Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I spill the contents onto the floor.
Powders, loose herbs—useless things. The small, bright vial Megaera gave me glints among them.
“Nothing can bring back the dead,” the regent murmurs. Not mocking now. Thick with something else.
Understanding.
“Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Liandros.
He held his dying body once too.
I cradle Quin’s head in my lap, my breath coming in jagged, broken gasps.
My lovelight pulses.
Bright. Unfurling.
My fingers tremble as I press my lips to his temple, near his ear.
My light blooms.
The last, fragile thread lets go.
It unspools from my chest, unravels, and flows into him.
The regent clicks his tongue. Displeased.
“What’s the use of giving it to the dead?”
“Let him take it into his next life.” My voice wobbles, raw. More softly now, against his skin, “It belongs—it has always belonged—to him.”
The slightest twitch. His finger against my thigh.
He’s stirring.
I tighten my grip around him. I sob, clutch his body, bury my face in his hair.
And then—
I press my lips to his temple one more time.
A single word. A word that has saved us before.
“Act.”
It sinks into his skin, a command only he can hear.
And then, on a shuddering plea— “Please. You can’t be dead. You can’t. I haven’t said the words. I’ve been waiting for the right timing.”
Quin’s limbs remain slack in mine.
But I feel it.
A faint warmth unfurls in my chest. A pull—not strong, but there. Our lovelights are connected. He understands.
He hears me.
But he doesn’t move.
He won’t. Not yet.
The regent coughs, hard. The sound cracks, turns violent. His fingers scratch, claw at the scales spreading up his throat.
His time is running out.
“Chiron!” he snarls.
Silence.
No response.
He turns and finally notices.
Chiron is gone.
Chiron has taken Akilah and fled.
There is no vitalian left to help him.
Hoarse, violent coughs wring the regent’s frame.
He staggers, his knees nearly buckling. But he forces himself upright and swings the violet oak sword.
Magic ripples from it, sweeping up the scattered contents of my healing bag.
Bottles clink, powders whirl, herbs scatter through the air like falling leaves. His eyes dart wildly between them, frenzied. Desperate.
“Which one is it?”
His fingers scramble, grabbing at the vials. Tossing them aside.
His hands snatch Megaera’s poison.
He grips it tight.
His breathing is ragged. His fingers shake.
“That’s not it,” I say, voice steady.
His gaze snaps to mine.
Suspicious. Untrusting.
His grip tightens. Crack. A vein bulges in his forehead.
“You’d say that,” he rasps. “You want revenge.”
I don’t look away.
“That won’t help you.”
His eyes flicker. Just a moment—hesitation.
But it’s enough.
He shifts his sword. I see it. The flicker of magic. The pulse.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t realise that every time he draws from the sword, it’s preserving him.
He’s funnelling power from it, keeping himself alive without knowing it.
Only a healer’s eyes can see it.
Slowly, deliberately, I lower myself onto my knees. Before the regent. I bow my head.
Surrendering.
I feel Quin’s warmth still tethered to me, waiting. But I do not let my body betray it.
The regent watches. Wary. Weak. But still dangerous.
He must believe this.
He must let go of the sword.
“It’s not that vial,” I say.
I pick up two others, hands steady, and begin combining them. Carefully. Calculated.
“I need alcohol as the activator.”
The regent’s eyes narrow. He barks an order, and a redcloak hurls a flask across the room.
I catch it. Uncork it. Slowly tip the bottle.
The regent watches eagerly.
The sword rests on the ground, its hilt under his fingers.
If this goes wrong—
Keep breathing. Keep it steady.
I tip the flask a little further.
I lift the other vial toward it.
A heartbeat.
A second.
Then—I thrust the contents over the length of his blade.
The liquid hisses, seeping into the wood.
Silence.
The regent jerks back, confused—
And then—
A sudden burst of green-blue flame crawls up the hilt, racing toward his fingers.
The regent screams.
The sound isn’t rage. Not at first.
It’s disbelief.
He snatches at the blade, but it’s already disintegrating in his hands. Power too can be ripped away.
Quin’s words. A foreshadowing. The regent stares at dust. Power, gone. Burned to nothing.
His bloodshot roar rips through the chamber. He clutches his burned knuckles, shaking. His breath rasps. Another cough wracks his body.
He staggers back.
In his desperation, his eyes dart. He snatches Megaera’s vial. “It is this one!” he snarls, voice fraying at the edges.
I shake my head.
He doesn’t listen. He rips the cork free—tilts it back—and swallows.
A beat of silence.
Then—
A violent spell surges into his palm.
His eyes flash.
He’s going to punish me for the sword.
For everything.
He lifts his hand—his magic spirals—
Then he convulses.
His fingers spasm, clenching air. His breath hitches, throat locks. A long gasp expels into the air. His chest heaves. Then—bile. Blood. A sickening splatter over his lips.
He stares at me.
His eyes widen—
He sees now. Understands.
“You did this to yourself,” I whisper.
He wasn’t cursed. He wasn’t betrayed. His own choices led him here.
He is the one who mutated the wyverns.
He is the one responsible for this plague.
He is the one who made himself sick.
And now—
He was the one who sealed his fate.