Nothing.
“Please,” Everly says, her voice shaky. “Please.”
“I’m so sorry,” the words fall from my lips in a heartbreaking reality I cannot alter. “I cannot do anything for her.”
“You have to. Please.”
Tears burn my throat, my nose as I run my fingertips over the young woman’s eyes, closing them for a final time.
Olah help me. I never prepared for this. Never prepared to care for someone as much as I cared for Mother. For Aniah.
But I did. I do.
It didn’t matter who Kassandra was, or what she was.
She was my friend. My very dear friend.
Everything I prepared for melts away as I beg Olah for a different outcome. Any other outcome but this.
Please, I beg you.
Revive her.
Revive her.
Tears blind me as I look up, wanting to see life, needing to see life.
Nothing.
No!
ChapterForty-Three
The trees stopped swaying two days ago. The flowers stopped growing. The rain stopped regenerating the forest.
My heart stopped with it.
Until Kassandra, I never felt genuine friendship, true acceptance. She was the first person here to befriend me. The first person to accept me as I am. Kyanite. Different.
Now, I must stand next to Gabriel at Kassandra’s burial site, surrounded by the very people who may have picked up rocks and thrown them at my friend. People who stand here with their heads downcast, as if their hands aren’t stained with her blood.
Oh, how her blood fell.
Oh, how the ground wept when it fell.
Kassandra deserved to live, to thrive, to be Luc’s wife. She didn’t deserve the Bloodstone people’s cruelty.
Mind numbing silence echoes over the square as Luc steps forward and lights Kassandra’s funeral pyre on fire. As the flames burst into the air, my heart freezes inside my chest.
I no longer want the Bloodstone people’s acceptance. I will find a way to carry out my plan without it.
Nothing else matters. Nothing else can matter.
If I could avenge Mother and Kassandra, stop the Bloodstone from finding their magic again, and have Gabriel, I would.
But I have no way of marrying all three. No way to have him and my destiny.
It’s not written in the stars. Kassandra’s death made sure of it. I could never stay here with these people and all their prejudices.
