Chapter 70
Brynelle didn’t scream. No. The sound she made was worse. A wet, choked gasp, so small, so fragile, the sound a body makes when it’s trying to understand the impossible.
When it knows it has only seconds left.
Her body jerked, her hands flying to her throat, pressing, clawing at the wound, trying to hold in the blood that was already pouring down her chest. Dark and endless.
Unstoppable.
The moment stretched, agonisingly slow. A heartbeat suspended in time.
Her eyes—gods, her eyes—were wide with shock.
Everything inside me shattered.
A scream tore through the air.
Raw. Animal.
Shaelith.
I had never heard anything like it. Not in battle. Not in torture. Not even in my own nightmares.
It ripped through the space, through bone, through the fabric of the world.
It wasn’t even a voice anymore. Just anguish made real, a thing with jagged teeth and bleeding edges, clawing through the air as if sound alone could stop what had already happened.
Brynelle crumpled.
Shaelith threw herself forward, lunging across the blood-slick stone.
She caught Brynelle before she hit the ground.
Barely.
Her arms wrapped around her, and she sank to her knees, dragging Brynelle down with her, cradling her like she could undo it, like she could press her back together with sheer fucking will.
“No—no, no, no, no—”
The word spilled out of her in a loop, a denial, a plea to gods that had never once listened. Her hands pressed against the wound, trying to stem the flood, but the blood kept coming, hot and dark, painting her fingers, her wrists, soaking into the fabric of her sleeves.
“Stay with me,” Shaelith sobbed, her voice cracking, splintering into something unrecognizable. “Stay with me, please—”
Brynelle’s lips parted.
A thin, wet sound escaped her throat, the ghost of breath struggling to shape itself into meaning.
Her hand lifted.
Shaelith grabbed it instantly, pressing it to her chest, her cheek, her lips, like she could anchor Brynelle to this world through touch alone.
“I’m here,” she choked out, tears streaming down her face, her whole body wracked with sobs. “I’m right here, love, I’m right here—”
Brynelle’s fingers twitched against Shaelith’s jaw.
So gentle.
So impossibly gentle.
Shaelith bent low, pressing her forehead to Brynelle’s, her tears falling fast onto bloodless skin.
“Don’t,” she whispered, stripped down to nothing but raw need. “Don’t you dare.”
And then she kissed her.
Like she could breathe life back into her. Like love alone could be enough to drag someone back from the edge of the abyss.
Her lips moved against Brynelle’s and when she pulled back just enough to speak, the words came out broken.
“Stay,” Shaelith begged. “Please, gods, please—I can’t—I can’t do this without you, I can’t—”
Brynelle’s hand went slack against her cheek.
The smallest shift.
Shaelith felt it.
“No—no—” She kissed Brynelle again, harder this time, as if she could pour her own heartbeat into Brynelle’s chest, as if sheer desperation could rewrite the laws of mortality. “Come back, come back, come back—”
But Brynelle’s beautiful, whiskey-soft eyes, were fluttering.
Her chest rose once more. A shallow, rattling breath.
Then stillness.
Complete.
Absolute.
The air went dead.
Shaelith froze, her lips pressed to Brynelle’s, her whole body suspended in the moment before understanding crashed down.
And then—
She screamed.
Not like before.
This was worse.
This was the sound of a soul being ripped in half.
The world blurred—
No.
The world snapped. Narrowed to a pinpoint of red and rage and anguish. My own voice might have broken free. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
Because I was moving. There was no thought. No reason. No survival. There was only Xyliria. Only the need to end her.
I lunged.
I didn’t care about the guards. Didn’t care about the pain, the chains, the inevitable consequences. Didn’t care about anything except sinking my fingers into her throat and tearing it out.
But I never made it.
Strong arms caught me. Held me back.
I fought. Snarled. Thrashed like a wild thing, but the grip was ironclad. A murmur in my ear, but I didn’t care.
Because Brynelle was dead.
And Xyliria was still breathing.
Something tore in my chest. A sound. A rib. I couldn’t tell.
A male’s voice was in my ear, low and urgent. “Don’t. She’ll kill you all.”
Shaelith was already gone. She broke free, her chains nothing but forgotten weight, her entire body a single, unyielding force of vengeance. A feral snarl tore from her throat as she lunged, nothing left in her but rage and grief, her wild charge fuelled by agony too great to contain.
For a moment, it seemed she might reach her target—
Xyliria barely blinked.
