The pain was absolute, all-consuming, but I held on. Icouldn'tlet go. That was the thought on repeat in my head.
Can't let go, can't let go…
My blood rushed with the power of killing her, my head spinning along with it. I felt it the second her body buckled. Her eyes flared as if she felt it too, and then my grandmother, the cruellest person I'd ever known, melted into gore, goop, and blood. I'd used so much magic that not a single eyeball or bone survived.
"Hala," Mav cried in alarm when my body dropped suddenly, the ground reaching up for me as all my strength waned.
Pain exploded through my hands and all the way up my arms, dragging a ragged whimper from my throat before I collapsed into full sobs. It was unbearable. I was going to die. This pain was unsurvivable.
"You arenotgoing to die," a furious voice rasped, and the ground shook. As if a giant lumbered to its feet.
Screams followed, along with awful wet, crunching noises, but I was in too much pain to open my eyes, to make sense of them.
"Sang," Void's gravelly voice met my ears, and a shock like lightning charged through my body, wrenching my gritty eyelids apart.
Sang. My Cheshire Cat. My mate.
His screams…
Through my blurry vision, all I saw of the armoury was blood and broken bodies. Void trampled them to death, crushing them all until skulls broke and bodies burst. If I hadn't been in such pain, I'd have thrown up at the sight, no matter how blurry it was.
"Sang," I breathed weakly, leaning on Mav when the world tumbled and spun around me.
"Take care of her. I'll get Sang."
"Void, you're in no state—"
"I'll get Sang," Void growled, shaking the whole room.
I flinched, waiting for the building to come crashing down on us, but miraculously the walls held as Void stormed through the sea of blood and ash to the lift.
The room wavered as I watched, trying to process the fact Vann was dead again and the Origin was nothing but guts and gore on the ground. It was over.
For us, at least.
But what about Sang?
28
"Please," I breathed against Mav's neck, each breath a struggle as pain caught fire in my body and burned hotter than ever. "Please, Mav."
Lips brushed my forehead, about the only part of me that hadn't been injured, and he nodded. "Yeah, it doesn't feel right leaving them to fight alone."
I held on with raw, burned fingers as Mav swung me up against him and stormed across the room to stab the lift's call button. The wait was torturous, every bit as nightmarish as having my head held under water and being charged full of electricity until I killed a man.
"Sang," I groaned, my panic growing urgent.
Mav brushed a bleeding tentacle over my hair, but his jaw was clenched and I saw my own rush and panic in his bright blue eyes. "He'll be fine. He's too crazy to die."
I couldn't laugh, it hurt too much, but the tiniest corner of my mouth curled. I hoped Mav was right. The thought of never seeing Sang's excited yellow eyes again, or cuddling with him in the nest he built for me, or hearing his voice dip lower when he promised to hang me on his horns … it wrecked me.
These men were my family now, and the idea of losinganyof them was like a hot poker shoved into my heart. Or like steam burning my skin to the bone.
"Okay," Mav breathed, nerves clear in his velvety voice as the lift opened with a cruelly upbeat ding. He strode inside, jabbing the button that was marked with a smear of blood—floor five. "Shit," he whispered, maybe not meaning for me to hear.
"What?"
"They're in the training maze."