39. CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 39

DANIELLA

My eyes were wide open now. Light poured out of them as well as from every pore in my body. It was pure energy, a radioactive mass of power.

The brilliance around me was beautiful and absolute. I spread my arms out and wiggled my fingers. I no longer needed to direct my attack at my enemy. I could simply will it so. A feeling of ecstasy filled me. I knew it would be brief, knew that Mythorne had stored more magic than me, and I would run out first.

But it was all right.

When I was gone, he would be weak, and my friends would be here to take him. Elf-hame would be free of his tyranny, and the land would remain untouched by war. Kalyll and others would make sure of that.

There was no better way to meet my end.

My legs faltered, and I took a step forward. I was near the edge, teetering. I only had a tiny bit more to give.

The beautiful brilliance turned murky. Shadows rose from the ground, climbing toward the sky, quickly forming a dome around me. Around Mythorne.

At first, I didn’t understand what was happening, but then that sliver of darkness that lived inside me nodded its head in acknowledgment as it sensed its match.

Kalyll was here.

I could almost taste his presence, sharp and lethal.

For a beat, I reveled in the knowledge that he was here, then that feeling of joy and relief melted into dread.

No! What are you doing?

—I’m here for you, melynthi.

Somehow we were communicating inside our minds. That part of him that lived in me heard him now.

The shadows drifted away from me, sliding down the cupola that surrounded us like a bowl trapping vermin underneath it. What was it? Some sort of force shield, I realized, and Wölfe had entered it, had drifted in like smoke under a door.

Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing. He drinks magic. He will consume you.

—I love you, Dani. For all your pain, I’m sorry, and for all you have given me, thank you.

Stop right this moment! I ordered.

But he wasn’t listening anymore. Instead, through our link, he sent a feeling of peace and love, the idea that everything would be okay, that I would be safe and well.

No, no, no.

I scrambled to think of something. Anything. But I couldn’t stop him. He was shadow and I was light, and here and now, we seemed to slip through each other’s fingers.

The brilliance attacking my own was abruptly engulfed by the darkness, like Kalyll trapping Mythorne in the palm of his hand. Under the now dark and moonless sky, it took my eyes some time to adjust.

Unbalanced, I fell forward, my knees smashing into the ground.

“No!” I tried to crawl forward, a hand reaching out toward the dark, shapeless miasma that floated in the air, pulsing as the light tried to pierce through the shadows, poking, jabbing, fighting.

My friends and others stood around me, palms or knuckles pressed to their eye sockets as they tried to clear their vision, tried to get a glimpse of this incomprehensible situation: the Seelie and Unseelie King incorporeal, locked in a battle of wills while all we could do was watch.

My heart ached with desperation.

The shape throbbed, a giant heart, ten feet off the ground.

Legs wobbling, I stood and stumbled under the large mass. If I released what little was left in me, could I tear them apart? I wanted Kalyll away from Mythorne’s evil, even if he was the one willingly trapping the Unseelie King. To hell with preventing war. We needed to get the fuck out of here.

I raised my hands, determined to try what little I could.

Someone swept in from the side, wrapping their arms around my waist and scooping me off the ground. The next thing I knew, I was being carried away and delivered behind the safety of a tree.

“Let me go!” I pounded on Jeondar’s chest, smearing my fingers with blood. He was wounded, but I didn’t care.

“Kalyll wouldn’t want you doing that, Dani.”

“He’s not the only one who gets to decide.” I shoved him hard.

He staggered back, pressing a hand to his chest.

Walking drunkenly, I rounded the tree, heading back. The shape had shrunk considerably. A moment ago, it had been as big as a car, now it was half that size. Abruptly, it shrank further, right before my eyes, turning no bigger than a transfer token.

Before I could take another step, all that was left was a pinprick, something so impossibly small that it could hardly contain a dust mote.

“Kalyll!”

The pinprick expanded, becoming so giant that it seemed to envelop everything around us. I felt Kalyll in the brush of that power, his energy, his soul.

I reached out with everything that made me who I was and tried to snatch him from the air, lure him to me, but he slipped away like water draining through tightly cupped hands.

“Please, no, no.”

A loud boom reverberated through the air as the energy that surrounded us, unable to continue expanding, ruptured. There was a flash of light that quickly dissipated, then we were left under the dark evening sky, while the shreds of shadows scattered in every direction, the only remnants from the explosion.

I cried out, desperately batting at the air, hopelessly trying to capture the little bits that floated in the air.

“No. Come to me. Where are you?”

I caught a bit of shadow no bigger than ash fall and zealously hugged it to my chest, but when I looked, there was nothing there.

“Oh, God! Please.” I whirled and whirled looking up at the sky as the dark snowfall peppered my face. “Pleaaase. Not Kalyll too.” Tears slid down my cheeks.

Arabis limped to my side, her eyes wavering.

“Where did he go?” I demanded.

She only shook her head, reached out a hand as if to comfort me, but I batted it away. I didn’t need comfort. I needed Kalyll.

I stood in the middle of the clearing and screamed his name at the top of my lungs. He was out there. He had to be.

The dark sky and trees and people around me spun. My legs trembled. I had so little left in me I collapsed to my knees, crying. I stared at my hands, at a tiny dark flake resting between my knuckles.

The nonsensical idea that this flake was a part of Kalyll assaulted me. That powerful male couldn’t be reduced to little more than dust. He was bigger than life. He was my everything.

“Dani,” Cylea’s voice called from the side. “We… need to leave.”

“No!” Was she out of her mind? We couldn’t leave.

“He’s gone, Dani.” Kryn was at my side, grabbing my arm.

“No, he’s not.” I pounded a fist against his chest as he dragged me to my feet.

A silver line of tears shone in his eyes. “We have to go. It’s what he would want you to do.”

“What the hell do you know?” I pushed him away. “How can you give up on him? We have… we have to… gather him.”

He frowned and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s all around. Can’t you see? Help me.” I knelt and started scooping dust into my hands.

They didn’t help me. They just stood there like idiots, and I wanted to scream loud enough to do their heads in for being so useless, but I didn’t have time for that.

I was dimly aware of the sounds of approaching horses.

“Take this token.” Kryn reached a hand toward Cylea. “Go with the others. I’ll take care of her.”

Cylea stepped to Arabis’s side, and in a moment, they dematerialized.

“Fine! Leave! Cowards!” I yelled as I stuffed dust into my pockets.

Cylea was back in an instant. She took Silver next.

Kryn tightened his hand around a second transfer token, the one I’d taken from Cardian, and tried to grab my arm. I leaped out of reach and scampered away on hands and knees.

Cylea was back for Jeondar. The Summer Court prince didn’t want to leave, but Kryn assured him he would get me.

“Go!” he ordered as he came at me again.

“How can you just abandon your brother? He’s right here.” I swept a hand over the clearing.

“You’re in distress, Dani. He’s gone.”

“He’s not gone.”

“Then where is he, huh? Where?!”

“He’s… he’s…” My eyes roved the clearing. “He’s… the shadows.”

“What shadows?”

My thoughts seemed as slow as cold honey. The shadows… they… they were weak. Night had fallen, and there was no moon.

“I know what I have to do!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, you have to come with me.” Kryn reached for me for a third time, but I scurried to the side, and giving him no chance to try again, I pointed my hands toward the ground and let the last of my healing magic glow, my power helping the trees and rocks cast stronger, darker versions of themselves because without light… shadows can’t exist.

Without me, there was no Kalyll. No Wölfe.