Chapter 60
Sixty
- MARCELLA -
Cyrus scoops me up into his arms after he’s regained enough strength.
The wounds on his body have closed and begun to scar over.
Meanwhile, the adrenaline in my blood is flooded with relief.
Washing in the depth of pain from the extent of my injuries.
Cyrus rushes me to his bedroom, promising me pain relief through extra dragonblood he has hidden in his bedroom.
When he bursts into his room, several bodies are slumped around the room with the stench of blood wafting over us. He lays me on his bed and rushes over to a painting on the wall. He twists it up counterclockwise, and the wall clicks and shifts back to reveal a pocket of space.
“What?” he growls, then snaps forward, frantically patting down the area.
“What? What is it?” I lift my head to try and peer over him to see what he’s fussing about.
Shaking his head, he plucks up something and runs over to me. After I drink the vial he offers, I sink back into the pillows. “For a moment I thought maybe it wasn’t there since you seemed so flustered.”
He runs a hand over my head. Sighing, his gaze drops.
“No, the Blood Ring…it’s…it’s gone. The painting’s frame was dragonfused.
The only one who would have had access to it aside from me in my human form…
” He slowly slides his gaze over his shoulder, across the room, and stops at the dead soldier on the ground. “Is Devin.”
“Are you sure it was Devin? He came to save Lyra and me earlier.”
“The only other person that knew of the Blood Ring in my room was Lady Bethany. And I killed her,” he admits quietly.
“You…killed her?” I repeat in disbelief, leaning up off my back as strength slowly seeps into my veins. The wounds on my body begin to seal shut.
He sucks in a long, hissing breath and straightens. “Well, the beast did. It was one of the last things I saw before he shut me out completely.”
I grab his hand, squeezing. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
Slowly, he turns his soft white eyes to me.
I whisper, “You are not the beast. And it’s gone now. You won’t ever have to worry about it again.”
His eyes slide away from me to the windows.
Hopeless.
Lost.
Sunken with defeat.
He slips his hand out of mine to grab a pair of loose pants on his loveseat, then tugs them on. “We don’t know that for certain.”
“Do you still sense him?” I ask, swinging my legs off the bed.
He returns and offers me his hands to stand. Eyes immediately hooked on my arm, which had been bloodied, punctured, and battered just moments ago. “No. It’s quiet where he once was. But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
I place my hands in his and stand. His fingers thread through mine as he guides me to the glass doors leading out onto the balcony.
We step out onto it. A breeze picks up our hair and ruffles our clothes.
Squinting while I hold back my hair with one hand, I scan the castle grounds below. Wishing to see the women escaping.
I can only imagine how breathtaking it used to be from this angle. Because now, it’s barely functioning ruins. Crumbling and tarnished. Overgrown with ivy and moss. Yet, parts of it are still beautiful even in its rundown state.
The breeze dies, and nothing moves.
Not a leaf on a tree, nor a cloud in the sky. Not a group of women slipping through the shadows for their safety. Nor Devin and Lyra.
Not seeing them, not witnessing if any of them made it out alive, drops my shoulders.
“What happened? How is it…” I shake my head, then draw my attention to Cyrus. “It was all an illusion?”
He nods, eyes scanning the horizon. “I suppose the beast really is gone, if the magic is, too.” His hand slips from mine. He walks to the railing, bracing against it. “Devin!” he roars, voice echoing out beyond the castle into the hills. Then his head hangs low. Everything around us falls silent.
Taking a few slow steps toward him, I rest a hand on his bare back. “What does it mean if he took the Blood Ring? If you don’t get it back?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.” He lifts his head, sucking in a breath through his teeth as he straightens and stares out across the endless expanse of castle and mountains around us. “How am I supposed to explain any of this to the council? To the Close Circle?”
“You explain it just as it happened. They can hunt him down, can they not?”
He pushes off the railing with a sigh and paces down the balcony. “Not if he crosses the Arterian border. He’s a smart man. If he truly means to keep the ring for himself, he’d cross it and know that I can’t follow.”
I lean back onto the railing as I watch him pace, crossing my arms over my chest. “Yes, but that would put him in Aaric’s territory.”
