Gold, page 49
I lean down so she can taste the wrath that seeps out of me. “I will dump you next to him, rotting you from within, making you writhe in fucking agony.”
Terror flashes across her face.
“But I’ll leave your eyes and your ears, so you can watch him slowly die. So you can hear his pitiful screams.”
Her magic bursts out of her with one desperate puff of breath. Auren’s voice rings so loudly in my ears that I feel a trickle of blood start to seep out of them, scraping down my neck like a gouge.
I wrench her up high in the air, cutting off the last of her air. Her guards are melting into puddles of their own flesh and bubbling blood, while the ground in front of the timberwings crumbles, making them panic and screech, two of them taking to the sky while Kaila’s timberwing roars.
I’m going to kill her.
I know it. She knows it.
She must’ve been a desperate woman to come here herself like this. I could almost respect the lengths to which she’s gone to get her brother, if I didn’t hate her so viciously.
My magic seeps down, down, ready to infect her with the slowest, most painful poison.
But then, a timberwing suddenly lands at my side.
I whip around in surprise, my rot slipping, just as I see Lu jump from the back of the beast.
Lu? What the hell is she doing here?
She’s bloody. Disheveled. Covered in grime. The dark brown skin at her cheeks peeling from the chapping, cloying windchill.
But it’s her eyes that fill me with ice.
Because never, in all the years I’ve known her or had her serve as captain in my army, have I ever seen such a look of fear before.
She runs toward me, ignoring the mayhem, ignoring Kaila, gaze locked on mine as she comes to a stop, her breaths panting out in unsustainable gulps. “They’re here! They’re here and they’ve slaughtered everyone.”
My grip slips, and Kaila crumples to the ground as I turn to Lu, my brows pinning down. “Who?” I demand.
My heart pounds, ears whooshing as if Kaila’s magic is still filling the air, but Lu’s next words are far more potent.
“The fae,” she says with stricken desperation. “The fae have invaded Orea.”
They lit a candle on her bedside table. Like they’re holding some mourning vigil for her, even though she hasn’t even fucking died.
Yet.
That’s what they keep saying. That word—yet. She hasn’t passed yet, but she will. She hasn’t taken her last breath—yet. Makes it sound like her death is so final that her surviving isn’t even a possibility anymore. Everyone is just waiting for that yet to catch up.
The novices keep coming in, wiping wet cloths over her fevered forehead and pressing it to her chapped lips so the water will drip into her mouth. I don’t even know what time it is. I drew the curtains over the window hours ago. Blocking out the fucking gods. If they’re not going to save her life, then they don’t deserve to see her death.
Rissa whines low in her throat, and my hand tightens around her small palm, dread pooling in my stomach. “You’re alright, Yellow Bell,” I murmur.
Like a fucking liar.
Her inhale is jagged like it’s all cut up, leaving behind gashes in her lungs.
“Keep breathing,” I tell her.
Maybe I shouldn’t. The novices keep giving me sideways glances, but what the fuck do they want from me? I’m not going to just…let her give in. Give up.
“Keep going.”
She takes in another labored breath that scratches up her throat with a rough rasp.
Hojat steps up beside me. “Captain, sometimes, our loved ones need to hear that it’s okay for them to pass on…”
“It’s not okay,” I tell him.
Tell her.
I want her to keep fighting. If that makes me selfish, well, I never fucking said I wasn’t.
We fought in life, we can fight in death.
Till the bitter end.
I don’t even notice until after he squeezes my shoulder that I didn’t correct him when he called her loved one. Didn’t correct him, because there was nothing to correct.
I love this woman.
And that admission is going to turn past tense before I can even say it to her in the present.
So of course I don’t fucking tell her it’s okay to pass on. It’s not okay.
“You got that, Yellow Bell?” I murmur. “I don’t give you permission to die.”
I get up from the chair and lean over her, hating the candlelight, hating the way it casts all these shadows over her face. I clasp her cheeks and stroke my thumbs over them. She’s still burning hot, but it’s better than cold.
