At least I’m not hurting.
I will miss Kiran though.
Kiran.
My heart lurches at the thought of him hearing the news.
I hope that when I fade into the realm beyond the sun, I’ll be able to watch over him.
No, my magic screams. I think I recognize that word.
Something rips, and it’s so loud, so close to my ears, that it almost hurts.
Almost.
CHAPTER 43
BLAISE
“Blaise. Blaise, you have to stop. You’re killing her. Blaise!”
I snap my eyes open, and though I’m drunk on the taste of Asha’s blood, swimming in the intoxication of the feast, there’s something about that voice that catches my attention.
“Good. Good. Just like that. We just need to back away from her, okay?”
The world is swimming in darkness, but someone touches my cheeks. I blink and a face comes into view. A face with pale skin and raven hair and eyes of ice with a raging tempest underneath.
Nox.
I don’t even realize I’ve said it aloud until he nods his head. “It’s me. It’s me, Nox. I came back for…” He pauses, knitting his brow. “For you.”
Warm, savory blood drips from my lips, but I’m having a difficult time placing whose it is. Nox’s gaze lingers on my mouth, and panic flecks across his vision.
“I can’t stay here,” he says, his eyes going wide. “I can’t—” Nox backs away, until he’s out of my vision, and then he’s gone, and I’m alone.
Except I’m not alone. There’s a boy standing before me. A handsome boy. The kind of handsome that makes my stomach feel as if I’ve consumed too many sweets. He’s standing above me, glaring down at me in fury. There’s pain in his eyes too, and he keeps glancing back and forth between the air and a figure slumped on the ground.
She smells like how the blood tastes on my lips.
I snap back to reality.
Asha.
My forearms find the earth, and I crawl my way to the body slumped in the grass.
“Get away from her,” the handsome boy calls, but I can’t hear him. Not over the ringing in my ears.
By the time I reach her, the wound on her neck has already healed, which is good, because half of my consciousness is still roiling with bloodlust.
The part of me that thinks I might have just murdered my friend is sobered up.
“Asha? Asha, please. Please wake up. Please. Come on. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.” I reach for her neck to feel her pulse, but her neck snaps toward me.
“Don’t you dare touch her,” bellows a voice that is not at all Asha’s.
“You vile, rotten, selfish creature,” it roars, and I find I have no retort.
“Do you even realize what you’ve done, the destruction you’ve reaped upon the world, all because you couldn’t stand to be alone?”
I blink as my hand finds my mouth.
“She’s alive?” I ask. “Tell me she’s still alive.”
“Of course she’s alive. I am speaking through her, am I not?”
I breathe out a sigh of relief, dread at what I’ve just done threatening to turn my gut inside out.
But my relief is short-lived, because the boiling anger in the Old Magic’s voice goes stiff. Cold.
A passing breeze lifts the hair on the back of my neck.
“You spoke as if you know the stories. As if you know all about me. My origins.”
My blood runs cold.
“But if you know so much about me, you must have known this is not the first occasion on which I’ve been manipulated into altering the Rip against my will.”
“I’ll help you close it back,” I whisper. “I promise. Please, I just wanted Nox back.”
Nox, who is back. Nox, who held my face just now. Nox, who is probably out in the woods somewhere, writhing in pain as he tries to control his bloodlust for Asha.
“Lies,” says the Old Magic. “I’ve heard an assortment of them before.”
I shake my head. “Not a lie. I promise to help fix it.”
“You hurt Asha.”
“I know,” I say. “I know, and I’m sorry, but I won’t hurt her again. I just wanted Nox back.”
“Yes, you keep saying that.”
My heart patters to a stop, then skips.
“I did as you asked, young one. I separated your lover and the evil rot who should have been left in the ashes.”
“And I’ll never forget what you did for me.”
“No. No, I don’t believe you shall.”