“Better to be in Aaric’s territory unbeknownst to him and his subjects that he has the Blood Ring, then in mine where I know he has it and am hunting him for it.”
I nod and look over my shoulder as the wind blows my hair back from my face. “I told you I never liked him.”
He sinks his face into a hand, rubbing his eyelids. “I should have listened to you.”
“Okay then listen now…” I push off the railing and go to him. As I rub a hand up and down his bare bicep, he drops his hand from his face. “I have to report back to the Arterian border. I can hunt him down in Arterias, find him, and—”
“What?” he sighs, eyes searching mine. His eyebrows pinch tighter. “No, no I can’t lose you again.”
My face falls into a frown as I look away from his eyes. “Cyrus, the reason the beast is gone, is because I…” I blow out a breath. “My brother is in custody in Arterias. I made a blood pact to free him if I killed you.”
“That’s impossible, he’s in Millton—”
“He’s not.” I finally look up at him. “I don’t know how, but they took him.
I knew even if I completed your mission in finding an assassin there’d be no way for you to free him if he was in Arterias.
Maybe you created the job as a ruse to get me back here—but all along it was me. I-I had no choice...”
“Shhh, it’s alright, love,” he whispers, pulling me into his bare chest. The beat of his heart comforting beneath my ear as he wraps his arms around me. “It’s alright.”
We stand there quiet for a moment, the both of us looking out at the darkened horizon.
“Do you have to go back to Arterias tonight?” he whispers above my head.
I shake my head into his chest, not wanting to leave the warmth of his skin. His arms unwind around me, slowly, and he drops down onto a knee before me. Large hands wrapped around mine. “Marcella, look at me.”
Sucking in a breath, I look up from our clasped hands.
“When do you have to report back?” he asks.
“The first day of winter. They won’t hurt Connor until a day after.”
A small smile lifts his lips, eyes tender.
“Maybe it’s selfish of me to ask you to stay.
I mean…” He chuckles, though it’s more pained than humorous.
He motions with his chin to the castle grounds.
“All things considered, I wouldn’t blame you for being appalled at the state of things.
If none of my guards are left, I’ll be spending a week clearing the castle of bodies before they rot.
There’s no reason for you to stay here.. .”
He shakes his head gently as he gazes up at me. “But, I can’t help myself. Stay with me. Stay with me until it’s time to go, until the last day of fall.”
Sliding both of my hands out of his to cradle his jaw, I fold to my knees so I can look him in the eyes and speak from my heart, “You’re more than enough reason to stay here.
I’d clear the halls of corpses for you and spend weeks scrubbing floors or fixing curtains if it meant I got to spend it next to you.
” My lip begins to tremble, already anticipating the rift.
“But it’ll only hurt more later if I stay. ”
“Then I’ll bear it. Whatever time I have with you, it’ll be worth the lifetime of suffering to come.
Even if you stay a month, a week, a day.
” His thumb brushes my cheek, teary eyes working on some distant solution as he admires me with a small smile.
“Please. Let me love you how I’ve always wanted to, even if it’s only for the last half of the year.
Even if I only get the summer and fall with you…
” A heavy sigh slips from his lips, tight and shaky.
“Please. Because as long as the sky is blue and the flowers grow in the spring…”
A tear slips from his eyes, his fingers brushing me with frantic concern. He pulls me in so our foreheads press together. “My heart is yours, Marcella, I love you.”
I shake my head. Scared that if I stay longer with him, I’ll only fall harder. That when the time comes, it’ll crush me beyond repair to leave.
I haven’t wanted to accept the fact that someone else challenges what I believe—what I want. But as his voice breaks and as his tears slip, I can’t help it. I can’t help but remember my desperation for one more moment with him when I thought he was dead.
Perhaps this is the best fate can give me.
Six months with the man I love.
“Please,” he whimpers brokenly.
That’s all the convincing it takes. I crash into him and almost knock him over, pressing my mouth to his. His shoulders shake with a relieved cry, his strong arms enveloping me, holding me to him in the cold night. Like if he tries hard enough, I’ll become one with him and never be able to leave.
But for the next six months, the next one hundred and seventy days…
I won’t.