And see his other hand fisted at his chest.
Wrapped around the jewel-hilted dagger I didn’t even notice him slip from my back.
The dagger he’s just used to pierce his own heart.
He might as well have thrust it right into mine.
I wish timehadfrozen.
I wish we’d had more of it too.
I sink to his level, pull him against my chest. He’s leaking a different kind of heat now and it’s too warm, too wet, too thick.
I want to cry and scream and yell and thrash and hit.
No tears come. Do they?
The line where his lips meet is dark with blood. A bead of it swells at the corner of his mouth and dribbles down the side, a single weeping tear.
His hand cups my face, his thumb wiping wetness from my cheek.
“Make it count, Elle,” he whispers.
His eyes close.
And Cedric Thorne dies with a smile on his lips.
51
FLICKER
CEDRIC
The pain is sharp—aflash of white-hot fire.
It starts at the point in my chest where the blade pierced my skin, and it spreads outward in waves.
Searing. Scorching. Searching.
And then, just as quickly as it came on, it dulls. It fades.
A different kind of pain follows. Softer. Familiar. A flickering light, the last embers of a dying flame.
The breaking of a heart.
I expected it to hurt more. I expected it to hurt less.
There’s a coldness now at the edges of my mind. A creeping numbness, biting, like the chill of winter frost. I feel it—feel me—slipping away.
Ilook at her.
Her face.
Her eyes.
Two glimmering pools of emerald, liquid silver lining the edges. They’re full of life. She’s full of life.
She’s going to live.
