Page 88 of Awakened Destiny
"It doesn't have to end like this," I say, willing her to hear me through her rage and instability. "We both walk away. No one else dies today."
Laria's face twists into a grimace that might have been a smile. Her eyes now swim with black fluid.
"Death is coming for one of us," she hisses. "And it won't be me." Laria's muscles bunch under her skin, which has begun to split in hairline fractures across her exposed arms. The air is permeated with unstable magic, something corrupted and fetid.
I center my weight, preparing for the attack I know is coming.
"Last chance," I warn.
Chapter Forty Four
Brigid
Her answer is a banshee shriek. She launches herself across the space between us with inhuman speed, a blur of pale limbs and desperation. The floor cracks beneath her feet from the force of her propulsion.
I sidestep, but she anticipates, changing direction in mid-air. Her fingers, now elongated with jagged black talons, swipe at my face. I smell sulfur as they miss by inches.
"I'll wear your bones like a fucking crown!" she screams. Dark magic crackles around her hands, arcing in unstable bursts that crack the walls.
"Brigid!" Lochan's voice calls, panic rough in his throat.
"Stay back!" I shout, not daring to look away from Laria. I can sense them all there, my mates, their fear a distraction I can’t afford right now.
Laria seizes the moment. She lunges again, this time connecting. Her hand closes around my throat, skin burning cold against mine. The forbidden magic flows between us like a painful electrical current, trying to dig deep into my flesh. My eyes water from the pain.
She’s trying to siphon my shadow magic.
"See how it feels," she pants, triumph ugly on her face. "To have something precious stolen."
But something's happening to her. The veins in her arm darken to pitch black, spreading like ink through water. They bulge against her skin. Her grip weakens as pain contorts her features.
"What—" She stares at her own arm in horror.
The black tendrils race up her neck, across her face. Her pale skin begins to crack like aged porcelain, revealing darkness underneath. Blood—or something that was once blood—seeps from the fissures, thick and viscous.
"The magic," I whisper, understanding dawning. "It's rejecting you."
"No." She releases me, staggering backward. "No, I'm stronger than this."
But her body betrays her words. More cracks appear, spreading across her chest, her shoulders. Her blonde hair darkens at the roots, turning the color of tar. Even her eyes cloud over, becoming pools of inky darkness.
"Make it stop!" she screams, clawing at her own skin, which only causes more fissures to form.
I want to look away but can't. This is my doing too—I drove her to this desperate act by merely existing, by being what she wanted to be.
"It's unstable. Your body can't contain the power you've taken."
She falls to her knees, skin fracturing everywhere now, black veins pulsing beneath. "I was... supposed to be... the one."
The magic has become a parasite, consuming her from within. Each crack in her skin widens, revealing the corruption beneath. Her fingernails blacken and fall away. Her lips split and bleed that same dark substance.
I take a step toward her, not knowing what I'll do but unable to watch without trying something.
"Don't," Marius warns from behind me. "There's nothing you can do. Laria, that magic, it's beyond saving."
Laria looks up at me with eyes that are no longer eyes—just windows into a void. Her voice comes out distorted, layered with sounds that shouldn't come from a human throat.
"This should have been you."
