Chapter 34 #2
I raised my hand again, aiming for his face. I was going to melt it off. I was going to erase his identity before I finally allowed him to die.
A low, urgent growl cut through the red haze.
I froze.
Rhana.
She was limping up the stairs, blood dripping from her flank, but her eyes were fixed on me. She groaned again, sharp and commanding. She nudged my leg with her snout, hard.
“Ophelia. We have to get her. He doesn’t deserve death.”
The name crashed into my mind.
If I killed him now, if I spent the next hour peeling him apart... Ophelia was still waiting. Every second I wasted on this filth was a second she was alone in the dark.
And if I killed him... the torture ended.
Rhana was right. He deserved worse than death. He deserved eternity.
I looked at Malathor, whimpering, broken, half-rotted in my grip.
"You're right," I said to Rhana, though my eyes never left his. "He is too easy to break."
I withdrew the Death Touch, leaving him gasping, shivering in agony on the floor, unable to move for a long time.
"You will wish I had killed you," I promised him.
I grabbed him by his lapels and threw him—hard—against the stone floor. I heard his hip shatter.
I looked down at him, a broken pile of velvet and rot.
"Do not move," I commanded, my voice vibrating with power. "If you crawl even an inch, I will know."
I turned away from him. I picked up the sword, wiping the dust from the blade.
I looked down the dark corridor where the rooms were located. I could feel it now. The faint, terrified pulse of her life force.
My anger evaporated, replaced by a cold, desperate need.
"Ophelia," I whispered.
I stepped over the wreckage of the door Malathor had tried to block and walked into the darkness to find my wife.
I didn't bother with the lock. I gripped the iron handle of the door and ripped it from the hinges, the metal screaming as I threw it aside.
The sound echoed like a clap of thunder, but what I saw inside silenced the roaring blood in my ears instantly.
Ophelia.
She was curled into a tight ball in the corner, pressing herself into the damp stone as if trying to merge with it. Her nightgown—the one I had bought for her, the one she looked like a queen in—was torn at the hem, her sleeves were ripped off, stained with grime and straw.
But it was her face that stopped my heart. A bruise, dark and ugly, bloomed across her cheekbone, violet spiderwebs spreading under her skin. Her lip was split. She was hurt all over her body.
"Ophelia," I breathed, the word shattering on the way out.
I took a step forward, my hand reaching for her.
"No!" She scrambled backward, her heels digging into the dirty floor, her hands flying up to cover her face. "No, please... I’ll be quiet. I promise I’ll be quiet."
The words were a physical blow. I froze, my hand hovering in mid-air. She didn't see me. She saw another monster coming to hurt her. The realisation that she was terrified of my touch—that she thought I was them—cracked something vital inside my chest.
"It’s me," I whispered, my voice trembling with a vulnerability I hadn't felt in centuries. "Little Aenite... it’s Cain, it’s your husband.”
She peeked through her fingers, her eyes glassy, dilated with panic. She didn't move. She was trembling so violently I could hear her teeth chattering.
Before I could bridge the distance, Rhana limped past me.
The shadow-stalker was dragging her back leg, the deep gash from the raven’s talons dripping fresh crimson onto the stone floor. She ignored me, moving straight to Ophelia.
"Rhana, wait—" I started, afraid the beast would frighten her further.
But Ophelia didn't flinch away from the monster.
Her eyes dropped to Rhana’s bleeding flank. A soft, broken sound escaped her throat. Instinctively, blindly, she reached out. Her hand, shaking and covered in dust, fell onto the thick fur of Rhana’s neck.
"You're hurt," Ophelia murmured, her voice barely audible.
And then, the room changed.
A pulse of light rippled out from her palm. It wasn't the white, clinical light of the Enlighters. It was green-gold. It was the colour of spring buds pushing through snow. It was the colour of life.
I watched, paralysed, as that fragile light flowed from her broken body and seeped into my familiar.
Rhana let out a low sigh, leaning into the touch. Before my eyes, the jagged tear in her flank began to slowly knit together. The skin smoothed over, the fur regrowing in seconds, leaving not even a scar.
Ophelia’s eyes rolled back, her head lolling against the wall, her energy spent on a creature of shadow when she barely had enough life to keep herself warm.
I felt a squeeze in my chest—a sharp, constricting ache that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the female slumping into the straw. She was beaten, terrified, and starving... and her first instinct was to heal others.
"You impossible creature," I choked out.
The Life Heir.
I crossed the room in a blur, falling to my knees in the filth beside her. This time, when I gathered her into my arms, she didn't fight. She was too weak. She just fell against my chest, limp and small, smelling of fear and that faint, stubborn scent of her.
I buried my face in her hair, closing my eyes against the sting of tears I refused to shed, holding the only thing in the world that mattered right now.
“Cain...” Rhana’s voice drifted into my mind, no longer sharp with disdain but heavy with a profound, shaken reverence.
“I misjudged the strength of her heart. She saved me. After the coldness I showed her... she poured what was left of her life into mine without hesitation. I am in her debt, Cain. I think we both are.”
I knew exactly how she felt. The guilt was a heavy stone we would both carry.
"I have you," I whispered into Ophelia’s ear, tightening my hold as Rhana curled protectively around us, her purr a low rumble against my side. "I have you, and I am never letting you go, little Aenite.”