Page 156 of Blade of the Nightking

So I turned away. My steps carried me, almost without thought, into the receiving chamber. The terrace doors were flung wide, the night wind slipping through in restless currents.

Welcoming the harsh bite of it, I stepped outside. A gust lashed my skin like a whip, but it did nothing to ease the heaviness bearing down on me. I dragged my hands over my face, pressing hard until bursts of red flared behind my eyes, until the pressure almost hurt. Anything to keep the tears at bay.

I ached for Levinica. But still… I couldn’t face her.

I descended the steps toward the beach, kicking off my boots at the bottom and sinking my toes into the cool softness of the sand. Wrapping my arms around myself against the cold, I made my way slowly toward the water’s edge.

The night was clear, the crescent moon so bright overhead that it cast a shimmering trail across Half Moon Bay, stretching all the way toward the mainland like a rippling silver road back to Elantis. The wind swept through the narrow mouth of the bay, whistling as it funneled between the towering cliffs on either side. The waves churned harder with it, crashing against the shore in wild bursts of spray and foam.

A sudden blur of movement streaked out of the darkness. I startled, stumbling backward, but when I looked down, Titter Mouse was already weaving frantically around my ankles, letting out loud, insistent cries.

“What are you doing out here?” I frowned, bending to scratch between his ears. He darted away before I could touch him, then glanced back and meowed again. His fur stood on end, tail puffed wide, ears twitching anxiously. A cold knot tightened inside me.

“Where’s Levinica?”

The cat turned at once, loping back the way he’d come, farther down the beach. I hurried after him.

I spotted her almost immediately. Moonlight turned her skin white as bone against the darkness, her gown snapping around her legs in the wind. She stood motionless at the edge of the sea, bare feet buried in the sand, one hand wrapped tightly around the pendant at her throat—the only piece of her son she had left. The only piece she’d ever had.

She faced Elantis. Watching it.

“Levinica?” I called uncertainly over the wind.

She turned her head toward me, but I was too far away to make out her expression.

She said nothing. After a long moment, she looked back toward the sea.

Slowly, she peeled off one glove, finger by finger, and let it fall. The wind seized it immediately, almost greedily, carrying it out into the night beyond the surf. Then the other.

A hollow dread opened inside me. “Levinica⁠—”

She stepped forward. The pale arch of her foot disappeared into the icy shallows.

“Levinica…”

She took another step. And then another.

The hem of her gown, which moments before had whipped frantically, now dragged heavily through the surf behind her, spreading thickly across the water like spilled ink. Still she kept walking, farther and farther into the sea without hesitation.

Surely she would stop. Surely she only needed a moment. To think. To grieve. But the water climbed up her shins, and something cold and terrible settled low in my stomach.

She wasn’t stopping.

“Levinica!”

I broke into a run. Sand sprayed beneath my feet as I sprinted down the shoreline, my voice ripped away by the wind as I shouted for her again and again. But she never turned. Never slowed.

By the time the water reached her knees, the current had begun to fight her in earnest. A swell struck her, knocking her off balance before retreating, sucking insistently at her legs. She steadied herself—and kept walking.

The water climbed higher. A sick panic clawed up my throat.

I fumbled for the tether, that constant thread wound tightly inside me that I normally despised and tried to ignore. This time I seized it with everything I had, pulling desperately, blindly, not caring about anything except getting him here in time.

Please. Please…

A scream tore from my chest before I could stop it. “Rìan!” I stumbled toward the water. “RÌAN!”

I felt him before I saw him. Shadows gathered at the edge of my vision, and then he was there beside me. Relief hit me so hard it stole the strength from my legs.