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“But—”
“Keep fighting your shadows and being the king our court needs, brother. I love you.” A smile graced her lips as she grabbed the spindle and snapped it, the crack reverberating through the room like thunder.
“No!” Rush shouted. He needed a minute. Just one to prepare himself for it. He hadn’t thought it would break like that when he’d easily removed it to spell Aura. But his sister’s body crumpled. He darted forward and caught her before she hit the floor. “Fuck!” Cradling her close, he carried her to the bed and rested her beside Aura.
“Rush?” Astor’s voice wavered from the cellar hallway. “Rush, are you down here?” The king brushed the curtain aside to find Astor standing in the doorway. Blood ran down the side of his neck. “Thank the gods! Marion saw you carrying Aura past the kitchens as she woke. Everyone else in the palace is still—”
“Where were you?” he demanded, then held back the curtain and pointed to Aura. “You were supposed to protect her.”
“Unconscious.” He touched the back of his head and winced. “What happened?”
“The sorceress was right. The spindle needed to be broken off the wheel. But Sorcha was the only one who could do it,” Rush said softly. “She saved Aura and herself.”
Astor’s lips parted in surprise. “If the spell is broken, shouldn’t she be awake?”
Rush looked at Aura’s heart-shaped face, her long lashes still pressed against her cheeks. Then he glanced at Sorcha, her eyes open and glazed over in the same way when he’d first discovered her dead. Dull. Lifeless. He regretted ever casting the spell—ever depriving her of a peaceful afterlife with her child. And Aura, she deserved to live a happy life.
“We need to give my sister a proper funeral without anyone seeing us.” No one knew his sister’s ashes weren’t already in the royal tomb. It was something he should’ve done before. But if he had, he wouldn’t have learned the truth about Pax, wouldn’t have talked to his sister again, and wouldn’t have met Aura… So even if he was a bastard, his only regret was Aura not waking.
“Once the guards wake, I need them to prepare a funeral pyre,” Rush said. “Tell them to build it but not to burn any of the dead until I give the word.”
As Rush carried Sorcha’s body through the empty back halls of the palace the next morning, every inch of him was numb. His muscles, his bones, his heart. It didn’t matter he had barely gotten any sleep either.
Astor had cleared the path from the cellar to the pyre, and Aura lay in his bed, sleeping. Trapped. But he tried to focus on one task at a time.
Once outside, Rush approached the stone slab surrounded by freshly chopped birch. The white bark lined the table, though with dragon fire, it wasn’t necessary. It was simply needed so no one suspected it was a royal being burned.
He brought Sorcha to the table and set her at the center. As he smoothed her skirt and arranged her hair, he took every effort to avoid seeing how … empty she looked. Before, she wasn’t awake, but she wasthere. Now, it was clear she was gone.
He stepped back and rubbed at the ache in his chest. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
But he could protect Aura now. If it wasn’t too late…
“I’ll see you in the next life, sister,” he whispered, and his dragon hung his head.Come on,he urged the beast. This needed to be done before anyone noticed, and Astor couldn’t delay them from using the pyre forever. They couldn’t let word get out that it was possible to bring someone back from the dead.
The dragon stepped forward, shifting. It wasn’t the grand send-off Sorcha deserved, and that was his fault. Another thing he robbed her of. With a deep breath, Rush stirred the flames. They flowed from his scaled mouth, engulfing the Princess of Moonstone.
Rush closed his eyes as the flames reduced his sister to ash, too afraid to see any part of it. Yes,afraid. He’d nearly forgotten what that felt like—he’d been a child the last time he allowed himself to be frightened. His dragon kept breathing fire for a few moments before he retreated to his own sorrow. The beast needed to mourn the loss of Sorcha and her dragon too, in his own way.
“I’ll have her ashes brought to you,” Astor said from behind Rush.
The King of Sin nodded once, then slipped on a fresh set of clothing and strode back into the palace to see Aura before he left for the sorceress. But when he walked into his bedroom, praying she was awake, she wasn’t.
And she wasn’t alone.
The same bitch sorceress who had spelled Rush in the forest sat beside her.
“Don’t you dare move, or I’ll kill you both,” she said, her voice calm as she spoke. “I got what I wanted, and I know my sister helped you with the spell to raise your loved one. Don’t worry, no one knows.” The sorceress’s fingers spread across her staff. “I’ll tell you how to wake her if you vow not to hunt me.”
“I’ll just get the answer from your sister,” he said between gritted teeth.
“You won’t. No one finds her if she doesn’t want them to. You know this.” She tilted her head to the side. “Now, do you want the girl to wake or not?”
Rush held back the urge to let his dragon burn the sorceress to ash. He looked from her to Aura, a desperation consuming him for her to open her eyes. “Yes. I vow not to hunt you.”
A hint of a smile crossed the sorceress’s lips as she cradled her staff. “Kiss her. If you truly love her, she’ll wake. If not, she’ll die.” With that, she vanished from the room.
Rush tightened his fists, his hands trembling as he studied Aura. She still lay beneath the blankets, her golden hair haloed around her. He sank down beside her, his heart pounding faster than it had all day. Love… He’d never loved any woman that wasn’t family before. But he did love her.
