Page 193 of Curse of Darkness
Silence falls as if even the winds have snuffed themselves in a moment of mourning. Ash rains down upon us like snowflakes.
A hooded cloak made of midnight silk flutters to the stone floor of the Hallow, and the world falls still. Empty of something beautiful. Something brave.
She’s gone.
Our greatest weapon against the Horned One is gone.
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“I’ve got you,” Thiago snarls, throwing a desperate look over his shoulder as the Horned One advances.
That sword lifts again, the Horned One’s midnight dark eyes locking upon me.
A searing trail of heat drips down my cheek.
The sword starts to fall again, lightning burning from its tip. I gather everything within myself, desperate to stop it, desperate to save him—
“Don’t you dare hurt my sister,” says a voice fierce with protectiveness. A voice I know so well.
Light flashes overhead. A burning arrow of flame.
It drives right through the Horned One’s chest, staggering him back.
And the breath explodes through me.
There’s only one other being here who can wield those flames. The last time I saw her it was halfway across a battlefield, but the magic doesn’t lie.
“Andi.” I scramble for purchase on the edge of the chasm.
Another arrow of bright flame punches through the Horned One’s chest. And another. And another.
The Horned One staggers back, smoldering clouds of smoke writhing from him as he consumes those brands of light. And while they flicker and die, the hiss of smoke from where they struck him lingers.
“Get her out of there!” Andraste screams, boots sliding across the Hallow’s smooth floors as she appears out of nowhere. She extinguishes her burning bow, a hilt forming in her hands. Pure flame surging into a white-hot blade.
I recognize the grim determination on her face as she shoots me one last look, her mind reaching toward me. “I’m sorry. That I never dared fight for you all those years ago.”
“You did your best.”Neither of us had the strength to stand against Mother back then.
Andraste squares herself, turning all her focus back to the Horned One. “You were my sister. And I let her extinguish the flames of my love for you, because I was a fucking coward.”The link between us evaporates as she prepares for this one last final battle. “I love you, Vi. Now get the fuck out of here.”
“Come on, Vi.” Thiago hauls me toward him.
I dig my toes into the cliff face, gritting my teeth as that lash of power hauls against my ankle, trying to drag me into the well. “I’m trying!”
The Horned One whips his blade around, his sword slamming against Andraste’s blade of flame.
The impact slams her flat on her back.
“Andi!”
Thiago flings a handful of shadows toward him, the roar within them deafening.
The Horned One’s sword slices right through those howling faces, barely pausing in its descent.
Andraste screams as she tries to scramble across the floor toward her smoldering blade.
An enormous goblin warrior slides to his knees between them, the ring of steel echoing in my ears as his sword meets the Horned One’s. The blow staggers him off-balance, and he collapses back over her, thighs straining as he bends, the force of the Horned One’s strike driving his own sword back toward his chest.
