Willing Sacrifice
Page 72

Another mental gift, no doubt.
A tree branch slammed into Grace’s arm. She heard the bone crack, felt the pain of the break sear along her spine.
She’d learned at the hands of her stepfather how to ignore pain, how to keep moving with broken bones so she could escape the next blow. She used every bit of skill she had now to push forward and distance herself from the agony crawling through her body.
The ground pitched up, the steep angle nearly slowing her to a stop. The sound of battle was softer now, but the impact of steel on glass was an unmistakable chime in the distance.
Each crawling step was harder than the last. Her left arm was useless. Something in her foot cracked, giving her a burst of pain she couldn’t ignore.
Behind her, a Hunter let out a scream that cut off far too soon. Torr had killed it with that huge hammer he wielded.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs, misting out in a thick fog.
That was when she realized she wasn’t alone.
She looked around and saw that one of the Hunters had followed her. Maybe it had decided to see if she was a threat, or maybe it thought she was easy prey. Either way, it was bad news.
She met its black gaze, let it know she saw it. She wasn’t afraid of death. She knew she was going to die tonight. The only thing that scared her was letting Torr die with her.
Grace inched up the last few feet of the slope backward, keeping the Hunter in sight.
It dug its sharp, glassy claws into the ground, accelerating toward her.
She kept moving back, knowing the steep drop was right behind her. Just like last time, she would let the Hunter charge over the edge and shatter on the rocks below.
But it was smarter than that. It saw the trap and banked right, missing both her and the steep drop.
She used the time to regain her footing. Every inch of her body screamed in pain. Her foot could barely support her weight, and she didn’t dare trust it with a full step. Instead, she limped to the place where an ancient tree had fallen. It formed a narrow bridge across the ravine, but was old and rotting with decay.
Fifty feet below, the river churned and frothed against a cluster of rocks as big as cars.
She took one of the stones and tossed it into the water. Instantly, the Warden appeared, standing in the middle of the river.
The strong current shoved at its body, but it still managed to make it to the shore.
It looked up. Saw her.
There was a flare of recognition in its transparent gaze—one that sent a primal chill of fear snaking through her.
Without a pause, it stalked to the wall of the ravine, sprouted thick, crystalline barbs from its arms and legs and began scaling the wall.
As fast as it was going, she didn’t have much time. She had to finish what she’d come to do.
She looked back to the rocks below. Even though she knew she was dead, the idea of falling made bile rise in her throat.
No other choice.
She took a careful step onto the thick trunk. It held her weight but gave out a tired groan. She inched forward, blocking out the pain of her battered foot. Looking down would be her death, so she kept her head up and level.
The Hunter saw her. It slid back and forth nearby, cutting through the brush at the top of the hill. It looked almost like it was pacing, trying to decide how to reach her without falling to its death.
Grace was a few feet in now. The tree shifted slightly with each step, but held.
The Hunter veered close to the fallen tree. A frost formed along the surface, and a frigid crackling sound spread under her feet.
She couldn’t feel the chill yet, but she knew it would come.
The Warden was nearly to the top of the ravine. Once it reached solid ground, it could chop through the tree she stood on and end her.
It was now or never. This would have to be far enough.
Grace opened the water skin dangling from her body and shoved the last stone through the opening.
Everything happened at once.
The Warden appeared on the tree in front of her, barely keeping its balance. The Hunter charged onto the log. Torr’s voice boomed nearby, screaming for her to stop.
She caught a glimpse of his face and felt love swell and fill her up. He would be the last thing she ever saw—the last, sweet image to take to her grave.
She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around the Warden’s waist and shoved herself sideways toward the rocks below.
Chapter 34
Torr stared over the edge of the cliff, praying for another ledge, hoping Grace would be staring up at him, reaching out her hand for help.
Instead, all he saw below was a trio of shattered bodies. The clear shards of the Warden and the black chips of the Hunter mixed in a glittering confetti across Grace’s broken body. Blood frothed in the passing current for a moment before turning to pink ice. As the water flowed over her, new layers of ice formed, encasing her.
The disk on his back fell away.
Grace was dead.
The weight of his shock and grief drove him to his knees. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be safe and warm in her bed right now, not dead and frozen in a block of bloody ice. She was supposed to love him forever, the way he loved her. They were supposed to have a life together, have children, grow old together.
Tears flooded his eyes and rained down his cheeks. A wrenching pain sliced across his lifemark, and he could feel the leaves begin to fall, one after another.
He welcomed the pain, welcomed the inevitable death it would bring. The sooner, the better.
“She could not let you become human,” said Brenya.
He didn’t know how she’d gotten here, but it hardly mattered. Nothing mattered without Grace.
He dug his fingers into the ground, fighting the need to jump in after her. Only his vow to Brenya held him back. He’d promised to repay her for teleporting him here, and he had no choice but to submit to that vow. “She didn’t even know that I’d chosen that path.”
“She knew. She also knew how torturous it was for you to be weak the way you had been, the way she saw herself.”
“She wasn’t weak. A weak woman would never give up her life to save others. She’d never throw herself off a cliff by choice.”
“You and I know that. She did not. She did, however, remember every second of your paralysis, of your helplessness. Our gentle Grace would never have let you suffer like that again.”
“I would have been happy. With her, I would have been happy.”
Brenya bent down and picked up the disk. “Give me your hand, young Theronai. We will gather her body and take her home.”