Page 75 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Still, a pang of happiness resonates through the pain when I see this other boy getting to his feet with no obvious injuries other than a scrape on his forehead and a reddish blotch on his cheek that’ll probably bruise.

The shouts and cries of the riot have blurred too, my sense of the rest of my surroundings going increasingly hazy. The press of frantic fingers around my arm brings me back.

Ivy is staring down at me. Her blue eyes have gone so wide I could lose myself in them, but the wax-pale shade of her face sends a jolt of panic through my veins.

Is she hurt? Did the bastards?—

I try to ask, but the pain searing through my abdomen seems to have stretched to my throat. All I manage to do is croak, “Ivy.”

“I’m here,” she says, her voice quavering, and the pain in my side sharpens. Her other hand is pressing against the worst spot—fuck, it hurts. “Do you think you can walk at all? There are more Order members coming—we have to get you out of the way?—”

A rotund figure appears at the edge of my vision, standing over us. His voice comes out in a rough baritone. “He protected my son. I’ll protect him, as well as I can.” He motions to the boy. “Sebias, here, we need to get this man inside.”

More hands grasp my shoulders, my thighs. As they heft me into the air, the blaze of agony knocks the breath from my lungs.

That fucking asshole ramming into me from out of nowhere—I should have been watching my surroundings more—first fucking rule of combat?—

My back jars against a tiled floor. Ivy is babbling thank yous to the man whose shop we’ve intruded on.

“It’s the least we could do,” he says, sketching the gesture of the divinities with a shaky hand. “Take whatever you need to stop the bleeding. I don’t know how else to help. Sebias, let’s clean that scrape of yours.”

Their footsteps shuffle away. Ivy’s still here, leaning over me.

The pain clenches around my lungs, stabbing deeper as I haul in a breath.

“Stavros,” Ivy says, sounding choked, “you’re bleeding so much. It’s deep. I don’t think I can stop it like this.”

She’s so upset. Terrified. I’ve seen that emotion in her before, but this time she isn’t afraid of me but for me.

We’ve come that far. I could laugh at the wonder of it, but I can barely suck enough air into my chest to grunt.

Ivy strokes her hand over my hair and cheek. Her fingers are shaking. “What do you want me to do?”

Something clicks in my head through the hazing of my thoughts. She’s afraid of herself too. Of what she could do.

She’s asking me if she should pour that fathomless, mad magic of hers into me.

My muscles tense automatically as if trying to shut out the very idea. Flickers of Michas’s blood-splattered voice, his screams, whirl through my head.

Riven magic always destroys in the end.

Great God help us, how bad must I look for her to even offer?

I part my lips and focus all my attention on forming my breath into words. “I—I’ll be fine.”

The last word breaks into a groan at a fresh wave of agony. A sob breaks from Ivy’s throat.

We both know I’m lying. A chill is starting to seep through my limbs like nothing I’ve ever felt during any battlefield wound.

My own fear stirs.

I don’t want to go like this. I’m not done.

Ivy bows her head close to mine, her voice falling to a raw whisper. “I promise I won’t do anything you wouldn’t want.”

I stare up at her, her face hazing before my eyes. Sunlight gleams through the window behind her, glowing amber as it passes through her red-blond hair.

Like the golden halo artists give those god-blessed in their paintings and tapestries.

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