A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(79)

Slowly, pained quicksilver eyes and a clenched jaw came into focus.

It was Kane.

He loosened the sword from my rigid fingers, uncurling each one carefully until the metal hit the dirt with a resonant clang. I looked up at him, bewildered. Where had he come from?

Behind the king were at least seven men on horseback, all with swords drawn. Kane’s eyes were wide with terror, his jaw locked tight. He wrapped his arms around my chest tightly, holding me from behind.

“Stay with me, Arwen. Can you hear me?”

When I laughed, something wet and phlegmy rattled in my chest, which made me hack up a cough. I wiped at my mouth. “So dramatic, my k—” The bright smear of red on my hand turned my words into a single choke.

I peered downward. My chest was sputtering blood between Kane’s fingers. I lifted his hand ever so slightly and could see my own collarbone beneath my ripped and frayed flesh.

Everything blurred and I felt darkness overtake me, sudden and unyielding.





TWENTY-TWO


Relentless, excruciating pain coursed through my body, shocking me into consciousness. I sucked in a lungful of air and swallowed hard. Salt dripped into my eyelashes. My mouth tasted like coins.

I could barely make out the shapes moving like a dust storm around me. Women with damp cloths and a man wrapping my wrist in gauze. Someone was stitching up my face. The needle tugging at my skin was a dull ache compared to the searing in my chest and roaring behind my eyes.

Some cobwebbed, rational corner of my mind wondered who was healing me if I was the castle healer. I laughed out loud, and the focused men and women exchanged furtive looks, and only seemed spurred to work quicker.

I tried to press my palm into my chest, but the woman next to me kept pushing my hand out of the way. It didn’t matter, I had no power left. I had used all my healing abilities on the chimera. When had that been?

I could barely keep my eyes from fluttering closed and fought to peer through the sheer drapery that surrounded me.

It was a room I had never been in, shrouded in navy curtains and filled with leather furniture. A handful of black candles with curled wicks burned in the dim light. Something smelled familiar, like home, but I couldn’t place it.

Lilies in stone vases peppered the space. Where had those come from? The delicate white flowers played against the soft candlelight.

Beautiful.

Also, sweltering.

About a million degrees and suffocating me. I tried to sit up. I needed fresh air, right now.

Warm, broad hands held me down.

“Try to stay still,” Kane murmured, his voice hard as steel. “It’s almost over.”

I whimpered and turned my face away from him, my head foggy and nausea coating my stomach. I was dizzy and hot and freezing. I needed water.

“I’ll get it for you.” His familiar scent disappeared, and my throat closed up at the loss. He was back moments later and gently pressed the glass to my dry, cracked lips.

A sharp burst of pain echoed through my chest, and I choked on the agony.

“You’re torturing her!” Kane roared at someone, but I could not see anything through the blinding anguish. I heard the glass of water shatter on the floor.

“The venom has to be purged, my King. This is all that we can do.”

“Please,” he begged. Actually begged. “Then please, just work faster.”

“We are trying, but—” a woman’s voice. The fear in her words was contagious and soaked into my already shivering bones.

“No,” he breathed. It was almost a sob.

“There might not be—”

The truest, most piercing agony I had ever felt seared through my chest, into my bones, down to my toes, through my very soul—

I screamed a bloody, gargled wail into the overheated room. Sweat dripped from my brows and stung my eyes.

I couldn’t endure it. I couldn’t I couldn’t I couldn’t—

“No!” he roared, and this time, wisps of twisted black shadow filled the tented gossamer of the bed, snuffing out all the light and bathing the room in stark black midnight.

The specters drowned out my suffering in an instant. What was anguish—pure anguish, was now… nothing. Numb, cold, nothing. I reached for Kane, in relief, confusion—but found only the swift and heavy comfort of sleep as my eyes fell closed instead.

***

A sharp stab of pain exploded through my back. I snapped my eyes open and was somewhere unfamiliar.

Or worse, somewhere all too familiar, a place I hadn’t been in years.

I was staring at the dark wood floor of Powell’s work shed. It wasn’t even worth looking to the door or windows. I knew they were locked, that I was trapped inside. I braced myself for another lash of pain, but it didn’t come. I peered up and instantly regretted it. Powell stood over me, face bright red and snarling, belt raised.

“Weak girl,” he said, spitting. Tears spilled over my cheeks and snot bubbled at my nose.

“I have asked you three times this week not to play in the kitchen,” he said, voice booming off the walls of the cold, empty shed. I didn’t want to cower, but I couldn’t help it. I shrunk into myself, hoping my back might soon stop pulsing in pain. I knew better than to speak.

“You’re infuriating. Making me teach you this way.” He was right. He only ever hurt me, because I was the worst. Why couldn’t I be stronger? Smarter? I hated that everything he said about me was true.