Chapter 29 #2
“You should’ve told me you didn’t kill the Elf,” Damion snarled down at Magda, who was too busy prodding at her chest to check for a wound to respond.
Other than sweat and dirt and tacky old blood from the battle, and the edge of the Enneahedron still between her breasts, there was nothing, no wound. But that’s not how it felt.
Ilene crouched on the other side of Kaelan’s body, her green eyes flashing, giving Magda a vicious smile.
“He gave you a piece of his heart before he died,” the Elf said. “Now you will always feel it, missing. Everyone knows you don’t make a living being your heart-place. I wonder what Endreas will think of that.”
Gur growled.
Damion stepped into view. Swords drawn.
Magda gazed at Ilene blankly. “You have the same color eyes as him . . . Kaelan.”
Ilene’s smile faltered.
Magda laid Kaelan’s lifeless hand down on his chest and rose to her feet, unleashing her knives with a cold click and whish.
“Go tell your father,” she said, “that I will be coming for him. And you can tell Endreas, there will be no peace.”
Ilene sneered, her hands twitching as if she was thinking about drawing a weapon.
Gur roared and the Elf flinched. And then she turned and ran, disappearing into the trees.
“You shouldn’t have let her go,” Damion said.
Magda drew back her daggers, touching her chest where the hollow ache continued to spread. What was this? She’d never felt anything like it, as though she was being consumed from the inside out. What had Kaelan done to her?
Honey bounded back up the slope. “Oh no,” she said, hurrying to Kaelan’s side. “He’s not dead, is he?”
Magda turned her back, choking as the empty ache reached her throat, closing around it like dead frozen fingers.
“Yes, he is,” Damion stated. “Too bad you were off picking flowers or you might’ve been here . . . What are you doing?”
Magda glanced over her shoulder. Honey’s mouth covered Kaelan’s.
Magda spun on her heel and hurried away.
“Mistress!” Damion called after her. “Where are you going?”
Stumbling down the slope, she slammed to her knees by the stream's edge and plunged her face under the cool water, holding her head there until her lungs burned for air. When she came up, she was gasping, but at least she was breathing.
“Still alive,” she told herself, as the air seared into her, “still alive.”
She didn’t feel it though. Something was wrong. This wasn’t grief. This was something else—a parasite eating away at her, leaving nothing but a brittle shell. Everything else fell away, like he had.
Clarity of purpose etched into the hard walls of her new hollow self. A man who would kill his own son out of fear of some prophecy was not fit to rule, was not fit to live.
She would find the King. And she would kill him.
Two bloody swords plunked to the soft soil beside her. Damion dropped to his knees, dunking his hands into the stream. Blood washed from his skin, swirling away in pink ribbons.
“What is a heart-place?” he asked her.
“I’m going to take the Crown,” she said to him in a flat voice.
“And then?”
“And then I’m going to kill the King.”
“Glad you’re finally coming around,” he said.
She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Defeating Lavana now will be more difficult,” she said.
“We don’t need to talk about this right now, coz,” he said, rinsing his face.
“It makes no difference, Damion,” she said. “Now, tomorrow, a year from now. No difference.”
“Well then,” he said. “Manticore venom is very rare. If we can extract it, we can sell it.”
“And buy support at court.”
“Now you’re thinking like a Rae.”
“I’m out-of-shape. Fighting Lavana . . .” She shook her head.
“There are other ways to get rid of a Rae,” Damion said, “if you have the means.”
“Like what? Hiring an assassin? Manticore venom may be valuable, but—”
“What about Endreas?”
She tensed, straining, feeling like a rope frayed in the middle, about to be torn in two.
“What about him?” she asked.
“He saved you, Magda, didn’t he? And I heard him, he prefers you over Lavana. So maybe you can convince him to prove it.”
The rope twisted. She clenched her hands to stop them from trembling.
Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted to see Endreas—to kiss him and touch him and drown in his scent.
The thought alone stalled the glacial creep scouring her—this inexplicable all-consuming grief-madness that was eating away at her.
She couldn’t think about Endreas like that, not when Kaelan was . . .
The storm-pain resurged, wiping out the cold and Endreas and everything.
She slammed her eyes shut against the onslaught of tears, the clash and roar of emotion tore back into her.
Being numb and cold and empty had been so much better.
She struggled to breathe, clutching at her chest, sure there must be blood pouring forth, great gushing torrents of it. But there wasn’t.
“Magda?” Damion’s voice sounded far away through the melee.
For the briefest of moments, she was back in the air, Kaelan anchoring her as they broke the clouds.
But she ripped away from the memory, coming back to herself, trembling uncontrollably and sobbing.
And then a soft humming came to her.
“Oh, shit,” Damion muttered.
Honey crouched by the stream on Magda’s other side, filling a gourd with water, golden hair trailing down to the ground, smiling.
Lunging, she seized Honey’s arms and shook her. “Stop.”
Honey stared up at her with big, innocent puppy eyes.
“Magda . . .” Damion said from behind her.
She released the nymph. “Just stop.”
Honey tilted her head. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Magda almost laughed. Every part of her hurt, all the way down to the marrow. Honey was supposed to be the one feeling like this—grieving—so why was it Magda?
“No,” Magda said, her tongue salted by the tears flowing over her lips. “Everything’s fine. You’re perfectly fine.”
Honey smiled widely and it was like a ghast blade straight into Magda’s soul. Another person she had failed to protect.
She pushed up to her feet, wiping her face with her sleeve, though the tears continued to pour. “We have to leave as soon as we can.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the venom,” Damion said, taking up his swords and rising. “And . . . the body?”
“What body?” Honey asked.
Magda swiped more tears from her cheeks with her fingers, ignoring Honey’s question. Ouda had obviously damaged Honey much more deeply than Magda had realized to make her so oblivious.
“I don’t know.” She turned to Honey. “What do imps do with their dead?”
Honey twirled her hair around her finger. “You know, I never asked.”
“We’ll bury him,” Damion said softly, “as is our way. He was one of us.”
“We have no way to dig,” she said.
“What about the semargl?” Damion asked. “Think he could manage it?”
“I’ll ask him,” she said.
Damion placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not just because he was a Prince,” she said, voice snagging in her throat, vision blurred, heart aching.