Page 148 of Embers of Ruin

The cure.

“Thorin—” His name dies in my throat.

The shadows move, not around me, but into me. Cold detonates through my chest and my entire body locks as the world tilts violently sideways. Agony tears through me, and I scream. I scream from the pain, from the betrayal of it being him—my Thorin. I scream until my throat is raw. But this pain isn’t physical… it’s so much deeper. As though invisible hands have reached inside my soul and wrapped themselves around something ancient.

His expression changes so quickly it steals the breath from my lungs. Hope drains from his face, replaced by pure, unfiltered horror.

“Lyra—NO!” The words break apart on his lips.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing to me. Gods, he doesn’t know.

The realization crashes into me even as agony rips through every nerve in my body. He thought this was supposed to happen. He probably believes combining our magic is the cure. Whatever darkness is taking hold of him knows it’s not. Thorin’s magic was always supposed to consume mine.

“THORIN!”

The shout reaches me from a few paces away.

Onyx.

The terror in his voice freezes my blood. I’ve never heard him sound like that. He races down the path, the color draining from his face. His eyes lock on the shadows pouring into my chest. On the gold light darkening beneath my skin. On Thorin.

Whatever he sees makes him look sick. “NO!” The word tears from him. “STOP!”

He throws out his palm, sending a wall of solid air barreling toward us, but Thorin's shadows are no longer his to command. They surge forward on instinct, colliding with the blast. The impact tears Thorin backward with brutal force and the connection snaps.

The shadows recoil… but it's already too late.

I collapse forward as a scream tears from my throat. The light beneath my skin flickers—gold, black, gold, black—as agony rips through every part of me. My vision swims. I reach for him, but I never make it.

The last thing I see before darkness takes me is the light fading from his eyes.

CHAPTER 34

Time stops. Not in the soft, dreamy way poets pretend time stops when someone looks across a room at someone they love. There is nothing romantic about this. Nothing gentle. One moment the palace is full of sound and the next, the entire world goes still. Everything waits.

Except me.

Pain tears through my chest so violently that I fold over it, my hands clawing at the stone beneath me. The shadows that had slipped beneath my skin still writhe there, not moving forward now but not retreating either, tangled with the gold light of my own magic in a way that feels wrong down to my marrow. Not like darkness and light meeting. No, this isn’t like balance. This feels like something sacred has been bruised.

Thorin is on his knees in front of me.

I don’t remember him falling. I only know he is there, one hand hovering inches from my shoulder as if he is terrified to touch me and terrified not to. His face has gone pale, all the kingly arrogance stripped from him so completely that what remains is almost unbearable to look at. I’ve seen him angry, and I’ve seen him ruthless. But I’ve never seen him afraid. Not like this.

“Lyra,” he says, and his voice breaks on my name.

I wish I could reach out and soothe him. I wish I could heal his pain. But I’m floating—so far beyond him that he could never reach me without leaving this plane himself.

Onyx is a few steps away, frozen half in motion, one hand still outstretched toward Thorin, the other curled into a fist so tight I wonder if his nails have broken skin. His face is carved from stone, but his eyes betray him. I’ve never seen so much grief held so carefully. Every breath is controlled. Every muscle locked. He refuses to come apart.

Somehow, watching him hold himself together hurts more than if he had.

* * *

The darkness engulfing us parts, and a woman steps from the silence. For a heartbeat, I think she’s made of stars. Light shimmers through her instead of blood, and she glows so brightly it almost hurts to look at her.

There is no burst of heavenly light. No thunder splitting the sky. No chorus of gods announcing her arrival. She simply... appears. One heartbeat, there’s nothing. The next, she’s there. Dark hair spills over her shoulders, and a white gown brushes her bare ankles. She looks as though she’s existed longer than the world around her.

She glows so softly it almost hurts to look at her, but it isn’t the light that steals my breath.