Chapter 47
Zadriel
Zadriel struggled to breathe, labored rasps rattling in his chest while warm liquid seeped through parched lips. Red pooling around him like a halo.
Blood. His blood.
Brennan’s curse tugged on his organs, snapping like a leash demanding Zadriel crawl back to the nearest Dother.
Contorting around his innards until it shred through flesh.
But he couldn’t crawl back to Darius. He could hardly move.
Pinpricks skittered up his legs like thousands of little teeth, sinking into aching muscles over and over again while the blood thrall waned—its hold was weak, but still there.
He groaned. Or, at least, tried to, the garbled sound forcing thick globs of lifeblood to flood his mouth and clog his nostrils until he choked.
An icy blue stare watched, Elodie content to sit upon her half-rotten tree trunk throne, Cillian’s crown in hand. She dragged her fingers over its sharp points, worrying her lip. “Why does this keep happening?”
Brittle bits of beachgrass crinkled as Silas approached, kindling tucked in the crook of his muscular arm. “Does the ring show you nothing, sweetling?”
“It shows me everything—it’s almost dizzying. I may remove it for the evening.” She sighed, lifting her hand and admiring the obsidian void, a sluggish stream of blood moving over it as it weaved around her fingers. “Seeing it all doesn’t mean I understand.”
A gentle smile tugged on his cheeks. “You knew how to save me.”
She pursed her lips, fingers grazing along the crown once more.
“As I’ve said, I could see it. The pulsing well of power in the Fae’s blood reaching for whatever powerful magic stained his cloak.
Like staring into creation. The essence of life itself.
The forest had everything else I needed, and you hung on long enough for me to bind them all together into a poultice. ”
“I was bleeding out in the snow, my lady.” Silas pushed a stray strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear and kissed her brow. “I don’t deserve any praise.”
A pained moan slipped free, Zadriel’s breathing growing sharp while agony splintered through his stomach.
It spread into his ribcage, worse than the grip of any blood thrall.
All the while, darkness beckoned. Though, it would only hold him for so long, his Fae nature too eager to heal.
His curse happy to rest before tearing him apart anew.
Silas chuckled as he made his way to the fire pit, dropping his bounty among last night’s char. “Watching him bleed now almost makes up for it. Do you think the queen did this to him?”
“No,” Elodie muttered, placing the crown atop her head.
It was too big, nearly slipping down her brow, but she caught it in time and held it in place.
“There’s an enchantment binding him to...
something... and it’s revolting as we speak.
Ravaging his body. I cannot make sense of it.
Cillian’s letters never explained anything this complex, and when he settled in Moldenna he was too busy ruling the kingdom to teach me.
” Her face fell. “He’d fulfilled his obligations; I doubt he had any desire to teach me more. I know he was never truly my friend.”
She huffed a tired breath, pulling the trinket from her head, and got up from the trunk. Marching toward their tent. The garish thing was practically a pavilion, its bright red fabric stinging Zadriel’s eyes.
Silas followed like a hopeless pup, forever at her heels. “He didn’t deserve your friendship, sweetling. Nor his crown. It looks better on your head.”
She tossed it aside, silver landing on a rumpled royal blue bag. “I hoped to find the queen’s crown. Do you think I can have one when this is all over? That I’ll finally be free to live as I wish?”
Thick arms wrapped around her center, Silas’s features softening as he rested his chin atop her head. “I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Oh, Silas,” she breathed, melting against his chest. “My father was a fool to hire such a handsome guard. I thank the Gods every day.”
The brute closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, hands slipping lower. “As do I.”
Half-frozen mud clung to Zadriel’s body, tendrils of cold soaking through his cloak and coating his skin.
As the sun dipped over the horizon, its frigid bite grew sharper.
Tremors coursing through him. He lay there, waiting for the pain to ebb.
Praying for the thrall to end. Listening to Elodie’s breathy moans and the distant crash of waves until darkness beckoned. And he was glad to answer.