Chapter 25 #2
I stepped carefully over the dead, my boots slipping on stone slick with red. Every chamber stood open. Every threshold marked with violence. Elion’s door was no different. It hung open. Blood splattered across the wood.
No.
My pulse lurched painfully. No, no, no—please, Lunara, no.
The corridor seemed to narrow around me as I staggered forward, unable to breathe past the crushing pressure in my chest.
My feet carried me across the threshold before thought could catch up.
The sight stole the air from my lungs.
Elion lay on the floor, one hand pressed weakly against his stomach, blood pouring from a wound far too large to survive.
“No—Elion!” I dropped to my knees beside him. “No, please… don’t die. Don’t do this.”
My hands shook as I tore the furs from my satchel and pulled his hand away. Blood spilled freely from the gash, hot and relentless. Too deep. Too wide. I pressed the fur against it anyway. It soaked through instantly. Useless.
My vision blurred. My hands itched like never before as I fought to hold the pressure. His hand lifted weakly. His lips were pale, his breath shallow.
“Tina,” he rasped.
“I’m here,” I whispered, bending over him. “Don’t speak. Save your strength. Everything will be alright.”
“Marcus…” His breath caught. “Run…”
I leaned closer, straining to hear him. “I’m here,” I repeated softly, pressing a kiss to his brow. “Don’t exert yourself.”
“Tina… listen…”
I swallowed my sob and nodded.
“My… satchel… the insignia… take them…” With what little strength remained, he gestured toward the far side of the room. “Under… pillow…”
“I will.”
My hands refused to leave him. His eyes found mine again, already dimming. “Run… be safe… love…”
The words barely formed. Then his breath stilled.
“No.” My voice broke apart around the word.
For a moment, I simply stared at him, unable to understand what I was seeing. He had always been there. In every memory. Every grief. Every impossible moment I had survived.
His laughter echoing softly through the training grounds late at night when I recoiled from the dripping meat he’d pressed into my hands, refusing to feed the cubs myself.
The patient way he guided my grip around the grooming brush afterward, showing me how to smooth their fur until it gleamed beneath the moonlight.
The steady weight of his hand on my shoulder after my parents died, his voice telling me I was stronger than the fate forced upon me the night I was pierced.
Every time I had broken, he had been the one to pull me back together. He had been my constant. My refuge. The one certainty in a life that had taken everything else. And now—
I screamed, pulling his head against my chest, my tears soaking into his hair, streaking down to mingle with the blood on my hands.
Pain tore through me. Raw and merciless, leaving nothing untouched. He had been the one person who had known me fully, and loved me still. And now he was gone…
Time lost meaning after that. I held him against me as the room blurred in and out of focus, my cheek pressed to his hair, my body rocking faintly with the force of my sobs.
At some point the shouting below faded. The villa quieted. But I remained there. His blood cooled against my skin. I had always believed he would survive somehow. Elion endured. Elion protected. Elion came back. Until now.
I forced myself to breathe and gently lowered his head back against the wall. With trembling fingers, I closed his eyes, smoothing the strain from his features until he looked almost peaceful. I kissed his brow one last time before folding his hands together as though he were merely sleeping.
My body moved without me after that. I rose unsteadily and reached for his satchel and insignia, just as he’d told me.
I clutched them numbly against my chest before crossing to the bed.
I crouched and searched beneath the cot—nothing.
I tore aside the blanket—still nothing. My hands trembled as I reached beneath the pillow.
There. His leather-bound journal, worn and locked.
The clasp bore the exact shape of his insignia.
I stared at it for a moment too long. This was what he had wanted me to have. His final act.
Footsteps thundered suddenly through the corridor. I turned too slowly.
“What are you doing here?”
A servant stood frozen in the doorway, horror evident in her eyes as guards crowded in behind her, sealing the doorway.
For a heartbeat, none of us moved. Blood coated my hands. Elion’s blood. I couldn’t answer. The fight had gone out of me somewhere beside Elion’s body.
I turned for the window.
“Stop there! Who are you?” One of the guards shouted.
I stumbled into motion. Some desperate instinct finally kicked back to life. Better injured than captured. I lurched toward the window and hauled myself onto the ledge—
A hand seized me.
“No—let go!” I sobbed as I kicked and twisted. But another grip caught me, dragging me back. They forced me onto the bed, face pressed into the sheets, my arms wrenched behind me. I could barely feel it. My gaze locked onto Elion beside me.
“Go. Send for Marcus. We’ve got her.”
The servant fled, her footsteps echoing down the corridor as the truth sank in. I was caught. My escape… nothing but a moment. Gone.
I closed my eyes against the pain, against the cruelty of it all, and let my tears fall into the bedding as the guards kept me pinned in place. Freedom had lasted less than a night.
The last piece of me lay broken against the wall beside Elion.