There’s no space for that in my heart right now.
When a maid comes to my side bearing a tray heavy with a trio of vials, I barely pull my attention away, so transfixed on Kyzari’s pale lashes fanned across her cheek. On the way her little body curls so perfectly against me, and the quiet suckling sounds she makes.
“This is to help you pass any remaining afterbirth without a further bleed,” the maid says, gesturing to a purple vial.
I take it, blindly tossing it back.
She gestures to the brown one beside it. “This is to encourage your milk supply, and this is for—”
There’s a screeching roar. A tear of orange flame rips through the sky, filling the room with an angry glow.
The maids’ gasps are drowned out by Slátra’s fierce snarl.
She pulls her head from the doorframe, so fast she smashes against the sides, the blow of pain radiating through our shared bond. Though that’s the last I feel before she slams a solid silver wall between us. Blocks me out, then shoves off the palace, like she’s trying to protect me from her rage of thoughts and emotions.
Not that it helps.
Panic pitches through my chest as a trio of Moltenmaws tears past the windows, chasing Slátra’s trail. Out of sight, though I hear them shrieking.
Roaring.
I rip off my iron ring and open to Clode, listening to her squeal away from the eruptions of dragonfire—
The sound evaporates like a snuffed flame.
My head begins to swim, as though I’m being dragged beneath a lake of oil. It takes me too long to realize I’ve been drugged. That there’s a terrible reason I can no longer hear the Creators.
A wild lash of horror flays me. “Somebody lock—”
The door shoves open so fast a maid screams.
My heart lurches into my throat as Tyroth charges into the room, a savage glint in his mismatched eyes.
I shield Kyzari with my arms, gathering the shawl around us both while a surge of nausea threatens to turn me inside out. A feeling that intensifies when a female Runi hobbles into the suite, the golden button pinned at her nape stamped with a bead of blood.
Bloodlace.
Tyroth stills at the end of the pallet, arms crossed, hair unbound. Thoughhe wears a loose black shirt rolled to his elbows, something that suggests he’s relaxed and at ease, he looks nothing of the sort.
The hardness in his eyes is the same I’ve seen moments before he’s whipped folk with strings of flame. Sliced out their tongues. Ripped their heads clean off their shoulders with only his bare hands.
“Leave us.”
His voice is a booming assault that never fails to bruise.
The maids pour from the room in a hurried march while I drop my gaze to my daughter. Try to lift my hand so I can run my thumb across her brow … only to realize my limbs have grown heavy, ailed by the tincture. That he’s stealing our moment, piece by piece.
He’s taking it all.
Instead, I count Kyzari’s fingers, over and over, listening to her drink. Tighten my lips against the wobble threatening to overtake my chin.
The Bloodlace drops her satchel. Tinkering sounds fill the room as she etches a ring of runes on the ground beside me—fast but precise. All the while, my dragon battles in the distance, blue and orange flames colliding in the sky while Tyroth’s slitting gaze tries to hack me up.
I want to rage. To scream. But I do neither, knowing it’s hopeless. It’ll only take what’s left of this dwindling moment I have with Kyzari, ruffling it into something ugly and torn.
I don’t want to leave her with that echo.
I won’t.
