Falden shouted, “Get her out of here! I’ll distract the Dark One as long as I can! Go!”
A tall, blond warrior dressed identically to Falden suddenly appeared beside Isabella. “Let’s go!” he ordered, grabbing her hand.
Panic gripped Isabella. She couldn’t leave Falden. Couldn’t let him sacrifice himself to save her. “No!” she shouted, pulling away.
On her other side another warrior appeared, this one as dark-haired as the other was light. “There’s nothing you can do now! Let’s go!”
Isabella gathered the last of her strength. Stood without assistance. Pulling at a reserve of power she didn’t know she had, she stepped toward the fierce battle. Falden would never make it out of that room alive as long as the creature he’d named Dark One still lived. Perhaps none of them would. She blinked slowly. Focused on the creature. Put every ounce of will behind her next words, her voice shimmering across the chaos like a mirage in the desert. “Dark One.”
The Dark One howled with rage and turned its full attention on her.
“No!” Falden yelled as the two warriors who had been on either side of her stepped in front, blocking her view. With the lightest touch of her fingertips on each of their shoulders, they moved aside, just enough to allow her to focus on her enemy.
“Dark One, you will stop fighting. You will remain still.”
The Dark One screamed in fury as it tried to rush her and failed. The shriek reached ear-shattering levels when the monster tried to disappear, faded for a flicker of a moment but could not move as it had before. Her command held, the pulse of power tying her to the creature with the absolute determination of a woman who had nothing left to lose.
“Falden?” The fair-haired warrior at her side called to his commander, but Falden’s eyes glowed with blue fire.
The Dark One turned to face Falden, a calculated risk, assuming the warriors guarding the female would remain in place.
He was correct. They did not move because she clung to them now, her fingers like clamps on their shoulders as she used them to hold herself upright, to stare at the creature, to maintain the connection between them.
“Lumerian.” The Dark One’s voice was worse than its scream, and Isabella winced as the raspy tone struck inside her skull like fingernails on a chalkboard.
She blinked, and that fast the Dark One broke free of her control. It raised its bone-colored talons to strike Falden dead.
“No!” Isabella screamed the command, her lifeforce in that one word. Her heart. Her soul. Everything.
Caught in her power once more, arm raised to attack, the dark creature backed away from Falden, unable to strike. To fight. To defend itself. Falden wasted no time. With a mighty leap, he slashed at its throat, his sword sizzling with electric-blue fire as the Dark One’s grotesque snarl tumbled, with its head, to the floor at Falden’s feet. Sparks of current wrapped around the head like a bizarre lightning storm for several seconds until what little life had been present in the Dark One’s eyes faded to nothing but empty space. Blank nothingness.
The body remained standing for several seconds longer, as if by pure muscle memory. Isabella would have gagged if she’d had the energy, relief swamping her as the body crumpled at last. No blood, just the sickly smell of burned meat and bone, a testament to mighty Furon’s true power.
Isabella’s legs collapsed with relief, and the two warriors caught her. Falden was running, yelling her name, as everything went dark.
Falden raced to Isabella’s side, scooping her up before she hit the floor, a death rattle escaping her blue-tinged lips. He let out a bellow of pure rage. Pain. Anguish. “No!”
King Dagan appeared next to Falden. “There’s still time to save her if you hurry.”
Falden’s icy blue eyes were overbright as he nuzzled Isabella’s long hair, his injuries and blood loss making his head swim dizzily. The Yielding. Yes.
Gently he lowered her to the floor, uncaring of the battle still raging outside. His woman was dying.
Cleaning his sword, he placed it between them. “Your Majesty, I may need your help.”
“Anything,” King Dagan replied.
Falden nodded, then placed a few drops of his blood across a small digital display on his armored forearm and tapped in a series of Lumerian symbols.
“Identify,” said a disembodied female voice in Lumerian.
“Falden Corshival,” he said brusquely.
“Scanning,” said the voice. A blue sheet of light panned Falden from head to toe.
“Artifact?” asked the voice.
“Lumerian Orb.”
“Retrieving,” said the voice.
Falden waited impatiently for the orb to materialize, appearing first as a tiny pebble, then expanded until it fit perfectly into his hand. The inside of the crystal swirled mysteriously with sparkling silver and gray mist. He watched as the orb levitated from his open palm, expanding in size until the silver light encompassed Isabella’s entire being inside its frigid interior, before stepping through the light to join her. Their warm breath crystallized and mixed with the swirling mist as they exhaled. All the noises from outside the orb were muted. Far away.
Taking a drop of his own blood, he smeared it over the blue crystal embedded in his sword, then smeared a drop of Isabella’s blood directly over his before slamming the sword, tip down, into the center of the orb. Immediately the cold air inside the orb crackled with electricity. The hair on their bodies stood on end.
“Isabella,” Falden whispered gently. “This will link our life forces. I can only hope that you will choose me as I have chosen you. If not, we will both die here today. You are my heart. My soul. My existence.”
Falden placed his lips gently to hers, kissing her sweetly before lying down next to her. He took her hand, linking their fingers. “My Bella. Can you hear me?”
Slowly her eyes drifted open, full of pain. “I’m dying,” she croaked.
“Then we die together.” Falden squeezed her hand. “You used the
