Blind rage consumed her.
She would not fail them.
Maeve lurched toward the edge of the river, her Aurastone gleaming with the promise of victory.
Something sharp snapped inside of her heart, splitting her open. She gasped, the pain splicing through all the pieces she’d tried so desperately to repair. The ache was too cavernous. Too familiar.
A Strand, the familial bond tying her to another, had broken.
Maeve flung her hand out, clutching Rowan’s arm.
“Maeve!” He pulled her close, searching her eyes. Worry harbored in the lines of his face. “What is it? Is it Tiernan?”
No.
It wasn’t Tiernan.
Her gaze swung to the northwest, to the opposite side of the Rainbow River. Where the dark fae surrounded the Autumn and Winter legions, where the horde of monsters crowded them back into the mountains.
His body lay motionless on the ground, his empty gaze staring up at the gloomy skies. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, oozed from the wound to his head.
In the recesses of her mind, she heard Aran roar as the rush of magic transferred from father to son.
Dorian, their father, was dead.
Maeve’s heartbeat slowed until she thought it would stop completely. He was gone, stolen from her, and she’d never been afforded the opportunity to say goodbye. There were still so many things she wanted to tell him, so many things she wanted to ask him. She wanted to hear stories about his life, about how he met her mother, about how Aran, Garvan, and Shay were in their youth. She wanted toknowhim, to forge a bond between father and daughter, like ones she’d read about in the pages of a book, but had never experienced.
Aran was all she had left.
The thought of losing him, too, caused her mind to darken.
Rowan was in front of her, shouting, shaking her. But she couldn’t understand anything he was saying. It was as though he stood on the other side of a glass wall. He was screaming at her, trying to break through the imaginary barricade she’d formed around herself.
But his efforts were in vain.
Suddenly, everything blurred out of focus. Colors bled into one another, a smear among the canvas of the battlefield. They churned and toiled, much like the mural in the library of Niahvess. Obscure shapes took form, blending together like muddled watercolors. She blinked away the haphazard tears. When the world around Maeve became sharp and distinct once more, panic sluiced through her as she watched her worst nightmare come to life.
Everything was drawn out, as though lost to the concept of time.
Echoing screams filled her ears, ringing with the clang of swords, the clash of metal, the sound of death.
She found Tiernan first.
His midnight hair was plastered to the side of his head, soaked with rain. Blood speckled his face, drenched his armor, and stained his hands. But he was alive. He was standing, fighting, and…yelling.
The icy cold fingers of desolation slid around Maeve’s neck and squeezed as Brynn collapsed in front of him, taking a blade to the heart. A dagger intended for Tiernan. She’d healed him, shielding him from the assault, sacrificing her life so that he would live. He caught her right before she hit the ground, her burgundy curls falling limp as her head lolled against his outstretched arm.
Everywhere Maeve looked, the harrowing vision of death continued to unfold.
Merrick and Ceridwen were hedged in by a pack of nightmarish fae with black veins that bulged from their nearly translucent skin. Ceridwen was tucked in close to Merrick’s side, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist. Blood spilled through his fingers while he pressed firmly against the wound to her abdomen. Her leathers were torn into pieces, revealing the swath of shredded golden flesh beneath. She clung to Merrick, her skin growing paler by the second, as he fought off the dark fae closing in on them with one hand.
They were going to die.
Maeve had to stop this, she had to save them. She couldn’t bear to lose any more of her family.
She lurched forward, but something in Merrick’s expression kept her frozen in place. His blue eyes widened, his jaw went slack, and for one terrifying moment, Maeve thought he’d been killed. His face reddened, heating with untempered vehemence. Veins pulsed along his neck and he bellowed one name.
“Ciara!”
