How quickly this astonishing power turned so disastrous. How quickly it overwhelmed me.
I can’t do what he’s saying. I’ve never had good control over my magic, and now, it’s running rampant, its will trying to buckle my own.
“Auren, your aura is fading fast, you have to let go!” he pleads.
There’s alarmed fear in his eyes now, and his aura lurches around me, like it’s trying to grasp onto my own to keep it from fading. I’ve never seen him look afraid before, and the sight of it makes me tremble.
I can feel myself draining, but if I let it go like he wants me to, then the tentative tether I have on the gold will give way. It will unleash on him and anyone else in its path before it settles, and I can’t let that happen. I made the gold unleash with the heart of a beast, and now, its single-minded will is to destroy.
“Leave. Please,” I beg.
I shudder with the effect of the drain, of trying to hold onto this power that’s overtaken every part of me.
My vision blacks out, and I slump, ears roaring, though I don’t know if that’s the magic overloading my veins, or my galloping pulse. There’s a tug through my gut, like my very life-force is being pulled on, and it tears a ragged breath from my panting chest.
I can hold it. I will hold it, until he’s out of harm’s way, for as long as my exhaustion can stand it.
My eyes are heavy, my breathing labored. Sweat drips down my neck and stings the jagged cuts of my ribbons, and I feel something in me sinking.
I’m dying.
“Dammit, Auren, you don’t have time. Let go!” Slade roars.
I open my mouth to tell him I can’t, but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.
Then, he suddenly yanks my face forward and presses his lips against mine. The shock of it stuns me for a moment, and my faltering hold on the magic wavers.
Slade pulls back, something pained in his eyes. “Forgive me,” he breathes against my mouth.
I want to ask him what he means, but I don’t get the chance.
In the next brush of his lips against mine, his power rises up, the cloying, corrupt magic that steals the breath from my chest.
A choked noise catches in my throat as I feel something horrible rake down my insides, like poisoned air. My wet eyes go wide in shock, and I try to flinch away from him, but Slade holds me still, green eyes keeping me hostage.
My lips part on a jagged, rough cry rent from the stutter in my heart. From something insipid and withering that seems to decay the very bones in my body.
“Forgive me,” he whispers again.
I couldn’t answer him even if I wanted to. My vision decays, and in the next instant, my hold on the magic snaps with the last of my strength, like a dam bursting. All I feel before I black out is a clash of metal and rot, of gold and black colliding together in a rush of heat and dust.
The last thing I hear is Slade’s voice from that moment in the library.
We all have our edge, Auren. One day, you’re going to find where yours is.
I found it, I want to tell him.
I found my edge.
The question is, did I fall, or did I fly?
Epilogue
SLADE
I’m not a male prone to feeling panic.
But when Midas grabs Auren and holds a blade to her throat, panic becomes me.
My power rears up so fiercely that I nearly stagger with it, my feet grinding into a rumbling floor.
“Use your magic, and I’ll slice her open!” Midas spits, and his shout arrests me in place.
I react instantly, yanking onto my power as I lock it down and signal for my Wrath to halt. Ranhold and Highbell guards stop too, while Queen Kaila’s men back her away, pressing her toward the far wall, trying to protect her from the exchange.
The entire ballroom goes still. Or maybe that’s just me, but time has paused, my damn heartbeat paused with it.
Auren’s body is crushed, held roughly against Midas’s chest. Her throat bobs beneath the glinting blade held there, her golden eyes wide with shock and fear. That look makes me lose my fucking mind.
I can feel my power reacting to her terror, can feel the remnants of its reach trying to leap right off my skin and strangle Midas where he stands.
My voice punches out between clenched teeth. “Let her go. Now.”
Midas only holds her tighter, eyes skimming the room.
“Hold back your rot and your soldiers, Ravinger.”
My Wrath are five steps away in their own stare-off with the guards, but they stay where they are, not moving an inch. None of them will give Midas a reason to hurt her. Digby too has frozen in place, his gaze locked on the threat.