Page 221 of Harbinger

The cold Stefan poured into me evaporates as the truth ignites me.

The mark on my skin burns like steel in a forge, fire surging through my blood and flooding the space below it. Shaping me from the inside out. Something shifts deep inside me, as if a door I’ve spent my entire life holding shut has finally swung open.

The forest falls silent.

I plant my palm on the ground and push myself to my knees.

Across the clearing, Stefan takes a step backward.

Then another.

I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me.

“What in the seven hells—” he whispers, continuing to back away.

I drag in a breath. “Didn’t you hear?” I rasp, my voice growing stronger with each word. “I’m the fucking harbinger.”

And I decide my fate.

The mother wolf came to help me, but she won’t survive that wound. Won’t live to see her pup grow. She won’t be there to protect him.

So, I rise.

I rise because she can’t.

I rise because Kieren didn’t.

I rise because no power, not even the Stars, will keep me on my knees when I know what needs to be done.

Magic scorches a trail across my neck, my chest, my arms. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the distance between my sword and his chest. I close it in two strides—arms shaking, lungs burning, throat raw. Stefan pulls his weapon free from the wolf with a sickening squelch and whirls toward me.

But I’m faster. And pissed.

I’m still screaming as I plunge my blade through his ribs. Through bone and muscle and tissue. I throw my weight into it with everything I have. With my whole body. For the mother wolf. For her baby. For every innocent life this world has snuffed out in the name of power.

His face goes slack, a waxy gray hollowing his cheeks as his head drops in surprise to the sword I’ve rammed through his heart.

I let him fall.

Leave the sword rising out of his chest like a gravestone.

My strength leaves me all at once, and I crash to my knees.

The pup scampers back to his mother and curls beside her, crying softly.

There’s not enough left of me to stand. I crawl across the leaves to where she’s gone down on her side. Her eye finds me, the blue glow dimming as her flank rises in shallow pants.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears flowing unchecked down my cheeks. I press my hand to the soft place behind her ear, the way I used to do with our barn cats when they were dying. “I’m so sorry.”

Her breath rattles once, and then it stops.

The pup pushes his small head against her muzzle and … howls.

My heart howls with him.

I’m still sitting in the leaves with my hand on the dead wolf when I hear the outpost’s warning bell.

Then shouts. Bishop’s. My brother’s.