Page 196 of Heir of Broken Souls

Lifting my hands, I bring them both down, and with it flies my shadows.

Powers explodes from me, scattering the hounds and demonic creatures, and I have no shame in letting the sob fly from my throat as I’m reunited with a brother.

Nolan and I smash into each other.

I wrap my arms around him and continue to send wave after wave around us to fend off the demons for as long as this moment can last.

“I thought you were dead!” I finally say.

“Same to you. I haven’t heard from you in days.”

Now I pull back. “Days?”

We were only in the governing city for a few short hours.

“I’ve been waiting for you to reach out with an update,” Nolan pants. “Peter touched down five hours ago and it’s been chaos ever since.”

Time does not seem to be working in our favor, but that is another worry for another day. What does concern me is that Peter decided to finally push his entire army into Aloriah at roughly the same time we entered the sunken governing city. That can’t be a coincidence, despite the time loop that seems to have occurred.

Nolan’s face suddenly drops. “Is everyone all right? Where’s Delilah?”

“She’s behind me sending—” My words stop entirely as I turn behind me to find Delilah, smiling at me coyly and wiggling her fingers.

My eyes narrow at the sight, and then suddenly, she bursts into nothing but black shadows.

My roar stops the movements around me, ceases the fighting, halts the aerial legion above. Shadows ripple out of me in a shockwave, capturing the essence of my pain.

Until the ground shakes violently as a dragon drops from the sky, landing on its legs. Then it rolls and transforms into the small wicked form of a Fae-witch.

“No!”

Harlow runs screaming in the other direction with such vigor my heart stops.

Nolan latches his hand around my wrist and pulls me behind him as we use our Fae speed to run after her. All the while, I tug on our bond, grateful to feel Delilah is still very much alive, and yet she won’t open her door to tell me where she is—or maybe she can’t.

A wave of demonic creatures rushes for us all but I keep them back with another burst of my power as I come to a skidding stop beside Harlow. She weeps over…Lenox. That’sLenox’sbody lying on the ground in tatters, torn to shreds. There isn’t a place I can find that isn’t bruised, battered, or mutilated.

Dropping to my knees, my hands shake as I reach out, not knowing where to begin to heal him, not knowing if there is anything to heal.

I can’t believe the words that come out of my mouth. “Is there a pulse?”

Harlow clings to his shoulders, screaming, not hearing a word I say.

Leaning forward, I touch the only patch of skin on his neck that isn’t covered in blood.

My heart stops.

Becausehisisn’t beating.

Because my best friend’s heartisn’t beating.

My vision swims, the darkness beginning to take what little remains of my soul. Something dies within me, a sacred part snapping in two as the brother I should have fought harder for lies motionless before me, his gaze unseeing.

I want to cry. I want to rage, I want to scream, I want to dosomethingagainst such a travesty but I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t walk, can’t fight, can’t live?—

Not when Lenox’s chest isn’t moving.

Harlow rips herself away from him as she stands, crying tears of Lenox’s blood. “They took everything from him!” she roars. Her screams silence the ringing of metal around her. “They took his very soul and it still wasn’t enough. They had to take what was left of him!”