Page 152 of Destiny of a King

The fight was brutal and brief.

Ernach had cunning enough to manipulate kings and patience enough to wait years for a crown, but neither served him against a warrior who had just found the daughter he believed lost and now saw her lying motionless on the ground.

Tharne drove him backward with violent thrusts of his sword.

Ernach could not withstand the onslaught. He slipped and recovered too late.

Tharne’s sword entered beneath his ribs.

Ernach let out a gasp as his eyes widened in shock.

Tharne leaned close. “You were nothing more than a means to an end.” He shoved the blade deeper.

Ernach gagged, fighting for breath until there was none left.

Tharne ripped the blade free and ordered, “Take him.”

Ernach fell to the ground and roots rushed up out of the earth, coiled around him, and yanked him down beneath the snow and soil until he was no more.

Tharne hurried to Adira.

Dravic was still on his knees beside her.

“She’s breathing?” Tharne asked, not hiding his fear.

Dravic cast a glance at her chest as he bent his head to her mouth. There was no rise and fall in her chest, though he felt a faint breath against his ear, or his own desperate need imagined one.

“I cannot be sure.” The words nearly broke in his throat.

Tharne came down beside them, and for a moment the two men simply stared at Adira. The king who loved her. The father who had spent years searching for her. Neither could do a damned thing.

Fiora flitted nearby helpless, tears in her eyes.

Dravic touched her cheek again. “Adira.”

He had commanded armies with less force than he put into her name.

“Wake,” he ordered.

Nothing. Not even a slight stirring.

His control began to fracture. “You hear me now. I know you do, so hear this.”

Tharne watched him, watched for any sign his daughter heard Dravic.

“I forbid you to leave me.”

The command would have been absurd under any other circumstance. Now it was the only thing he had.

“You told me without words that you loved me. You made me believe you would stay with me. So, open your eyes and prove it.”

He watched for even the slightest movement, a flutter of her eyelids, a strong rise to her chest. Nothing. There was nothing.

Dravic lowered his forehead to hers. “Adira.”

Her name came quieter this time. It was not a command. It was a plea.

“I love you, Adira. Don’t leave me. Life would be meaningless without you.”