Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(75)

To save the boy from himself.

Before he destroyed the world.





15





When I awoke, I was in the Realm of the Dead and the gods had taken me far away from my mortal toils. There was bliss that came from ethereal freedom and no physical corpse to remind me of hunger and thirst and pain.

And then I felt something cool pressed against my skin.

I wasn’t supposed to feel.

But the sensation was so familiar that I had to open my eyes. I wanted to understand how I could still feel something akin to before.

I found myself peering into blue eyes as familiar as my own. I had been staring at them since the day I was born.

Alex fell back in his chair, swearing. “Thank the gods!”

He wiped a pale wrist against his clammy forehead, breathing deeply in and out of his nose. He did this for another minute or two while I swallowed, unable to think. Finally, he managed a shout: “She’s awake! Ella!”

There was the sound of boots squeaking outside and then a door creaked open to reveal my best friend, her expression equally wild.

“Ryiah!”

I blinked up at both of them, but my throat was coarser than sand. I could only manage to cough, hacking as I tried to push myself up off the straw.

My brother leaned forward to help as my friend charged forward with a flask she pressed to my lips. “Drink,” Ella ordered. “It tastes like death, but it will help with your throat.”

I took a sputtering sip, and then another. She wasn’t wrong. The liquor tasted like rot, but after there was a slow-setting chill.

“H-how…?” I gasped. So much for the after realm. All my pain was coming back. The effort to speak produced something gravelly and rough. “H-how did y-you two… f-find m-me?”

The two people I’d been searching for. Not only were they safe and well, but they’d found me. And I was almost certain they’d saved me from the brink of certain death.

My twin ran a hand along his neck. His skin was almost translucent. I wondered how many hours he had been at work, casting out the fever and the infection in my leg. The skin was starting to tingle and itch—my least favorite part of the healing. “We had no idea you were alive, Ryiah,” he said.

I took another burning sip of the flask, and then Alex handed me a water skin. I only managed a few swallows; the pit in my stomach had contracted from too many days of nothing. I was starting to feel sick.

“When our spy in the capital discovered you were caught, she sent an envoy.” Ella cleared her throat. “But when the news reached the keep, it was already two weeks too late.”

“We thought you were dead, Ry.” Alex’s voice was steeped in emotion. “Nyx sent the rest of her men packing to Caltoth, but Ella and I… we couldn’t, not without seeing for ourselves.”

“I’m so sorry.” I reached my hand out shakily, and he grabbed it, squeezing hard.

“You shouldn’t be.” Alex’s grip tightened. “I shouldn’t have let you return to the capital alone.” His eyes flared. “What they must have done to you in that prison—”

“Nyx ran?” I broke off my twin’s apology, unwilling to admit what had transpired in that cell. He didn’t need that knowledge, and it would only remind him of Derrick. I could spare at least one of us that pain. “Everyone is in Caltoth?”

“All of the keep and several northern villages.” Alex’s gaze slipped to the floor. “Nyx knew that without you, we had no hopes of swaying Pythus. She sent the regiment to rally the villagers and transport what livestock and supplies they could. She knew the king would find out eventually, but by then it wouldn’t matter.”

His hand was still clutching my own as he swallowed. “Ella and I were halfway to Demsh’aa when we saw the posters. We didn’t know until then that you had escaped.”

Ella handed me a lukewarm bowl of broth that had bits of oily meat floating on the surface. “Try as best as you can to get some of this down,” she said.

I nodded silently, taking a scoop as Ella continued where Alex had left off.

“There were rumors that the rebel girl had been spotted in Demsh’aa running north. We knew right away you were heading for the keep. We combed the forest for days but our real break was when that village got attacked and Mira’s corpse was found in the square. It wasn’t you that…?”

I shook my head. “Only Mira. The others… were h-her.”

“The next day we ran into the others.”

“Others?”

“The news had reached Nyx.” Ella touched my shoulder. “As soon as she found out you were alive, she sent out a search party to help.”

Alex looked me directly in the eyes. He already knew what I was thinking. “She wouldn’t do it for anyone, Ry, but you are far too valuable to the cause. As a mage and…” His eyes flashed. “Your relation to the new king. The moment she heard, she was willing to dispatch ten of the best we had even though the Crown’s Army was marching on Caltoth. We met up with them and Lief was the one to suggest this place. There were no sightings of you on the main road, and he thought you might have remembered it from before. Ella and I would never have known to look.”

I forced down a big lump of stew, trying not to grimace at the taste. I felt both their eyes on me, and I didn’t want the questions that came next. All I wanted to do was rest, even if I still smelled worse than any person ever should.