Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
The darkness doesn’t come all at once.
It creeps in slowly, pulling me down into depths like the ocean. My body feels heavy. I try to lift my hand and nothing happens. It’s difficult to open my eyes and I only manage the barest flutter of lashes. The room swims in and out of focus.
Poison.
The thought cuts through the confusion with horrible clarity. Garrett poisoned me.
He shifts beside me and I feel rather than see him pull the blanket higher over my shoulders. His hand lingers for a moment, fingers brushing the nape of my neck gently. Then he settles back down, his breathing evening out again into the rhythm of sleep.
But he’s not sleeping. I can feel the tension in his body despite the drug haze. He’s waiting for something.
Time moves strangely as it passes. When I surface there’s a sound that doesn’t belong.
Heavens above… someone is here.
There is an intruder in Garrett’s chambers. A shape moves near the window. Terror floods my system as the assassin paces through the darkness while we lie helpless in bed.
I manage to crack my eyes open wider. The assassin pauses by Garrett’s desk, examining something I can’t see. Then he moves again, pacing the room with nervous energy.
The assassin is hesitating and struggling with something. He stops near the glass cabinet where Garrett keeps his collection of carved animals. The bed shifts and my heart lurches.
Garrett is moving, sitting up slowly. He’s not afraid and doesn’t bother reaching for a weapon or crying out for guards. “I knew you’d come for me tonight.”
The intruder freezes.
Garrett holds a finger to his lips, a request for silence. He glances down at my supposedly sleeping form, and something warm crosses his face. Regret and apology mixed together.
Then he’s looking back at the assassin and his expression smooths into careful neutrality.
“My father struck a deal with the Guild of Assassins in Tiamat for his service.” He gestures at me, at my scarred back exposed by the fallen blanket. “This guy is my personal guard until the Archon is complete.”
“Not much of a guard if he’s out cold.” The assassin’s voice is young and familiar. “The Aeonians said the Grimsbane are cursed with a face so hideous that people die from a single glimpse.”
Garrett’s expression softens as he looks at me again. “Those old farts are filthy, fucking liars. He is beautiful.”
He reaches down and pulls the blanket back over me.
“I’m guessing you evaded the other one?” Garrett asks softly. “It took almost all the coins in my father’s coffers to bring the two of them. A century’s worth of harvest.”
“Rainer hired twenty-seven of them,” the assassin tells him.
Shade has told me this.
“Pick up your sword,” the assassin says. “I’ll honor you with the duel you want.”
I try to focus and to make sense of the conversation. But my mind keeps slipping.
All I know is Garrett leaves the safety of his room for the exposed balcony where anything could happen. They’re talking again and I catch fragments.
He’s going outside.
More conversation ensues. I can’t hear the words but the realization settles over me. This is why he said goodbye and held me like he’d never let go.
Garrett knew. He’s always known how this would end.
The assassin is small and delicate. Garrett picks up his sword and offers it hilt-first. His hands guide the blade, positioning it against his own throat.
No.
The scream builds in my chest but my throat is locked tight. Nothing comes out but the barest whisper lost in the night wind. I pour everything into moving. Every scrap of will.
Move. Get up. Stop this. Save him.
My hand lifts from the bed by half an inch before falling back, strength spent. Not enough. I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough.
Dark rivulets run down Garrett’s throat. I’m screaming inside. Tearing myself apart with the effort of trying to move. But my body won’t listen and do the one thing I need it to do.
The back and forth of negotiation between him and the young assassin continues while his blood drips onto the marble tiles.
Garrett drops to his knees, surrendering.
I watch through the crushing helplessness as he bows his head, offering his life to save his family.
This is who Garrett has always been underneath the charm and the smiles. Someone who would sacrifice himself without hesitation if it meant saving others.
The assassin raises the sword, ready to strike. “Are you truly prepared to give me your life, Garrett son of Clayborne?”
I can see her clearly now in the moonlight as the hood falls back, the silver hair and her face twisted with grief.
Rhianelle Wiolant.
She came for him tonight, a scared young queen trying to stop a war. Garrett is giving her the only solution he could find.
Himself.
“Always, my queen.”
Garrett is calm as he utters his last words. Queen Rhianelle is shaking so hard that the sword trembles in her grip.
He says something I can’t hear.
This is it. The moment. The end.
I put my entire soul into one desperate scream.
Wait, please. I have so many things to say to him. Take me instead. Please don’t take him. Kill me. Hurt me. Anything but this.
The blade comes down and silence follows. My vision blurs completely at the critical moment. I’m alone with the darkness and the knowledge of what just happened.
Garrett is dead. I failed him.
The words repeat in my mind like a death knell. It’s my fault. All of it. If I’d seen through his plan. If I’d refused the wine or fought the drug or broken through the paralysis. If I’d been anything other than what I am.
My tears won’t stop. They run down my face and soak into his pillow until I’m drowning in the memory of him. The shadows in my vision keep spreading. I welcome them. If he’s gone there’s nothing left worth staying in this world for.
The last thing I think is his name.
Garrett.
The darkness takes me and I fall into nothing.