.”
I blink, turning to the Ancient of Light towering over the beast and the Night Terror. There is a massive hole in his stomach flowing with flickering liquid, like his own light is fading, but he still looks so strong.
