Feralis gathered at my call. I envisioned the blood rising from the grass, the sacrifices of all those dead fae. Rising, rising, congealing. The smell of it strengthened in my nose as the blood pooled around my hand, a godsawful crimson mass turning lazily, thickly. The dagger drank from it and hummed a single, satisfied note.
Letting go of it was the last thing I wanted.
But I had no choice. This was my only choice.
I pulled my arm back and threw the dagger.Feralis go with it. Send it as far as it can fly.
The moment it left my hand, pain returned. Sudden, ferocious, all-encompassing. My punctured lung. My battered shoulder and hip. My seared eyes.
This was it. This was the end.
Let it be fast.
I didn’t know which queen arrived first; I only heard boots on the grass. A cold-fingered hand gripped my throat, shoved my head back into the spire. My scalp hit the stone so hard, stars appeared.
Cold metal slid through my sternum into my heart.
Pain, pain, nothing but pain.
Death opened before me. I couldn’t even see the sky past Liora’s blinding light.
Life faded. The world dimmed. My mother’s face appeared before me in flashes, beaming, then crying, then beaming again. I didn’t want to see her worst days, only her good ones. Only her brown eyes gleaming with love.
She’d loved me. She’d loved me. She’d loved me.
I had to believe it. I did.
The last thing I heard was Caustrix. Not words, just laughter. The piece of the dragon I’d brought with me out of that cavern laughed and laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Dorian
The tipof my knife met metal in the shadows. A clang, and my knife was rebuffed. I knew that sound, that feel; Gawain wielded a broadsword, as he always had.
Now, at least, I knew which direction he fought from.
I turned toward him, ignored the surge of pain in my leg, and swung sideways. My knife cut through smoky shadow, but I had gotten close; he grunted as he dodged. I swung again, caught only air. His boots scraped backward.
He didn’t want to kill me. He never had.
“Listen to me, Dorian.”
I stepped into a third swipe. Maeronyx’s shadows couldn’t last forever; there was a reason she was called the queen of mist.
“Fight me out ofthe shadows,” I growled.
“Eurydice will be dead in moments, Dorian. But I’ve made a provision for you.”
Lies. More lies. I didn’t stop moving. Not my arm, not my feet. I was so close I could smell his spoiled-milk breath. I leapt, slashing. He raised his sword, deflected. My hand was knocked aside, and the blow numbed my fingers to the wrist; the knife nearly slipped free. I landed in a stumble, and he shoved me aside with the butt of his blade. The force of it threw me to the ground.
“Fool,” he spat. “You’re at your limit. Without magic, I’ve always outmatched you.”
It was true.
I hit the ground on my shoulder and rolled. He advanced, boots scraping. I came up to my feet in a crouch.
“Come with me,” he said. “Maeronyx will spare you.”