“Keep fighting,” I tell her doggedly. “Fight me some more.”
But I’m captain of an army. I know what it looks like when the fight’s left someone.
Grief latches on to me like a leech, sucking the life right out of me.
“Come on, Rissa Bell. Just a little more fight. A little more time.”
We were supposed to have so much more time, but I’ll settle for a little. I’ll fucking settle for anything other than this. Because this? This is worse than torture—and I would know.
“Captain Osrik?” Hojat says quietly.
I look over at him and see one of the novices handing him a vial. He takes it, looking at me with pity.
Immediately, I stiffen. “What’s that?”
His scarred face twists with compassion. “It will help ease her passing. She’s in pain.”
I snap upright, hands dropping down. “No.”
“Captain—”
“I said no!” My body now blocks the bed, as if I can shield her from him. I will, if I have to. “You’re not fucking giving her that,” I snarl. “She’s alive.”
“By breath and pain,” he tells me as he walks closer, and a firm look melds over his expression. “She’s not going to get better, Captain Osrik. She is going to die. So we can either let her suffer for several more hours or end her pain and help her pass in peace.”
He reaches down and I watch as he places the vial in my hand. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Right thing.
I stare at the vial. At the swirling concoction inside that we’ve used on soldiers on the battlefield to put them out of their misery.
It’s tiny in my hand but it’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever had to hold.
I want to smash it to the ground. The only reason I don’t is because she lets out another whimpering wheeze.
Because she is in pain. Because she’s still fighting. Because I keep telling her to.
Fuck.
My fingers close around the glass bottle, and I turn around to look at her tense face. My eyes burn like I got too close to a flame. Her agonized expression sucks all the air from the room.
I feel like a stopper suddenly yanks out of me, draining out all my resolve. All my selfish stubbornness.
Carefully, I sit on the edge of her bed. Brush away a strand of her yellow hair and tuck it behind her ear. That flame in my eyes keeps burning.
The candle on her bedside does too.
Her chest rises and falls, raw breath shredding to pieces, making her frown pull down harder. Making her pained whine go higher-pitched.
My throat gets all gummed up, and my vision goes blurry, but I blink it away so I can see her.
Because I won’t get to keep seeing her for much longer.
She gives another whined breath, and I close my eyes, head hanging, defeat draping over me. Because I hear Hojat, and I know he’s right. I hear her, and I know it’s time. I know I have to…let her stop.
The fire in my eyes spreads down to my chest, and I know after this, I’ll be scorched to ash. But it’s not about me. It’s about her. And I need to let her stop fighting.
My murmur is barely audible, but it’s only for us. “Okay, Yellow Bell.”
Okay.
Glancing down, I thumb off the cork, letting the mouth of the vial gape open. I stare down at the liquid inside. My hand shakes. My stomach feels like it’s filled with lead.
But I lift my hand and press the vial to her plush lips, and then I tip.
Watch the liquid start to slip toward her mouth.
Torment slips down mine.
The door to her room suddenly swings open, making me jerk the vial back as I turn to look.
A few people file in, and I frown. “Isalee?” I say in confusion.
The Premier nods to me, clasping her hands in front of her. “Captain Osrik. Hojat,” she says next, looking to the mender. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
My brow furrows deeper as she turns and reveals two girls behind her, one older, maybe late teens, the other one probably not even ten. “This is Wynn and her older sister, Shea.”
I see Hojat go pale as he takes in their robes. There’s only one kingdom where the people wear robes like that, and he was from there. It’s where he got his burns.
Isalee looks down at the younger child. “Wynn, this is Mender Hojat, and that man there is Captain Osrik.”
“Like a soldier?” Wynn asks.
“Yes, exactly that.”
I just stand here bewildered. Why the fuck would Isalee bring a child into a dying woman’s room?
I watch as the girl lets go of her sister’s hand and walks closer. She stops in front of me and looks up expectantly. “Excuse me.”
