myself to be the conduit for her, and imagine her beautiful pale blue eyes looking at me again full of life. I drive everything I can into her, every inch of my power I drive to her.
I groan painfully, a sting curling at the base of my spine and shifting over me. Fear of losing her coats my mind, then memories fill me of Licia and I fucking. Us joined, merging, our powers becoming one.
I cling to that thought, driving energy into her, praying to the heavens this works because I have nothing left if this fails.
My head spins while my world falls apart.
I open my eyes, and she isn't responding. It feels like the blade is in my gut, slowing twisting, the pain excruciating. Darkness feathering at the edges of my eyes comes fast.
Dizziness claims me, and I lose the battle, tumbling onto my side as my heart splits in half.
22
Licia
The sound of a body thudding to the earth nearby startles me to awareness. My eyes flip open to the sky and bright sunlight blinds me.
Instantly, pain lashes across my chest, and I gasp loudly, my body arching as I feverishly suck in gulps of air into my empty lungs. I convulse, and it feels like something is sliding inside my body. Cold water rushing over a desert, giving it life, bringing back what once thrived and lived. It gushes through me, and I'm choking, curling in on myself, overwhelming pressure smothering me as reels of images thunder in my head of everything in my life. It's going too fast.
All my life I’d been broken. Living like a puzzle never put together. It’s why no matter how much I tried, I never fit…A piece of me had been missing.
Unimaginable power glides over me. The power is me, and I am everything it stands for. And with it comes emotions so heavy and burdened that they drag me under. They beat into me over and over, the darkness splashing at my insides, and all I experience is excruciating agony.
An unbearable sting whips over every inch of my body, intense heat rising in its wake. Magic roars awake, growing, savagely ripping across me. And in a heartbeat it flat-lines.
Silence.
Peace.
Nothing feels the same. I sense it in the crisp air I inhale, in the way the ground hums beneath me, and in my veins. It doesn't feel the same anymore. The power inside me is stronger than I'd ever experienced before.
Sturdy hands are gripping my arms and a person standing over me comes into view.
I push myself up with difficulty, every inch of me trembling. I'm on my feet and the sight in front of me takes a moment to come into focus... to really understand the massacre of hobgoblins littering the ground. Blood stains the ground, sinking into the soil. Not all the creatures are dead, and some moan as they lift themselves up.
I should feel pity, but I don’t. Not for these monsters who took everything and then came back for more.
Eryk groans and I glance over to him as he gets up, his body quivering. Blood drips from the corners of his eyes in rivets.
My heart sinks.
Several hobgoblins get up, and like the prince, blood drips from their eyes.
One screams with terror, and then it's a knock-on effect and they all panic.
Tears fall from my eyes and I wipe them, my fingers coming back clean. There’s no blood. I struggle to make sense of why I feel so different.
When the ground shakes beneath me, an overwhelming energy slams into me. I stumble on my feet while others fall.
The intensity escalates and a great growl shudders around us as if the world itself is coming to life to make right what had been destroyed so long ago.
My throat closes and I can't even breath for those few moments.
I reach for Eryk, yelling, "Take my hand."
He drops to his knees, unable to reach my hand, and instead clutches his chest like someone had punched him right in the solar plexus. He howls with a heart-wrenching sound and suddenly something glints at the corners of his eyes. A sliver of glass as long as my finger slides out of each eye. He collapses forward, his body sagging as he groans.
The shards fly in my direction.
Fear has me ducking, but sharpness digs into my palms, and I flinch, looking down at my hands. The pieces of glass from his eyes now stick out of my palms.
Nothing makes sense, but when more screams come,