The black in his veins spread over his collarbone, heading for his heart. The truth was a heavy stone in Lorelai’s stomach. She couldn’t save him without using magic.
If she used magic, Irina would know. She’d come for Lorelai and stage a battle Lorelai had no idea how to win. Lorelai would probably die, but Leo didn’t have to. She’d use her magic to send him into the forest, far from where she would be facing the queen alone.
It didn’t matter what she had to sacrifice. It only mattered that she save Leo.
She let go of him and reached for her gloves. Something whipped around her waist and flung her away from Leo. She struggled, trying desperately to keep the head of the vine from biting her.
Trying desperately to reach her brother.
The vines overhead moved faster.
“Go.” Leo’s voice was weak with pain, but the look he gave her was fierce. “Get out of here.”
“I can’t . . . you’re trapped. I can’t pull you free.” Her breath was a ragged sob of desperation as she tore at her gloves. As the vine around her snapped its teeth toward her heart.
The black liquid beneath his skin spread to his veins and turned them black as well. The snakelike bars of Nordenberg’s cage reached the top of their ascent and hurtled down toward the village border.
“Leo!” She stopped fighting the vine and stretched her arms toward her brother.
The vine sank its teeth into her chest and shrieked in agony as her blood touched it. It hissed and released her, slinking back, its gaping mouth sizzling like it had swallowed acid.
The cage streaked toward the ground.
She ran for Leo on shaking legs and smeared blood from the wound in her chest onto the vine that held him.
It let go.
“I’ve got you, Leo. Come on.” Scooping her arms beneath his, she pulled with all her strength, and he slid toward the gate.
Almost there.
The vines dropped down with a hiss.
She sobbed out a prayer to the heavens and staggered out of the gate with him seconds before the falling vines slammed into the ground.
She pulled him back a few more steps before stumbling, the pain in her chest a throb of agony that turned her knees to water. Breathlessly, she said, “Can you run? Or at least walk? We have to get away, Leo, and I need you to help me.”
He was silent.
“Leo?” She laid him on the meadow grass and dropped down beside him.
The blackness in his veins had spilled across his chest, up his neck, and into his eyes. The pulse that beat along the side of his neck was still.
“No!” She yanked her glove off, tore at his shirt, and slammed her hand against the bare skin of his chest where Irina’s dark magic spread across his body—a web of death that had stolen her brother.
“Please,” she whispered, her power gathered and waiting for his heart to surge toward her so she could tell it what she wanted.
So she could bring her brother back.
“Leo!” She tried to push her magic into him—to find one shred of life left in him that could respond to her. That could come back to her.
His heart remained still.
He was gone.
THIRTEEN
LEO WAS GONE.
Three simple words that tore into the foundation of Lorelai’s life and left ruins in their wake.
Leo was gone.
Her best friend. Her greatest antagonist and staunchest ally. Her brother, who’d believed in her with every fiber of his being.
And whom she’d failed to protect.
She stumbled over the bumpy roots of a sugar maple and fell to her knees. The forest was too quiet, the world too vast, without Leo in it.
He was gone.
Something sharp and hot surged through Lorelai’s chest and seized her throat. She curled over her knees, dug her gloved fingers into the ground, and opened her mouth in a soundless wail as tears streamed down her face. Grief swelled within her, pressing against her skin until she thought she would burst from the strength of it. It stole her voice, her breath, and gave her agony instead.
She hadn’t saved him, and now he was gone.
Sobs shook her, and she let them take her. Let everything Leo meant to her cut her into pieces.
Gone.
Not gone . . . taken.
Slowly her tears dried, and the awful strength of the grief that consumed her gave way to one burning thought.
Lorelai hadn’t lost Leo.
Irina had taken him, just like she’d taken their father.
Just like she’d taken Ravenspire.
Without Irina, Lorelai and Leo would be happily arguing in the castle while her father ran his kingdom with a firm and steady hand.
Irina was to blame for the wreckage that surrounded Lorelai’s life. For the woman who’d killed her children to spare them starvation. For the mob of desperate peasants that had attacked the Eldrian king. For the death of Ravenspire.
For Leo.
It was time Irina paid the price for all she’d taken.
It was time Lorelai stepped out of the shadows and became the queen Ravenspire needed—the queen Leo and Gabril had always believed she could be.