Fate's Surrender (Eternal Sorrows Book 3) by Sarra Cannon (android based ebook reader txt) 📕

“And an opportunity to learn,” Parrish said. “Because that’s the rub, right? We’re only progressing in our powers when we’re pushed to the brink of death. Not exactly the most nurturing environment. Do or die, so to speak.”

Karmen hadn’t thought of it that way before, but Parrish was right. Other than Crash, most of them had only learned they had powers when they were pushed to the limit or threatened with death if they didn’t use them.

“So, basically, New York City should mean we’ll either realize our greatest potential, or we’ll all die trying,” she said, half joking, half terrified she was right.

“I wish we had more time,” Noah said, not laughing at her joke. “Maybe with some thought, we could have created some training or practice scenarios.”

“We don’t have that luxury, though,” Parrish said, turning the fatalis stone in her hand. “We still haven't heard from Zoe and the fifth, but at this point, we’re just an hour or so away from the city by boat. If we can figure out where they are and come up with a plan, we could be there before noon tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but if they’re safe where they are and the Dark One hasn’t found them, as long as they stay put and in hiding, we could take all the time we need,” Karmen said, already knowing as she said it that wouldn’t be a popular option.

“Every day we wait to get this stone to the island is a day the whole world suffers,” Parrish said.

Karmen was about to say something else about the trip into the city when Parrish’s eyes grew wide. She pulled the fatalis stone from beneath the collar of her shirt and placed it on the table.

“This is it,” Parrish said. “Take hands.”

Karmen’s heart raced as the four of them joined hands and the fifth—a young boy she knew in her soul was once one of her closest friends—appeared before them.

Twenty-Two

The Boy

It was time.

The boy could feel how close the others were. They must have been traveling all day to get to the coast. He’d been tracking their fear and anxiety. At this point, he was so connected to their energy, he could even feel when one of them was hurt.

Noah, the healer of their group, had somehow taken on an injury earlier in the day. Nothing life threatening, but it was bad enough to have caused him considerable pain.

But other than their fear, the traveling guardians had stayed out of any real danger all day.

Still, the boy had wanted to wait until they were settled and safe to contact them.

Zoe had been waiting nervously all day, too. She kept asking him if he could tell where Parrish was and whether she was coming to get her or not. She wanted to talk to her sister and make sure she had gotten out of the encounter with the Dark One.

No matter how many times he reassured her that Parrish was okay and was already making her way to the coast, Zoe didn’t seem to trust it.

He couldn’t blame her, really. They’d all been through so much, and Zoe had experienced the added torture of having to hear her own father turning into one of those things in the other room.

Late last night, when they’d been up talking about their lives and what they’d been through since the virus started, Zoe had told him that she’d spent the entire time in that hotel room worried that her father would break out of that room at any moment and kill her.

“I’ve been having nightmares about it again,” she’d confessed to him late last night, pulling her arms tight around her body. “As if it had really happened. As if my own father had killed me.”

She hid her head in her arms and shivered.

It was enough to make the boy cry.

How did a ten-year-old girl ever really recover from that kind of trauma?

Seeing her sister again was the only thing she cared about anymore, and he was determined to help make that happen.

Besides, the survival of this entire world depended on him reuniting with Parrish and the others and getting to that island.

Now that they had finally connected to each other and completed the circle between them all, the boy’s memories had been coming back more and more. His powers, too.

He hadn’t had a chance to really test it, but he had a feeling he could fly a lot further now, even without rooftops. He was pretty sure he could change the weather a great deal, too. He’d played around with it a little bit this afternoon, and it hadn’t taken much concentration to turn a relatively sunny, cloudless day into a stormy grey afternoon.

He had to be careful with that, though. The Dark One would be able to sense his magic the same way he could now sense the presence of his friends as they got closer.

Too much time using his powers would allow her to pinpoint their location, and that would ruin everything.

New York City was bad enough when you were just a normal human trying to survive.

Surviving when you were a specific, sought-after target of the Dark One was impossible. At least for now.

Once the five of them got together, things would be different.

Which is why he wanted to talk to them tonight, when they were calm and safe and able to really listen to what he had to say.

He wasn’t sure if they would listen to him, seeing how he was just a kid in their eyes, but he had to trust that some part of them understood he was the eldest of their group. And the most experienced.

He motioned for Zoe to join him on the floor of the small apartment.

Anxious, her knee bounced as she sat down across from him. She scratched her arm and bit her lip.

He took a deep breath and then nodded for her to do the same. If they were going to make a stable connection with the others, he needed their