THE SUNDERING

t not this strangely colored pest, a bird of purest white, with stripes of yellow and black upon its wings, a bird of beauty. Such a bird wasn't found in Velle,

opening." He was crazy-talking, and he knew it. Maybe that meant t

refused to die this way, a coward. A failure. He found a reserve of energy, but when failing to move more than a few inches, v

swooped the air. Maybe it ate carrion. Baz fumed, as he wasn't dead

is lips. Anger met the agony, all because the fucking bird wouldn't stop flapping around him. He rolled to his side and g

His bride hardly left her bed anymore, sickness taking over her bod

rose. Bitterly, he tucked it back under his shirt, remindin

iation of Hope. Shadow's Blood. He touched the reddish-black stone, the ring of deliverance on its leather c

for years. Even now it crossed upon his neck, a talisman of all he'd be denied. Fa

e man he wished had been his father, worried and set Sebastian's brow. Meaning came to him, sharp and deli

d. Jin was wrong. There was no mirr

n't kill him, his blade would. Weeks he'd wandered the desert, roaming the land that few visited and fewer returned fr

tared at it. If he had tears,

him in his last hours. Tauntingly, it chirped a song, one of goodbye an

ll. Stunned

e

ut of him, anyway. What interested him was the way it died-hitt

al. It had been

-toned avian, ready to capitalize on its demi

of the situation. His mouth tasted like ash: stale and filled with regret. Thi

ncover that he was a fake. That he was nothing, just as the villagers and the courtiers viciously whispered.

e. A Beast, ready to slaughter. As he ran his fingers out and over the invisible wall, a zap of electricity buzzed out, running up his arm to his heart.

nd hushed. Then, in another burst of power, magic-sourced li

elly it beckoned him forward. Die, die, die, it said, the words a whisper running wild within his bra

ragging his fingers along the sandpaper-smooth callousness of the portal's opening. Better to be

the unknown. Hesitating, Baz stared at the nothingness. Then, resigned but ready, he s

! Or to fuc

opened to intangible fear, he plunge