My eyes flash up to Isalee, but when she nods, I slowly move. The girl goes right to Rissa’s side and studies her for a few seconds. “She’s very pretty. I like her yellow hair.” She turns to look at me. “What’s her name?”
I clear my rough throat. “Rissa.”
“What happened to her?”
“She got stabbed.”
Wynn’s face goes sad. “Oh.”
Should I have lied? Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not around a lot of kids.
“What do you think, Wynn?” Isalee asks. The little girl glances back at her. “Remember, it is up to you. There is no obligation. No force. You decide.”
“Decide what?” I ask, looking between them. “What’s going on?”
The older one, Shea, looks at her sister. “What do you think, Wynnie?”
The girl twists a black lock of her short hair and bites her lip. Then, she slowly nods. “I want to.”
A look of relief crosses Isalee’s face, and she smiles. “Thank you, Wynn.”
“What’s going on?” I ask again, frustration mounting.
Isalee murmurs something into Hojat’s ear, and the mender’s eyes go wide. He rushes over to the other side of Rissa’s bed. “Miss Wynn, do you need to see the wound?”
The girl nods and Hojat undoes the top button of Rissa’s nightdress.
“Someone tell me what the hell is going on right now,” I demand.
“My sister can help,” Shea says.
“Help?” Bafflement clangs through me. “How?”
“I fix hurts,” Wynn answers, just as Hojat peels back Rissa’s nightgown and bandage, revealing the Divine-damned wound beneath. Clustered with infected blood, and swollen, bright red skin clotted with pus.
I hear the older sister suck in a breath, but Wynn reaches out her hand, her small palm covering the worst of it, and I’m so fucking lost that all I can do is stand here and watch.
The girl’s black brows pull together, and then she lifts her palm, tongue stuck between her teeth in concentration. She scrubs her hands together then, and a dusting of blue powder somehow starts sifting down from them, landing on Rissa’s wound.
It hisses and steams against the inflamed skin. Crackles as it soaks into the stitched slash. My whole body tenses, while Hojat looks on in wonder, and I’m about to fucking lose it, but right before my eyes, the wound begins to heal.
It fucking. Starts. To heal.
I stagger back. The vial falls from my hand and shatters against the floor.
The startling sound doesn’t deter the girl. She just keeps scrubbing her hands. The powder keeps falling down. And the horrible Divine-damned wound, the infection around it…it starts to lessen. The red leeching away. The swelling going down. The puncture itself starting to close up.
I’m so fucking stunned, my stare stuck on the wound, that I don’t notice the girl falling until she nearly hits the floor. Luckily, Hojat catches her, while the last of the blue powder sinks into Rissa’s chest.
The older sister rushes forward and takes Wynn, hiking her up and propping her small head against her shoulder. “Oh Wynn, I told you, not too much!” The girl’s head lolls and her eyes are closed, but I hear her reply. “S’okay. Wanted to help. She looked nice.”
I just keep staring.
Blinking. Edge of my boot crushed over slivers of glass.
How.
How how how how…
There’s more talking in the background, but I can’t comprehend what anyone is saying. I barely notice Isalee gathering the girls and leaving the room. I’m too stunned to pay attention to them. I can’t take my eyes off the wound that’s now nearly healed. All that’s left is scabbed-over flesh and peeled-back stitches.
And…
She’s breathing. Breathing and not wheezing. The frown on her face is softening too, until her expression turns almost serene.
My eyes jerk up to Hojat. My voice cracks. It doesn’t feel real. I almost just fucking fed her that vial to stop her heart. A few seconds more, and I would have.
“How?”
Hojat shakes his head, like he’s at a loss as much as I am. “Magic.”
But he’s right.
Because when Rissa’s eyes suddenly flutter open, when I see those stormy blue eyes of hers focus on me, that’s exactly what it feels like.
Fucking magic.
