These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

“Brie!” My name comes from a cry in the woods and it sounds like— “Brie! Help me!” Even as I move toward the call, I try to convince myself that the voice isn’t familiar—isn’t one I know better than my own.

I hear the cry again—a cry and a terrified sob. At the sound of my little sister’s desperate shrieking, I run as fast as I can into the trees. The forest floor is dense with brush, twigs, sticks, and leaves. My skirt snags on a bush, and my useless shoes tear away, but I keep running.

“Help! Brie? Brie, help me!”

Racing toward the sound of Jas’s voice, I swing around trees and through underbrush, following her cries as they grow louder and more panicked. I run until my legs are burning and my throat is raw. I’m not even surprised when I see my childhood home—the one we escaped from almost ten years ago. The one where my father died.

Flames whip around the walls, licking at the roof and reaching higher and higher. Just like that night.

I back up a step. This isn’t real.

The fire crackles and snaps, and smoke shoves itself up my nose while the heat of the flames burns my cheeks.

“Brie, please!”

I race inside without letting myself think.

The next time she calls my name, my ears are filled with the roar of the fire and I can barely hear it. I know that her voice will get quieter and quieter. I know because I’ve been here before. And I know she’ll go completely silent before I reach her. She’ll be unconscious on the floor beneath her bed.

Part of my mind tells me this is an illusion. The house is gone. It can’t be here. But I can’t leave her. If I’m not the girl who runs into the fire to save her little sister, then I am nothing.

Jas screams again, and a loud crack rends the air as the ceiling joists crumble.

The smoke is unbearable. It fills my lungs, leaving no room for oxygen as I scramble around fallen debris and dodge the flames. A beam falls on my leg, and I collapse on the burning floor.

“Jas,” I whisper.

“Abriella!” The roar of a deep voice comes from the front of the house. “Abriella!”

“Back here.” The words are weak, my lungs too full of smoke. There’s no way he heard me above the sound of the house burning around us.

I push and shove at the beam, but it doesn’t move. My nose fills with the smell of my own burning flesh. I can’t keep my head up. I can’t even hear Jas anymore.

“You foolish mortal!”

Unconsciousness falls over me like a heavy blanket. I try to surge out from under it, but I can’t.

“I was supposed to save her,” I whisper. And then everything goes dark.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?” The low voice barely enters my consciousness, drowned out by the pain that’s so intense it’s become a beast screaming inside my brain.

“The Sluagh lured her into the woods. She was surrounded by flames and smoke. Her leg is in bad shape, and her mind . . .”

“She fought us, even after we chased them off,” another voice says. “She said she wouldn’t leave her sister.”

I force my eyes open, grasping for reality. “Jas?” My voice is hoarse. Too much smoke in my lungs. It was real. “Did you get my sister?”

“Shh. Don’t talk.” Silver eyes study my face. Finn. He turns away. “Heal her.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” another male voice asks. Kane? “This is a blessing. A gift from the old gods. Take it.”

Finn growls a low warning I can’t quite make out.

“Do what you want, but I won’t stand here and watch you throw everything away.” Footsteps. A slamming door.

“I don’t want to see her hurt either,” Pretha says. I want to open my eyes, but it takes more strength than I have. “After what she did for Jalek, none of us do, but you need to stop making the same self-righteous mistakes that made me a widow.”

“I am not Vexius.”

“And she is not Isabel.”

“Don’t you dare,” Finn growls.

“Your kingdom is doomed without you, don’t you get that? And these injuries—”

“Don’t tell me about my kingdom, Pretha. Letting her die when we have the means to save her is as good as murder. Do you want the magic to turn against us?” Finn asks. Then silence, so much heavy silence I nearly manage to open my eyes. “Heal her. Now.”

I force my eyes open, and Pretha is kneeling beside the bed, one hand on my brow, the other on my chest. “Sleep now,” she says. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

* * *

Voices cut into my dreams. Finn. Pretha. They’re arguing again.

“She’ll be fine,” Pretha says. “She just needs to rest.”

“Thanks to you,” Finn says. His voice sounds ragged, exhaustion hanging on every syllable.