A Beautiful Dark

bothering to hide the struggle in his eyes. Asher reached me, pulling me back.
    “Stay away from him, Skye. Don’t you understand?”
    “Let me go!” I screamed, but Asher held me tighter. I couldn’t see anything but Devin before me, writhing on the ground as Asher pulled me away.
    “Skye . . . stop . . . struggling!” Asher yelled, pulling me back with all his strength. I broke free from Asher’s grasp.
    In the flap of a wing, Astaroth had Asher in a hold around his neck.
    “Skye,” Devin whispered, his body wracked with pain. He was beginning to shake. His face was obscured by the shadows cast by fallen trees, the branches creating intricate patterns on his face. “I—I can’t. . . .” Suddenly he reached out for my hand.
    Should I take it?
    “Don’t, Skye!” Asher called from behind me. “I don’t care if you’re mad at me, just don’t believe him!”
    I stood my ground in the middle of the clearing. Asher struggling in Astaroth’s grip on one side and Devin on his knees across from me.
    “Everyone, enough!” I cried, and the trees shook. Thunder boomed. I didn’t know how my heart could take it all in and still survive, not burst. From across the clearing, I could see the muscles in Devin’s jaw clench.
    “Skye!” Devin called, mustering strength in his lungs. “I have to warn you!”
    My limbs went numb.
    “Warn me?” I stood there, immobile, rooted to the ground like a tree. “About what?” I called to him over the wind.
    “About what happens next,” he whispered, and suddenly he was gone.
    “Devin!” I cried.
    He reappeared inches from my face.
    “You’re—” I started, but I never got to finish my thought. A cold blade, icy and sharp, plunged through my stomach.
    I couldn’t feel the pain, though I was sure that would come momentarily. All I could feel was the same sense of falling that had gripped me every morning after my parents had died. The world before me lurched and tumbled forward. And I fell to the ground with an icy thud.
    Stricken, I looked up into Devin’s eyes.
    Helplessness. That was all. The hunger, the ambition—all of it, gone. This is what he had to do. This is what he’d been sent here for. Not to protect me. Not to study me. Not to control my powers. To kill me.
    He’d been fighting it all along.
    “I’m so sorry, Skye. I had no choice,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “And falling in love with you was one more thing I couldn’t help.”
    Devin pulled the blade from me. I was surprised at how sudden the pain was when it came on.
    I was floating, cold, feathers brushing my cheek and hair. My eyes were closed, but I could feel the wind rushing past me and smell the winter sky. When I opened them, it was like a newborn opening her eyes on the world for the first time. In the clearing far below me, a wall of fire rose from where I’d fallen next to Devin. But the Guardian and his Gifted superior were gone. A black spiral of smoke curled into the air. I could smell the acrid burning of pine and sap.
    The scene grew smaller with distance, but whether it was moving farther away or I was, I couldn’t tell.
    Sounds came in and out of focus, like someone was turning the volume on my car stereo up and down too quickly. I heard my name.
    It was Asher’s voice, that much I knew.
    “Stay with me, Skye,” he implored, his voice cracking. As we flew higher, he grasped me tightly in one arm and pressed a hand over my wound with the other. “Don’t die. You can’t die. Not yet.”
    I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t there, but somewhere else, somewhere not of this world. I realized that the hand that was grasping me was grasped in my own.
    “I can’t heal you.” His voice was thick, shaking. “You know I can’t. I wish I could. I’ll find someone to do it. I swear.”
    The wind rushed past me, harder.
    “No matter what.”
    The air grew thinner, the world below me, smaller, until everything disappeared, all sound ceased to exist. All I could hear was Asher’s breathing as I clung to him, and the sound of my own faintly beating heart.
    We were past the clouds, into the beautiful dark.

Acknowledgments

    I OWE THE HUGEST debt of gratitude to the following people:
    My brilliant editor and friend, Maria Gomez, for believing in this project—and in me—from the beginning. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you tirelessly did for ABD.
    Barbara Lalicki, for your guidance, insight, and knowing exactly what needed to