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The silver blade cut as easily through bone as sinew, nearly separating her head from her body, only a flap of skin holding her together as she collapsed like a puppet.
The Mistress’s eyes were wide open when she died, and the last thing to fade from them was the hate. I made myself watch until they went dim before I tossed the sword to the side and fell to my knees beside Tavion.
“Tavion. I’m here, I’m…” My mind stopped working, then I was running my hands over his ravaged body, some of the cuts so deep I glimpsed muscle.
“Anaria.” He didn’t open his eyes, his tongue flicking out over his cracked lips as he groaned out a warning. “Get out of here. Oracle…said…she was coming back.” He managed to lift his hand, setting it over mine, and managed a faint squeeze. “Have…to…go.”
“I know. I know.”Gods, there was so much fucking blood. How was I supposed to move him?“I hurt her…but she wasn’t dead.”
Oh gods. If she came back now…
I willed my heart to stop racing. “We have to get out of here before she does.” There were so many wounds, I couldn’t find a place to grab onto, to lift him without hurting him more.
“You have to help, Tavion.” I was sobbing, and I couldn’t stop. “I can’t do this alone.Please.”
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat then slid my arm beneath him, through the blood and the gore, bracing my knees on the floor and lifting, trying to ignore his agonized groan, the way his breathing turned raspy and harsh.
“Torin’s waiting for us down below. She’ll take us to the tunnels, where Raz and Zor are. But you have to get on your feet.” I glanced over the Mistress’s body toward the door, which was so fucking far away.
I leaned against him, lifted his arm, and wiggled my body underneath his so his arm draped over my shoulders. I grasped his wrist tight, tight enough to hurt, and closed my eyes, turning my heart to stone.
I had to get him up or he would die here.
Pain or no, he had to get on his feet.
I didn’t know if this would work. Tavion was twice my size, twice my weight, chances were, his legs wouldn’t hold him at all. But if I could get him upright, then to the door, then…Then I’d figure the rest out. I steadied my legs beneath me and pushed up. Gods, he was nothing but dead weight, every muscle in my body on the verge of snapping as I kept pushing up and up and up.
This time, the moan of utter agony that escaped Tavion’s lips made me want to vomit. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t hurt him like this. Couldn’t…I had to. There was no one else. And if the Oracle came back, he was dead.
“Please, Tavion, help me here. Just a little.” Somehow, his feet slid beneath him. Somehow, he was upright, most of his weight sagging against me, his head lolling on my shoulder, face buried in my neck, blood coating me in sickening warmth.
This close, I heard every pained gasp, every small, tortured sound he tried to hide, even now, at his most vulnerable, tears sliding down my face, blinding me. My knees were wobbly, and both gashes on my shins had opened back up, but my legs held.
“Good,” I panted. “Good.” So many steps between here and where Torin was waiting, and he was losing too much blood. I gripped his side, sending a spark of magic into him, straight into the wound. He doubled over, panting.
When I looked down, the bleeding had slowed, so I did it again. “That…fucking…hurt.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you have to walk.”You have to be gone, because if the Oracle comes back, she will kill you, and then I don’t know what I’ll do.He lifted his head, bloody hair hanging in my face as he bleakly gazed toward the door.
“You can do this. Lean on me,” I hissed. “Lean on me and do not stop moving until I say you can.”
The hall was a nightmarish gauntlet we stumbled down, nothing but rasping breath, groans of pain, and the scent of fresh blood. We took the servants’ stairs. They were closer, narrower, and I used my body to brace Tavion against the wall while I let his weight slide from one step to the next, his stumbling feet catching on the stair treads.
On the second landing, I trapped Tavion between the wall and my body, legs straining to hold him up, blood gushing down my shins unchecked.Ten more to go. “We’re almost there,” I lied, peering out the open window at the dead, empty city, the two tiny figures we’d never reach. “Just a few more steps, Tavion.”
We made those few steps. Barely.
But that was all.
All his weight rested on me when we stopped on the next landing, my shoulder bracing him against the wall harder than I should have, but if he went down, I would never get him back up.
My magic could do a lot of wonderful things, but this power did not make me stronger, and it was time I admitted I was injured, too.
“You came for me.” His lips trailed down my face, his breath wet and raspy. I’d heard that death rattle in the slave barracks plenty of times, but never had it sounded like this. Like my heart was crumbling right along with it.
I wanted to take it all back. Every wicked word, every insult, everything between us that was tinged with hate and resentment and bruising injury. Take it back and start over, and maybe next time, maybe things would be different.
I could almost understand why the Oracle and her brother kept starting over.
