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Malyr coughed up a swell of rotten blood.
An agonizing surge of pain ripped through my chest as though I was being torn apart from the inside, fraying my life threads. A sense of loss, a profound emptiness, gnawed at my insides, as if a vital part of me was about to be violently ripped away, leaving a gaping void that no amount of shadows could fill.
I pulled my hand from Sebian’s.
Darkness reached out to me, tendrils of blackness snaking and wrapping around my limbs. They pulled me, tugging with the desperation of a drowning man, pulling me into its ocean of blackness.
And I let it.
I breathed it into my void where it swelled, building, building, building, until—
Darkness blasted from me.
Then… nothing.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Galantia
Present Day, a shadowy tent
The scent of blood mingled with bitter herbal tinctures assaulted my nostrils, jarring me awake. Squinting against the blurry haze, I made out two distorted figures, their outlines wavering in and out of focus. What was that slow, faint drumming sound?
No, not drumming.
A heartbeat.
I pushed up onto my elbow, the world tilting as a wave of dizziness swept over me. I drifted forward but pressed my hand down before me to keep from falling. It was then that I felt it: warmth, along with the disjointed rise and fall of a chest.
Malyr’s chest.
He lay beside me, unconscious, his breathing reduced to irregular gasps. Bloody cuts marred his features and black veins webbed under his pallid skin. I lifted my hand to his face, running a finger over his blackish-purple lips, just as my chest tightened painfully. It was strange to see him this… vulnerable.
“She is awake,” Asker said, his outline slowly sharpening as he hurried to Malyr’s side, where he sank to his knees with the clanks of his armor.
The other figure, who had to be Marla, shuffled toward the flap of the… tent. Yes, I was in a tent. “I will see if Sebian returned with the herbs for her tea.”
I blinked Asker into focus. “What happened?”
“There was a blast that sent the shadows back far enough where we managed to drag you and Malyr to safety.” He ran a hand over his braid, the entire thing tousled and crooked. “We cannot be certain, but we believe you caused it, echoing Malyr’s power in an act of sheer desperation.”
“Echoed? I don’t remember doing anything.” But I hadn’t forgotten the surmounting sense of loss I’d felt at the thought of losing Malyr. “Why am I here?”
“We placed you here, in this tent, one beside the other, so your void may draw out his shadows, but…” He frowned down at Malyr, and a somber, almost fatherly look hushed across his usually stern face. “He exposed himself to their vicious lashes much too long in an attempt to hold them back.”
A lump formed in my throat, thick and choking, as I struggled to find words that could possibly match the weight of how he’d been willing to sacrifice his life for mine. “Is he… dying?”
“His internal injuries are significant,” Asker said with a solemn nod, but it carried reassurance, too. “Malyr will live. All he needs is time to heal.”
“Why are his shadows attacking him? He told me that only a fourth of them are truly his. What does that mean?”
He pouted for a moment, the wiry salt and pepper hairs of his beard curling against his lips. “The day we spoke at Deepmarsh, you said you read about the thief who stole the gifts of three deathweavers, did you not?”
Nodding, I lifted my hand to Malyr’s face, settling my palm on his cheek so I may absorb the shadows that made him look so terribly pale. “He was a Khysal, and grew strong enough that he took the throne, establishing their long line of kings and queens.”
“Kædrin the Unkind, many called him, for the three additionalanoashe gained through his thievery,” he said. “Our gifts, Galantia, are passed down through generations. When Malyr revealed as the most powerful deathweaver since the beginning of our recordings, many at court believed it a blessing. Others, however, believed that Kædrin’s shadows had been passed down to him were not a blessing, but a curse.”
“Kædrin got killed by those shadows because they weren’t truly his.” My fingers traced along his cheek, careful around the cleaned cuts, his skin damp with a thin sheen of cold sweat. So that was what he’d meant. Not a riddle at all. A curse. “What did you think?”
