My wings slashed through the air, the serrated edges cutting them limb from limb. My talons ripped flesh from bone, and the black shadow of my fury rising cloaked the clearing in shadow. I felt their minds—cold, curious, hungry—and I gave them a single truth to carry back to whatever pit they crawled out from:She is not yours.
Not now. Not ever.
I didn’t know how long had passed. It could have been seconds. It might have been hours. Time warped and collapsed in on itself as I fell into the battle. And then it was over.
When the last one stood among the bodies of its brethren, it didn’t lunge. A sickening feeling twisted in my gut.
The Nameless sidled closer. Slower. More deliberate in its actions than others. They’d attacked blindly when I guarded the path that led to Meera. This one didn’t, and that worried me.
Its skin shimmered, face shifting beneath the translucent veil like water struggling to freeze. The dread in my gut expanded as green eyes formed. Ginger locks sprouted from its bald, peeling scalp.
My stomach dropped.
It was her.
I stepped closer without realizing it. That’s when I saw the illusion wasn’t perfect, only close enough that my mind hesitated, and my fury stayed its wrath.
I focused on the differences.
The hair wasn’t quite right. It curled too much in the front. Her eyes were the glowing emerald shade she wore when using magic, but the beauty mark beside her nose was missing. A myriad of freckles stayed camouflaged beneath the dark skies of Evorsus, but if I had to guess, they wouldn’t line up with my siren’s either.
“Help me.”
Everything in me went still.
The beauty mark appeared.
The hair framing her face lost some of its curl.
Those differences dropped away one by one until it was Meera.MyMeera.
I couldn’t strike her. Even when my brain screamed that it wasn’t real. That it wasn’t her. My body refused to move.
The illusion crept closer.
Its eyes—hereyes—held mine, pleading and hollow.
“Help us.”
I cocked my head, but the calculation was brief. The small, distant part of me that wondered if something more sinister was at play was instantly silenced when it struck.
Long, jagged fingers plunged into my side, sharp and sudden, knocking me off balance. I staggered, blood seeping out from between my ribs.
“VARECK!”
Her cry cut through everything. The fog. The confusion. The lie.
I looked up.
Meera stood just beyond the trees, her face a mirror of rage and fear.
I saw her. The real her.
“She’s ours,” the creature said, its voice losing all traces of the ruse it had created, and instead reverting to the cold, lifeless tone of Evorsus.
“She’smine,” I hissed in response, voice dropping dangerously low as my fury let go of its bloodlust and descended into the ice-cold wrath it wielded so well.
My wings snapped out, catching the Nameless mid-lunge. My talons tore through its illusion, shredding the false skin until the creature shrieked and crumpled into a pile of dismembered limbs at my feet.
