Page 41 of His Emotional Support Snack

The chaotic flashes of purple and green magic abruptly cease.

I force my eyes open, blinking through the blood and sweat stinging my lashes.

Zuirvih stands in the ruined master suite. His chest heaves, the midnight-blue armor dented and scored with fresh scratches. The skin of his face is splattered with dark, almost black blood. His silver braids hang loose, a wild halo around his head.

At his feet, Lord Zatori lies broken. The elder lord’s massive tail twitches once, a final, involuntary spasm, before going entirely still. The architect of a ten-year death sentence, the master of the Serpent faction, reduced to a broken heap on the marble floor.

Zuirvih drops his fists. The feral, blinding light in his eyes dims, the glowing rings receding as the primal rage burns itself out.

He turns his head, his gaze sweeping the wreckage of the room. He searches the shadows.

He finds us huddled in the corner.

The last traces of the warlord vanish. The absolute, unyielding terror of Vhoig breaks, replaced by a sudden, devastating panic.

"Esmeralda!"

The name tears from his throat, a raw, desperate sound that cracks in the middle.

He abandons the corpse. He crosses the room in two long strides, dropping to his knees on the glass-strewn floor beside us. He does not care about the sharp shards digging into his armor. His massive, leather-clad hands reach out, trembling violently as they hover over my battered body, terrified to touch the wounds.

"Kalan," I whisper, my voice a dry, reedy rasp. My tongue feels like sand. "Take him."

Zuirvih reaches down, gently lifting the sobbing child from my arms. Kalan clings to the dark elf’s gold epaulets, burying his face in the crook of Zuirvih’s neck. The warlord holds the boy securely with one arm, using his free hand to cup my face.

The leather glove is warm against my freezing skin. He wipes the blood from my cheek, his thumb smearing the crimson across his own palm.

"I have him," Zuirvih says, his voice dropping to a frantic, pleading hum. The purple static of his magic flares, a desperate attempt to push healing energy into my failing system. "I have the boy. He is safe. You are safe. Stay with me."

The magic washes over me, a warm, humming current, but it slips through my veins like water through a sieve. The trauma is too vast. The human shell is too fragile. The silver Wildspont magic that usually answers his call remains dormant, exhausted by the blood loss.

I lean my head into his palm, the rough leather offering a strange, profound comfort. The pain in my back and my ribs begins to recede, replaced by a floating, weightless sensation. The cold is no longer biting; it is a soft, creeping blanket pulling me downward.

"It's over," I manage to whisper, my field of vision collapsing into a narrow pinprick of light.

I look up into his eyes. They are wide, frantic, the glowing rings shining with unshed moisture. The Deceiver. The monster of the high-tier courts. The warlord who terrified the entire continent of Oshta.

He looks so incredibly human.

I raise my right hand, my fingers weak and trembling. Reaching up, I brush the knuckles of his blood-splattered cheek. The skin is warm.

"I kept him safe," I murmur, my hand slipping from his face, dropping limply to the rug.

"Esme. No. Open your eyes." The panic in his voice escalates, vibrating through the floorboards. He presses his hand harder against my cheek, pulling my head into his lap. "You do not have permission to leave. I command you to stay!"

The order is a desperate, broken plea.

I try to smile, to tell him the monster in the dark turned out to be the only sanctuary I ever knew. But my lips will not move. The gray static consumes the last sliver of light.

The final sound I hear is the master of Vhoig screaming my name, a devastating, shattered roar that echoes into the dark before the silence claims me entirely.

26

ZUIRVIH

The scream tears my vocal cords, a ragged, feral sound that shatters the remaining glass in the window frames.

Her hand slips from my cheek, hitting the blood-soaked rug with a dull, lifeless thud. Her gaze, usually burning with defiant, unyielding hostility, rolls back, the lids fluttering shut. The frantic, erratic pulse beating against the palm of my glove slows. A single, agonizing flutter. Then, nothing.