Reign of Ice (Forever Fae #4)(73)

Alasdair shied away from the light and covered his face with his arm. The beams coming from the dagger were beautiful, in all shades of color, and they didn’t affect me at all. The invisible force holding me to the wall broke and I was free. Immediately, I bent down to grab the dagger and held it in my hands as the glow traveled across my body and surrounded me. It wasn’t my magic doing this, but someone else’s. There was someone else here helping me.

Who could it be?

The time had come to end it all. It was over and I knew it. I could feel the poison of the iron spreading through my body from the gash across my chest. When he cut me I didn’t realize how deep it was. I didn’t have long now. I opened up my mind and found Brayden right there, just behind the surface.

“Good-bye, my love,” I whispered quickly in his mind. “I love you. You will all be safe now.”

Alasdair pulled his arm away, and as he did he saw the exact moment I smiled and raised my dagger. “It’s over,” I growled. “I hope you rot in Hell.”

The talisman gleamed around his neck so I took the dagger and plunged it into the bloodstone straight down through his heart. I had only one second to see the terror in his eyes and to know that I succeeded to end his evil existence when the end finally came. In a rush of light, it was over.

The blast from the power surge felt like a thousand sharp knives penetrating every surface of my skin as I was thrown into the sky. It almost felt like I was flying, but all too quickly I landed and tumbled on the ground below, breaking every single bone in my body.

I couldn’t move and I could barely breathe. I did, however, know that I succeeded. Before I fell into darkness and away from everyone I loved, I got to at least see what my bravery and courage did for the land. Instead of being surrounded by inky black trees, it was instead open meadows of nothing except green grass. There was no trace of the Black Forest, Alasdair, or anyone in his army. It had all vanished.

“I did it,” I whispered to myself. Tears fell down my cheeks, except I was too weak to wipe them away.

“Yes, you did,” a voice called out, soft and angelic. It was a voice I didn’t recognize. “And now it’s time to take you home.”

Yes … home.

The land started to fade away, and instead of the darkness one would see when they fell asleep, I was seeing the brilliant shades of a light from a new land. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t the bright shades of the snow or the icy court I belonged to. This was somewhere different. I had never seen this place before, but there was no mistaking where I was. From the glowing bright sun above to the ethereal glow of the land, there was no denying that I had crossed over to another realm, one that had always and forever been known as the heaven for my kind … the Hereafter.

I was dead.





I DIDN’T KNOW how long I yelled her name or how the pain coming through the bond didn’t kill me on the spot. All I knew was that Ariella was hurt, she was dying, and there was nothing I could do to save her. I yelled for Sorcha to go faster, to push harder, but when Ariella’s life began to slip out of my hands my whole world was lost. I held onto our bond, our connection, trying to will my power into her body … to keep her alive.

“Dammit, you hang on,” I shouted in her mind. She was still alive, but only barely. I had to get to her before I lost her for good.

I was riding in the air on Sorcha’s back—my army and the others were riding on the ground below us—when the whole Land of the Fae lit up like a thousand suns. The blast from that exposed power blew us back into the air with its raw force, but Sorcha kept fighting, pushing her wings to the limit knowing we needed to keep going. I couldn’t see a thing as we flew straight into the light.

Once the light slowly dimmed down and my eyes adjusted, it took a while to figure out what I was seeing. What was once the Black Forest below us with its dark oily trees and stench of death was now replaced with green meadows and a sense of life. There was no sign of the sorcerer or his army, or his evil for that matter. It all felt clean … and pure. However, there was something down there, something lying still in the grass.

“Sorcha, look!” I hollered, pointing down at the figure in the meadow.

Hope surged through my veins and each second we got closer to the ground, the more I could tell it was definitely my Ariella lying down there. As soon as Sorcha got close enough to the ground, I jumped off her back and ran straight to Ariella. With my heart racing and my lungs burning, I collapsed onto the ground beside her and scooped her into my arms.

“Ariella? I’m here, angel, open your eyes,” I demanded.

Her body was so still, so broken. The gash across her chest was black with inky veins protruding from the wound, and as soon as I placed my hand against her heart, my world ended when all I got was silence. I could no longer feel her heart beating or the life that used to course through her blood.

She’s gone.

“No!” I roared, holding her tight.

I yelled her name over and over, but she never opened her eyes; those same ice blue eyes that were the most beautiful shades of blue I’d ever seen and could see straight through my soul to the good. Never was there a time I let my emotions get to me, but the void in my heart from her loss was too much to bear. I couldn’t hold it inside, the pain became too much. As I rocked her in my arms, I let the tears fall freely from my eyes.