Page 313 of Blade of the Nightking

I stepped over the hatch, and that was when I saw it.

A great, terrible pool of blood stained the floorboards behind the bar, so much of it that they’d warped beneath it. Wide smears stretched away from its edges, as though something heavy had been dragged away.

They ended at the toes of my boots.

A choked sound escaped me, and I clapped a trembling hand over my mouth.

Only one person ever stood behind this bar.

Only one.

This… this was all that remained of Laurie.

Something inside me gave way, like a cliff tumbling into a sea.

Laurie was gone.

The only person who’d ever looked at me and seen more than a witch or a curse. The only person who’d chosen me simply because he wanted me. Who had offered me love—and the hope of a better future, of any future at all—in a world that promised neither.

A good man.

A man who’d never stopped giving, even when he had nothing left to spare.

Now a dark stain crusted into old floorboards, smear marks leading away into the unknown.

"Eidra." Rìan's voice came behind me, edged with an urgency that barely reached me through the roaring in my ears.

My throat worked around a knot that refused to move.

"I..." I swallowed hard, blinking through the tears clouding my vision. "I was supposed to marry this man. The one who ran this tavern."

I didn't have to look to sense Rìan's sudden, preternatural stillness.

"Another mate?" he asked at last. I heard the strain.

I gave a small, weak shake of my head.

"No. Just... a good man." My voice cracked. "A man who loved me, once."

I was freefalling through the darkness.

Rìan let out a slow breath that sounded almost broken. "Eidra..."

His hand brushed mine.

I recoiled from him so violently my shoulder struck the shelves behind the bar, sending shards of glass tinkling to the floor.

"Don't touch me, Rìan." My voice shook, thick with sorrow but edged with venom. "Don't ever touch me—not unless we're bleeding into that last fucking well."

I didn't give him the chance to answer.

I turned on my heel and walked away before he could speak, my grief hardening into something colder, something angrier that left no room for comfort.

The kitchen beyond the tavern had fared no better. Cupboards had been ripped from the walls, their contents strewn across the floor among broken crockery and rotted stores. One of Gareth's great stew pots lay on its side, its spoiled contents dried into a thick, cracked crust that spread across the floor. Blackened bloodstains streaked the flagstones toward the back door, as though showing me the way.

I pushed through it without slowing.

Outside, the familiar courtyard stretched before me beneath a gray sky. The firepit still sat where it always had. My gaze caught on it as I passed, and the sickening smell of Ayron Brighthall's severed leg burning in its flames washed over me.