A howl erupts, and then Eogan is behind him and has landed his broadsword directly into Draewulf’s back. The monster staggers and roars, rips the sword from his wound, then jumps and grips the side of the turret.
He scampers up it, leaving a bloody trail as he climbs to the parapet and disappears into black shadow.
And then I’m hovering over Colin. To shield. To help.
Except there’s no amount of helping to fix the torn boy in front of me. I let loose a moan that becomes a yell so loud it shatters the sky, fracturing the clouds above into a hundred ignited thunder bellows.
Colin. The precious bald boy. My friend.
The life pulses out of him in red ribbons, and I’m pressing on his chest, covering the wounds with my hands, trying to stop the flow as the thump thump thump of his beautiful heart weakens and drains.
“What have you done?” I whimper to him, and I am both horrified and wrecked. My tears drip down to mix in his blood. “You should’ve let him take me. Why didn’t you let him take me?”
Rain begins to fall. It patters his face with caresses and misty wishes I can hardly see because my tears are pouring so thick.
His hand slides over mine. “They need you.”
“I need you. You and me—this was ours to do. Oh hulls—someone do something! Someone help him!”
“I never did this for Faelen, Nym,” he gasps. His body shivers.
“No no no no. I can’t lose you. You’re my friend.” My voice is crumbling into broken shudders, like the bones and skin from his chest now barely holding together as it heaves beneath my fingers. “We need you.”
“For me it was never ’bout them,” he whispers. “It was . . . for Breck. For givin’ her a better life.” He inhales and coughs. Quivers. “You an’ her deserved to be free.”
I’m crying harder now. “Don’t talk. It’s fine. You’ll be fine. Just don’t go. Don’t leave.”
His eyes are growing hazy. He’s looking around as if trying to focus.
I move closer, and his gaze latches on mine. His breath is thinning.
My world is thinning.
“It was for you, Nym.”
He’s slipping. Becoming incoherent. “I couldn’t let him take you.” Another cough.
“Colin . . .”
“Don’t let him take you, Nym. Don’t let him take who you are. Make him . . .” His head jerks, his lips forming and reforming the words he’s trying to get out. “Make him fear who you’ll become.”
I can’t breathe. I don’t know how to breathe, and I’m losing him, losing him—oh please no—I’m losing him.
His pupils widen and his brown eyes deepen, as rich as the Faelen earth, as his hand slips up to my heart. He presses in, and suddenly I swear I can feel my insides trembling as he’s carving, creating one last fracture.
He’s inscribing my soul with his beautiful name.
Then his hand slides from me.
His chest shudders beneath my fingers as the last breath leaves his body and drifts hot across my cheeks. A kiss of warmth as his last good-bye.
And I am left. Alone.
In the rain.
Covered in the bald boy’s blood.
CHAPTER 35
COLIN’S EYES STARE UP AT THE STORM-cloaked sky.
Clashing swords. Bombing airships. King Sedric’s voice. They emerge and fade with the wind, only to be replaced by the death cries of the soldiers also departing from this place. To join Colin and Breck and my parents.
Everyone dies.
Everyone is betrayed.
“Take me with you,” I whisper to them, as a wisp of the black, demonic air slithers from where Draewulf was and tumbles around me like a thick strand of ink. It roils and stirs the rain, rustling over my skin, a thousand teeth from ghostly mouths, gnawing. As if the evil contained in it could feed off my living heart. Burning and boring into my flesh with the insinuation that there is nothing of worth left in this world.
I swipe it away and reach down to shut Colin’s eyes.
Press a kiss to his rain-spattered brow.
You should have let him take me.
My shoulders begin to shudder. The evil mist presses harder.
This time I don’t push it back as it comes scalding in to smother me in black folds, crowding over my eyes with a darkness that is full of plagues and loss and hopelessness.
The clouds won’t stop pouring. My tears won’t stop pouring. Even the rain on my lips tastes salty, as if the sky’s given way to the sea, like in the minstrels’ “The Monster and the Sea of Elisedd’s Sadness” ballad. “And the big sea, she roared and spit up her foam at the shape-shifter’s trickery and our foolish king . . . Begging for blood that will set our children free.”
“Except there is no freedom, is there?” I scream at the sea. Because the innocence that exists in this world gets stolen by the same sickness that’s claimed my parents, my Elemental race, my friends, and now . . .
Perhaps it will claim me too.
Because I don’t want this anymore. Redemption. Atonement. Empty hopes promised by a manipulative owner.
I swallow.
A hand touches my shoulder, evoking a soothing that can only be Eogan’s.
I jerk away.
I don’t want his fake comfort. There is no comfort. “Leave me.”