Page 108 of Omen of ice
She holds the small knife out to Tania. “Yes. And now we’re moments away from reclaiming what’s rightfully ours. All you have to do is stop his heart.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t kill him! I won’t…” Tania’s eyes meet mine. Guilt floods the link, and I’m not sure if it’s mine anymore—or hers. “I would never hurt him.”
Liani stands there, impatiently tapping her foot. “Well? Get it over with!”
I stare at my aunt as a bubble of anger begins to form in my chest. “Get it over with? What the hell is going on?” I tug at the chains. “Liani, let me go. The priestess just told Tania to kill me!”
“And yet here you still stand. Still breathing.” She glares at me, the ice in her eyes far colder than anything I could ever produce. A sick feeling forms in the pit of my belly.
Tania brings her leg up, kicking the blade from Levina’s hand. “This is wrong!”
Levina and Liani exchange a look I don’t understand before the priestess sighs and bends to retrieve the blade.
“I’m not going to kill him—and what would even be the point? The rebirth sigil will just restart his heart. And the wound would kill me!”
Levina and Liani both laugh. The sound of it turns my stomach. “That’s not what the rebirth sigil does, child,” Levina says. “It’s a power transfer. You drew it on him, so when you stop his heart, his power flows into you. It will save you from his death by breaking the link.”
“I— What— You planned to steal Valen’s magic all along, didn’t you?”
“Poetic, don’t you think? All things considered.”
No. No, this is wrong. All wrong.
“Don’t you see what the magic is doing to me?” Tania lets out a strangled cry, and I’m nearly suffocated by a rush of emotion. “Humans aren’t made for Fae power. If I end up with all of it…”
“It will kill you,” Levina says. “Eventually.”
Liani laughs. “But it wouldn’t kill me.”
Dread creeps from my gut and filters through the link. A rush of fury from Tania. “Liani?Please. What’s going on?”
She leans down and grips my face, the tips of her nails digging into tender flesh. “I’m finally getting what I deserve.”
35
Keltania
Kill him, and we’ll have our birthright returned to us.
I’m drowning, struggling to catch my breath. I don’t know if it’s Valen’s pain or mine, but I’m hollow. Gutted. What’s unfolding is unthinkable. Something I would have sworn on my life was impossible. Yet…
I swallow back a mouthful of bile and shake my head. Tears gather in the corners of my eyes and spill down my cheeks. They leave blazing trails in their wake and make it hard to see.
“Whatever this is, it’s unnecessary. Valen will give the tear back, and we’ll all go our separate ways.” I glance at him, then quickly look away. The pain in his eyes is too much to see. It’s bad enough that I have to feel it, to choke on it. His aunt—the person he loves most in this world—has betrayed him.
“But what of the Fae magic?” Liani asks. She gives Valen’s head a final, brutal shake before rounding on me. “I need it to rule the Winter Lands.”
He snorts. He squares his shoulders and stands a bit taller. To the unknowing onlooker, he’s furious and hard. But to me, to the one person who can see inside him, he’s a mess of anguish and fury and utter confusion. The storm of it all makes me nauseous. “Orbik would put your head on a pike before he gave you any kind of power.”
Liani laughs. “Orbik? That fool has been under my control since before you first came to the estate.” She inclines her head toward Levina. “Thanks to my druid friend here.”
Something inside me cracks. The foundation our beliefs are built on is made of lies and duplicity. The discovery of the tear, hidden away in the Winter Court estate for centuries… To find out Levina had been working with the Winter Lady… “You helped her? Knowing they had our magic?”
Levina’s eyes narrow as she jams the blade into my palm and wraps my fingers painfully around it. I grit my teeth against the sting, and on the other side of the rock, Valen hisses.
“Do it quickly, and he won’t suffer,” she says.
I let go of the blade. It clatters to the floor at our feet, catching a glint of sunlight when it falls still. “I won’t kill him.”