I come to with clusters of shadows and prisms of light bobbing around me. Instantly, I’m calmed, because I know I’m safe in my assassin’s arms. He pulls his magic away, but only slightly. Only enough for me to see him.
Dommik looks down at me, hood pushed back, and I realize he’s holding me on his lap. He’s…cradling me against his chest. As if I’m precious to him. But as I take in his expression, as I notice the lines of tension around his mouth and the circles beneath his eyes, worry settles in.
“What happened?” My throat is sore, as if I passed out screaming.
I frown, trying to flex my memories, and then they all come tumbling back to me, making me go rigid.
He hesitates as the shadows and light continue to float.
“Dommik, what happened?”
“You got a nasty blow to the head,” he says, hand coming up to brush over the sore spot right at my left temple. “You were unconscious for hours.”
“Hours?” My mind whirls, dread pooling in my stomach like a puddle of tar. “Highbell?” I croak.
A pained expression crosses his face, but it’s the shake of his head that stabs my heart. “I’m sorry.”
“Let me see,” I tell him.
“They’re everywhere, Malina. I wasn’t even sure where to go. We’re on the roof of one of the houses on the outskirts, but they’ve already swept through.”
I push up off his lap and start to stand, but my head spins as soon as I do. Dommik keeps hold of me, gripping my arm, but he doesn’t pull the rest of his shadows away.
“Let me see, Dommik.”
“Maybe you’ve seen enough, you ever thought of that?” He lets out a breath of frustration, gripping both arms now as he stands in front of me. “Let me take you away. Wherever you want to go, I can get us there. I can hide us forever if I need to.”
The earnest look on his face breaks my heart, because I know he’s utterly sincere. He would whisk me away right now. Keep every terrible view out of sight and tuck us into a safe spot inside his bent shadows where no one could find us.
It’s a pretty, solitary dream, and a part of me wants to take his offer.
But I’m a Colier. I have always been and will always be a Colier. A captain goes down with his ship, and a queen goes down with her kingdom.
I lift my hand and press it against his warm cheek, and it melts the tiny fragments of ice scabbed to my palm. My nails are startlingly blue as I brush my fingers over his skin. “Thank you.”
He blinks in surprise. “For what?”
My throat feels tight, like my emotions have collared it. “For saving me.” I swallow hard. “For saving all of me.”
Not just my life. Not just physically. There are parts of me so ugly, so barren, that I never thought they’d ever be changed—that I’d ever even want to change them. There was so much entitlement and bitterness, disappointments and scars. I never thought I could be rid of them. That I could be…better than I was.
His hand comes up to rest over mine. “People don’t normally thank their assassins.”
A small smile cracks my cheeks. “I don’t think the two of us are very normal people.”
He nods in agreement before his head dips down to pin me with his stare. “Are you sure you want to see Highbell like this? Wouldn’t you rather remember it as it was?”
My father said that to me about my mother. That it was better to remember her in her life rather than in her death.
I shake my head. “How can we deserve to see the delights if we always close our eyes against the horrors?”
He moves his hand to tuck a strand of my white hair behind my ear. “Okay, Queenie.”
Breath fills my lungs as I try to prepare myself, and Dommik pulls his shadows away. For a moment, I think we’re still in them, but it’s only dust and smoke staining the air.
I blink through the murk, though my heart is polluted from the sight.
Devastation.
That’s the word that churns through my soul as I look around from this rooftop view at the very edge of the city. Devastation came to Highbell. It swooped in with ravaging thoroughness and brought death to every corner. All while I lay unconscious. I wasn’t even awake while my people were killed.
The city is bathed in red ruin. From up here, I can see the rows of roads and the buildings that hug them. They should be full of people going about their day. Instead, bodies lie where they were struck down, and blood stains the streets where they’ve been left.
In the distance, I can count at least six spots that are burning. Other buildings have been struck by lightning, their stones singed, their walls crumbled. The roads themselves are crooked, as if the ground magic cracked the city’s core and left the earth to slant.
