Evermore Academy (Evermore Academy #3) - Audrey Grey Page 0,135

the cold bite of the stone against my flesh, I search for a tendril of its powers. A wisp of something—anything—that will allow me to unlock its gates.

My mother’s smile dips. “Give it here, Hyacinth.”

There. A thread of black energy trickles from the stone. I grab it before it can recede inside its cage, pulling the magic inside myself. Taking it as my own.

A click sounds in my head as the stone gives me access. For a moment, that massive power trapped inside roars like a tidal wave about to crash down on some unsuspecting town. It gathers, gathers, gathers and then . . .

I snap my hand out and grab the handle of the axe. My mother flinches, her eyes disbelieving as my other hand wraps around her arm.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, struggling to pull away.

“Playing the game better than you.”

The magic roars so loud as it floods me, that everything fades away. I’m going to split apart. Just burst at the seams. My senses scream at the onslaught. I can’t breathe. Can’t move.

Too much magic. Too much!

The soulstone at my wrist turns to fire that burns. The axe begins to melt. My mother is screaming. Screaming, and trying to get away.

But the magic has us all, now.

The only way to destroy the Darken is to have his soul all in one place. Unfortunately, my soulstone will perish, too. But that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Flames of magic tear from my chest and flicker around us. Rhaegar flees. The dam is about to burst. That immense, roiling power clawing to get out.

But I wait, despite the searing pain of holding it back. I wait for Eclipsa to grab Valerian. For her and the others to drag him away.

Wait for his eyes to open so that I can see them one last time. Prisms of magic slant around me like sunbeams. That’s how I see him.

My beautiful Winter Prince, surrounded by summer.

See you, I mouth. Then I stop fighting the massive surge of magic and let it flood out. The axe shatters in my hand. The soulstone turns to cinders. And then a boiling, white-hot wave of magic consumes me.

56

Valerian

The moment I break free from the spell and see Summer crumpled beside her mother, the grass singed around them in a ten-foot radius, something inside me breaks.

“Wait!” Eclipsa calls, but there’s not a damn thing in this world that could stop me from reaching my mate.

I kneel down, praying to Titania to feel her pain. Her heartbeat. Something. But I know as I slide my arms beneath her legs and neck and lift that she’s gone.

Still, I call her name, desperate to hear her voice.

“Summer, please.” Blood—there’s so much blood. I shift so that her head rests against my shoulder and pour my healing magic into her, watching, begging her to come back.

Nothing. Pure, agonizing rage pounds my chest. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me.”

Eclipsa, Mack, and Asher surround me. I can’t look into their eyes. Can’t face what I already know. She’s gone—her soulstone destroyed.

Gone.

“Just listen to me,” I murmur, willing her eyelids to flutter open. Her lips to part. “I promise, if you come back this one time, I will never let anyone hurt you again. I will treat you the way you deserve to be treated, like my queen, for the rest of our lives.”

Mack reaches out a hand to touch her friend, and I fight the urge to protect Summer, still. Mack lifts Summer’s soulstone chain, but the wolf pendant with the ruby that would have housed her soul after death is gone.

Burned to ash.

“What do we do?” Mack whispers.

Ruby alights on Summer’s shoulder. Without a word, the little sprite begins to clean the blood from her cheek.

I turn to my friends. Friends who have helped me through centuries of hardship, torture, and pain—but this is a new level of agony.

I’ve never felt so powerless as I growl, “There has to be some way to bring her back.”

I would rip out my own heart with my bare hands if it meant she could live.

Eclipsa frowns, something stirring behind those dark eyes. “It’s a long shot—”

“Do it. Whatever it is.”

Eclipsa nods. “Lay her on the table over there. Asher, come with me. We have a body to grab.”

She and Asher disappear through a portal, and then Mack follows me to a banquet table laden with berry wines and platters of sweets. My magic sends everything crashing to the grass, and Mack helps