Chapter 48

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Shock.
Horror.
Dread.

I fell to my knees, my lungs unable to function properly, as I stared open mouthed at Ronan's body. I couldn't breathe. I tried to gasp in a lungful of air, but it got caught in my windpipe.

I trembled as I knelt in the dirt, still unable to process exactly what had just happened.

His body lay awkwardly among the leaves and foliage. His neck was bent at an impossible angle and one of his arms was twisted beneath his torso. His face looked toward the trees behind me, his vacant eyes open and dull. The breeze ruffled his mousy hair.

Marrok was silent behind me. Dristan stood behind Ronan's body, his hands fisted furiously at his sides. There was no sound aside from my short, gasping breaths.

No... No, no... It's all my fault.

Another horrible thing that was all my gods damned fault. I couldn't handle another person's fate weighing down on my conscious. The pressure was too much.

I was going to snap beneath it, like a fragile twig.

My wide, tear filled eyes lifted slowly, trailing up Dristan's legs. Then his arms. Then his torso.

When my eyes locked onto his, and I saw the unapologetic, cold, unfeeling rage inside of them, a part of me broke inside.

The shock of what had just happened vanished. And in its sudden absence, all of the pain came rushing in like tsunami of black, sticky sludge. Every corner of my mind was flooded with it. The sticky tar like substance drowned every other part of me as the anguish took over.

Ronan was dead...

He was dead because of me.

Just like my father was dead because of me. And Marrok and Sylvie's father. Just like it was my fault that Warrick had lost his wing.

Why did everything I touched seem to die?

Dristan's eyes widened a fraction as he felt my rush of despair through the bond. His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth as if he was about to say something. It only lasted a fleeting moment.

An expression of indifference slammed down over his features. He closed his mouth and flexed his jaw as his eyes hardened.

I'd never seen him look so... cold.

It broke me even further.

"You killed him." I whispered.

He stared at me in silence, his piercing, sapphire eyes like two chips of ice.

"You... You killed him..." I repeated, my voice a ghostly sound.

He remained motionless. His eyes burned into me, scorching the edges of my soul with their fiery rage. I stared back as the wind blew strands of my wild hair in and out of my face.

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