Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(62)

Tears streamed down my face, but I couldn’t speak—not without breaking down into confession and selling my soul for the chance to take that pain away. I didn’t trust myself with honor. I would have given anything.

I watched him go.

I let the boy I love turn and walk away, knowing he would never come back.

One more night.

So why did it already feel like the end?



*

The heavy thud of something splintering against the door was enough to drive me from my self-perpetuated misery. I had buried myself deep in nothing, ignoring every tormenting thought in an effort to escape the last few hours of my fate. It had almost worked, too.

Then there was a muffled shout and a second bang, and I couldn’t ignore it again.

My eyelids fluttered open. I found a dank cell with rusting iron bars and the familiar stains of old blood on stone. I was surrounded by shadows and walls. There was no light now that the guards were away. There was no need.

There was the rotting stench of feces and urine nearby, something the guards had never bothered to collect. I breathed in unsteady gasps, and every part of me ached. The pain was coming back without remorse.

There was the agony of a body abused for days on end, the agony of what was to come, and the agony of Darren’s last words, cutting deeper than any wound Mira could ever inflict.

Not as sorry as me.

There was the pressure of Darren’s threat, closing in like a hand at my throat, squeezing until I lost all sense of control. Soldiers marching on Demsh’aa, and then the keep. My parents. Alex. Ella.

I had tried so hard to escape the fear, to hide from it in my little pit of despair.

The nightmare was back.

My village in flames. Black smoke crawling across the sky as Derrick fell. Again.

Alex with a blade to his chest. Ella trapped and my parents falling to the soldiers’ wrath.

And Darren. Standing next to his brother on the cold iron throne, a glistening crown of hematite stones as they laugh and laugh into the endless night.

I am trapped behind an invisible glass, pounding until my fists were purple and raw. Pounding until bones crack and my screams are muffled by the wind.





Who needed a hallucinogen when my dreams were the same as my fate?

“Ryiah!”

At first, I thought perhaps I was locked in another dream.

Paige appears, panting heavily with a sword clutched in hand; her chest rising and falling through the dim light of the stairs behind.

She blinks and tries to peer into the darkness, and then she utters a curse and begins to retreat, only to return with a torch.

“Well,” she says, “he certainly could have given me an easier deadline.”

There are bodies sprawled out just behind her, caked in blood.

“We don’t have much time”—she races across the cell, her eyes darting back toward the hall—“before someone comes to relieve your guards.” The knight digs into her pockets and produces a key from her vest, unlocking my cell.





I didn’t think I would picture Paige in my final hours, but there she was. I stared up at the vision, grateful to have company, no matter her form.

“Ryiah?” She shakes me. “Ryiah!”





And a hard slap to the face sent the pain rearing back.

I blinked.

And she was still there. The pain had my whole head reeling and my cheek stung, but the guard was still there. “Paige?”

Her expression was incredulous. “Who else would it be? Mira?”

I blinked again. Still present.

The knight gave an impatient huff and unlocked the manacles keeping me in place. “I second-guessed myself for days after that rebel escaped.” She was shaking her head as she pulled my bruised wrists out of the cuffs, one by one. “I knew there was something suspicious about the way you just gave up after your brother’s death.”

Somewhere just beyond, the bell tower gave twelve tolls for midnight. Six before the end.

“I know why you never trusted me.” Paige wrapped one arm around my side, ducking under my shoulders with a groan. “It doesn’t make it right.” She let out a heaving groan. “But since you never told prince charming either, I’ve made my peace.”

“Paige?” I was letting her pull me to my feet, trying to ignore the shaking in my limbs. There were parts of me that hadn’t healed, and many that wouldn’t, not without a healer to set things right. “A-are you r-rescuing me?”

“Mira has been watching me like a hawk ever since the news. I kept hoping your rebel friends would come save you like they did Derrick, but it appears the role of savior has fallen to me.” Her lips pressed in a tight, thin line. “Trust your beloved to wait until the last possible minute to present the opportunity.”

“Darren?” My mind raced and my head spun. Did he believe me after all? Had he helped Paige plot my escape?

The knight pulled a chain from the pocket of her tunic as the two of us crossed the room. “You two are the world’s most complicated fools.”

There was Darren’s hematite necklace dangling from her hand. “Your beloved called a late meeting with Mira. The king is already in his bed. This should get us through the gates. No one but Blayne or the head mage would question the crown prince’s orders.”