Her magic lashed out, crimson clouds whipping through the air, slamming into Shaelith’s body with brutal, sickening force.
The sound of impact was a dull, horrible crack.
Shaelith hit the ground, her body crumpling.
“How disappointing.” Xyliria sighed, as if this had all been some tedious game, as if Brynelle’s lifeblood wasn’t slick on her hands. She wiped her blade against her gown.
“Now,” she said, almost lazy. “Shall we try this again?”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Brynelle’s body, from the pool of blood spreading beneath her, dark and glistening, staining the once-pristine marble floor.
The scent of copper filled my lungs, thick and metallic, wrong. It mixed with the acrid, suffocating stench of fear, of sweat, of despair.
The room was so vast, so cavernous, but it was too small. The walls caved in, suffocating, the high ceilings trapping the sound, forcing us to hear everything.
Shaelith’s broken sobs echoed off the cold stone, not a sound but a wound, alive in the air, seeping into the floors, the walls—into us.
“Choose,” Xyliria commanded. “Or I’ll choose for you.”
A shuddering breath left me.
Varyth’s entire being burned with rage, with hatred, with promised vengeance.
He knelt, bound hands curled into fists, his chest rising and falling in harsh, furious breaths.
Every part of him radiated violence, a quiet, simmering promise that if he made it out of this alive, he would rip Xyliria apart with his bare hands.
And then—
Linc.
Linc, who wasn’t trembling. Who wasn’t raging.
Blood trickled from his mouth and nose, but his eyes met mine. Resigned. Accepting.
A breath shuddered from my lips as I understood.
He knew. He knew I wouldn’t choose Varyth. That I couldn’t. Not when Xyliria wanted nothing more than to see me shatter, to watch me carve my own soul into pieces.
Linc was telling me it was okay. That he understood. That I had to do what needed to be done.
I took a step toward him.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Varyth’s snarl was guttural, warning.
The weight of the dagger in my hand was unbearable.
I trembled.
I couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
Xyliria was drinking in every second of my agony.
“You’re dragging this out longer than necessary, darling,” she sighed, long-suffering, shaking her head with mock disappointment. “Do you need some encouragement?”
I had a second to process before she lifted her hand.
Magic coiled through the air, and then it struck.
Fenric screamed. He jerked violently, his back arching, his breath strangled as invisible forces tightened around him.
No.
The word tore from my chest like a blade ripping upward, slicing through my ribs, shredding everything in its path.
The magic wrapped around Fenric like living chains, crimson threads of agony that ate through flesh and bone. His back arched, spine bowing until I thought it might snap, his bound hands clawing at nothing, at air, at the impossible weight of pain that was devouring him alive.
But it was Linc who destroyed me.
Linc, who had been so still, so resigned, so fucking noble about dying—Linc exploded.
The chains around his wrists snapped like brittle twigs as he lunged forward, nothing left of him but pure, feral rage. He hit the stone hard, scrambling, crawling, as he dragged himself toward Fenric with the desperate violence of someone watching their soul being torn apart.
“Stop!” Linc roared. “Stop, you fucking bitch, take me instead!”
But the guards were already there, slamming him back, pinning him down as he thrashed like a wild thing. And still Fenric screamed, that horrible, wet sound that meant the magic was finding soft places to burrow.
Fenric collapsed, gasping, blood trickling from his nose, his mouth, his eyes. But he was breathing. Still breathing.
Beside me, the others screamed.
Darian was frantic, shouting words I didn’t hear—my name, maybe, or Linc’s—but the words blurred together, lost in the chaos. Fenric fought his bindings, his movements wild. Cindrissian cursed under his breath, usual calm shattered, fury pouring from every inch of him.
But I didn’t hear them.
Not really.
Because the only thing I could hear—
Was Linc.
His was steady, despite the agony rippling through his battered body. Despite the fact that he was the one suffering.
He knelt before me, bloodied, exhausted, gasping for breath, but somehow his eyes were steady as they held mine.
“Hey,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it over the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see the understanding in his features, the acceptance of what I was about to do. The way he was trying to make this easier for me when I was the one holding the knife.
“Isara.” His voice was stronger now, more certain. Not a command, but a request. “Please.”
I lifted my head, met his gaze, and nearly broke apart completely.
Because there was no fear there. No panic. No desperate pleading for his life.
There was only love. Pure, overwhelming, devastating love—not for me, but for them. For Fenric, whose tortured screams were echoing off the walls. For all of us, really, but mostly for the man whose agony was tearing him apart from the inside.