Page 23 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

“Thyra… You have to know… The moment my army sees me wounded like this, they will set upon us and kill us both. You can’t take me anywhere near the palace⁠—”

“Then I’ll take you to the Alak-Teah,” I snap, fear and hurt clouding my voice. “There’s clean water there. A place to rest. I can tend to your wounds. We can shelter there until you’ve⁠—”

“Thyra.” He says my name slowly. Reverently. “Your heart has been my blessing.”

I can’t stifle my sob. The cracking of my heart.

With a shaking hand, he presses his palm to my chest, his pale eyes ghostly white. “I need your help now.”

Help.

I squeeze my eyes closed against my hot tears. “Anything.”

“Take me to my family.”

I want to say no. Because taking him to his family means accepting that he’s preparing to join them.

I fight this fate as his heartbeats dominate my hearing.

Painful, shattering beats.

Not unfeeling. Not heartless. Full of fear and awareness and despair.

“Please,” he whispers. “I’ll hold on until then.”

He takes a deep breath and this time, I hear what I’ve been blocking out.

A song I don’t want to acknowledge.

He might have started breathing its melody right after Lilis attempted to slit his throat—a wound that is the smallest nick trickling blood down his neck because I stopped it from being worse.

Or he might have started forming its melody when the crow screamed from the wall, that haunting shriek.

But I can’t ignore the song now.

With his quietest breaths, he’s creating pure torment.

He’s pinning his own soul to his body.

A song that can’t harm me or impact me because I’m not dying. My soul is part of me and has no need to flee.

My heart is breaking. “I can’t lose you.” I try to speak past the sorrow squeezing my throat tight. “I can’t lose another fae I love.”

He catches his breath, but I won’t take it back or diminish what I said or what I feel.

“You promised to soothe any pain I want soothed and to fight any battle I want fought,” I whisper. “That means fighting for your life. Because losing you is a pain that can never be soothed.”

I try to breathe, still clinging to a hope that’s slipping away from me. “Tell me how to help you live, Stellen. Tell me and I’ll do it, whatever it takes.”

His arm shakes as he presses his palm harder to my heart, his exhalation carrying the melody that’s keeping him alive.

His speech is more tortured, his pale eyes closing. “Take peace, Thyra…where you can find it…”

He falls silent.

Tears glide down my cheeks.

Nara is running so fast now that we could be flying across the snowy fields, her leaps and bounds near weightless, my body taking the pressure of her speed without conscious thought.