As her cousin inhaled sharply, his mouth parted enough for Maeve to see the bloody, mangled mess of his mutilated tongue. Abraxas had cut out his silver tongue, escaped, and somehow managed to make it to her. He straightened, revealing the second Magical signature she detected.
Lyrux was tucked securely in his arms, covered by his billowing black cloak.
The child was barely breathing.
Reeve was at her side a moment later, kneeling. Abraxas offered his only son to the High Lord of Aterna without hesitation. Her cousin collapsed into her arms. Reeve placed a hand on her shoulder, and the four of them were before several healers in their next breaths.
Juliet Rosethorn was dead.
Abraxas spoke little on it. Maeve didn’t push him.
Lyrux lay sprawled against Abraxas, wrapped beneath both of his father’s arms. The child, who now wore a small necklace filled with Reeve’s Magic to help him heal, was afflicted with the same dark and deadly disease that began killing Magicals who occupied the Dread Lands three hundred years ago. Their presence there, as it now was for Magicals living in the Dread Lands, was a poison to themselves.
Refugees were taken into Aterna each day. The Barrier Reeve placed on the now frozen-solid Black Deep was a war zone. Citizens braved the Dreaded Dead that lingered beneath the ice, in the Greywood and the Dark Peaks, all for a chance to escape the toxic air forming over The Beryl City and the world Mal tried so hard to rebuild.
Abraxas’ voice was soft with his healed and regenerated tongue, as he held Lyrux close and spoke without Magical restraint. She’d never seen her cousin so worn down, so utterly exhausted. His vibrant and sparkling eyes were dulled. Dimmer than felt appropriate for her vivacious cousin. Even his bright hair appeared wilted.
Like he, too, was having the life sucked from him.
Magic was dying beneath Shadow’s reign once more.
“I remained at his side for as long as it was safe for Lyrux,” he said, his eyes not on Maeve where they sat in two oversized chairs by the fire in her chamber. “I stayed by him as long as I could. . . I never wanted to leave him.”
“I know,” she replied softly.
Painful silence lingered between them. Silence had never been uncomfortable between Maeve and Abraxas. Now, after so long apart, Maeve had to force herself to ask him about his time at Mal’s side these past few months. It had been weeks since she’d seen him, when he looked so broken.
“How is he?” she asked carefully. “When I saw him last. . . he was struggling.”
Abraxas’ eyes remained distant. “The decline in the past few weeks has been dramatic. Accelerated.” His words were worse than a poisoned-tipped dagger penetrating her flesh and muscle. “He’s dying.”
Maeve looked away from him, her gaze shooting to her hands in her lap.
“And I stood by and watched as he was abused. Assaulted. As his body and mind were taken without his consent. Knowing if he had control of himself, if his own mental and bodily autonomy remained his, then she’d have been killed twenty times over.”
Maeve’s shoulders crumbled, and her hands covered her face as her chest tightened.
“I’m sorry, Maeve,” said Abraxas, his own voice short of breaking. “I shouldn’t have—”
Maeve stifled a sob and wiped the monsoon of tears pouring from her bottom lashes. “It’s not your fault, Brax. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s her fault, Maeve. No one’s but hers.”
When she continued to hide her face with her hands, Abraxas called her name softly. She looked up at her cousin, his own silent tears falling.
“No one is responsible for the evil she has committed. No one but her.”
Maeve wiped her eyes roughly. “I have to get him out of there.”
Abraxas fell silent. When he didn’t immediately encourage her, Maeve locked eyes with him once more. His expression was apprehensive, hesitant even.
“You don’t think I can?” she asked.
A swelling breath rose through him, and his hold on Lyrux tightened. “I just. . .don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Mal is not lost,” she fired. “I can feel him in my very veins, Abraxas. I feel him in the ring on my finger. He is still fighting her possession. He has not given up. And so we cannot give up.”
He nodded, his eyes on the Dread Ring, then on the darkened veins that dipped down her fingers.
