Page 127 of A Deception of Courts
The gryvern dispersed with Erix’s disappearance. Wherever he had gone, his command on them didn’t stretch. The creatures scattered, clawing through the air and fleeing from the gate.
Althea was suddenly visible, standing just out of reach from the gate’s boundary. She was shouting, commanding no one to pass into it, human or fey. All the while, her attention was on me. I would never forget the look on her face. I was sure it would haunt me for all of time.
“Stop resisting, Robin,” Rafaela commanded. “Finish it, give it all and I can break it.”
I hissed through clenched teeth as I expelled my desperation. “I can’t… I need to keep it open.”
“They’re gone!” Rafaela’s hands twisted around the handle of the hammer, her biceps protruding as she kept it hoisted. “Before anyone else is put at risk, give the gate the key and let me destroy it.”
I refused to listen, refused to believe they were gone. I didn’t deserve to feel the sadness that stabbed through me. Not when there should only be room for guilt. “Give them more time.”
“No,” Rafaela spat. “You do not understand the threat this poses for the future. Finish this, or I will destroyyoualongside the gate.”
Her threat was wasted, I didn’t care. How could I fear for my life when my actions had already destroyed me? I wouldn’t wish to live if I came out of this without Duncan. Without Erix.
Despite Rafaela’s warning, I held on for as long as I could. Rafaela promised me this was a choice, to give the key up – she was wrong.
“Do not resist it, Robin.” Her screams coiled with the winds that became one.
Come back to me. Come back to me.
“I – I can’t.”
I will not give up on you. Come back.
I felt the grasp of the key weaken, loosening its grip one finger at a time.
Cold tears stung my cheeks. I refused to blink for fear I would miss something within the shadows of the gate.
The force pulling me into the stone weakened. It was as though it repelled me. Now the stone had the key, it no longer wanted me. It had what it thirsted for.
I understood then why death was a kinder option than experiencing the extraction I’d just been through.
I stumbled back, legs giving way as I fell into the bloodied mud at the stone’s base. The shadows reached for me now. I reached for them in return, wanting to slip through the crack in the gate, to follow the two men who’d been taken from me.
Rafaela brought the golden hammer up above her head. It caught the fading light across its golden head.
“Forgive me,” I spluttered into the shadows. Then Rafaela brought her blessed weapon down upon the labradorite plinth. It cracked, fractures running across the stone in veins. Golden light burst outward.
Three attempts. That was all it took.
Pelts of stone exploded outward. The rain of debris fell upon me. I felt my skin split as the stones sliced across it, but I had no energy to lift a hand to shield myself. Nor did I care.
Rafaela moved to the next stone and the next. She destroyed the keys with grace and ease. The Cedarfall key broke first, and then the Elmdew key, which required more force than the rest.
Only the final stone, powerless and keyless, was left standing.
Rafaela fell to her knees. She pawed into the ground, hammer discarded at her side, wings splayed out around her like a tattered blanket.
I scanned my eyes over the gate as the smoke that twisted around us melted into the earth until not a single sliver was left.
My breath hitched as my eyes fell on the bundle of two bodies in the middle.
No. No. No.
I dug my fingers into the sodden ground, dragging myself toward its centre. Toward the tattered grey-leather wings of Erix, who unfolded his body from the second body – off of Duncan, who lay motionless beneath him.
CHAPTER 35
