her focus to Stolas’s leg . . . sweeping toward her feet. Her sword jerked from her fingers and clattered across the floor. She tumbled backward.
A column knocked the air from her lungs.
Before she could move, he claimed the space between them. Reminding her that he owned every bit of this land from the tallest peak to the caverns below.
His arms pinned on either side of her face, a sinewy cage of muscle and dark, glittering magick. It was times like this that she remembered just how much bigger he was than her. His body taut with untamed power.
Diaphanous light ran down the length of his onyx horns and caught in his feathers, coaxing out a rainbow of colors that stole her breath.
“You are distracted.” His accusation hung between them.
“No.”
“You have been since we arrived.” His ash-colored eyebrows gathered above yellow-rimmed silver eyes, his bowed lips softening. His concern for her felt like condemnation. A mark against her somehow. “I can feel your pain, Haven. The hurt and shame pouring from some ragged wound I cannot see, cannot mend.”
“We’re all struggling, but I can handle it.” She pushed against his shoulders, but she might as well have been shoving stone. “Move. Move.”
Snowflakes dislodged from his ash-white hair as he shook his head. “Not until you talk to me.”
“And say what?” Her throat ached. Why was he forcing her to do this? “I told you, I’m fine—as fine as anyone else here.”
“Your nightmares say otherwise.”
She stifled beneath the weight of his concern. It was why she’d pushed him from her dreams. Why she’d eventually moved her chamber from the central part of the palace, where all the other Chosen stayed, to the far tower.
Her nightly screams were an embarrassment, a burden for her to deal with alone.
“Haven.” She hated the sudden gentleness in his expression, the concern welling in his eyes as he brushed his thumb over her cheek—carefully, so damn carefully—as if she might break apart. “I have been where you are now. The anger. The bitterness and confusion and rage and . . . shame. If you don’t release the feelings, they will fester inside you like a poison.”
Her chest squeezed so tight that it was all she could do to draw in a breath.
“You are not responsible for what happened in Solethenia. For what he did. For what he’s doing now.”
A well of ragged emotions surged to swallow her. She closed her eyes against the burn of tears. “Stop. Please.”
“Archeron chose his path. He chose to betray you and his people.”
“Stolas”—Why was he doing this to her? Why couldn’t he see she was drowning?—“Stop.” White-hot shame enveloped her, the pain searing her insides, consuming her.
She should have been there for Archeron. Should have recognized his pain.
“It’s not your fault, Haven. Do you understand? None of this is.”
Isn’t it? a voice countered inside her head. She saw the family slaughtered in their bed. Saw Archeron’s mangled face and haunted eyes. Saw Rook’s mournful expression as she was dragged into the sky to her death. The finality in Bjorn’s eyes right before he was incinerated.
So much death and destruction, and for what? It felt like it was never going to end, and she didn’t know how to stop it.
She was powerless.
Helpless.
“Enough.”
The pain and guilt was too much. It was swirling through her mind, her ribs, a whirlwind of accusation. It was devouring her whole.
“Release your pain, Haven.”
“No. No.”
“You’re safe with me.”
“Please.”
“You cannot hurt me.”
Her last vestige of control shattered as she felt something inside her break open. The explosion rocked her to the core. Dark magick thundered from her entire body, pouring every ounce of her rage and guilt into—
Oh, Goddess, no.
Her powers slammed into Stolas like a thousand fists.
6
Even though Stolas had been ready for it, this all-powerful male who could destroy mountains with a single flick of his finger was flung violently backward.
The force was so strong she feared it would shatter every bone in his beautiful body. An ear-splitting boom rocked the temple as Stolas’s wings snapped out, slowing his momentum. He skidded to a halt mere inches from crashing into the opposite wall, legs spread wide. The stone beneath his boots was cracked and pitted where his feet had dug in for support.
She threw a hand over her mouth. “Stolas—”
“I’m fine.” His face was tight, body rigid from displacing the force she’d slammed into him—but . . . she scoured his body for injuries, blood, any sign she’d wounded him.