Page 154 of A Broken Throne of Bronze

Touching my forehead to hers, I cradle her head and rock back and forth. Her hand falls from mine, but I snatch it up again. I clutch her hand tightly, weaving my fingers with hers in desperation. As if the moment I let her go, she’ll vanish before my eyes.

She’s not here.

She’s not even in this realm. Not anymore.

My muscles tense. Grief meets rage, the two thrashing violently inside me. Electricity pulses in and around me, surrounding us in a blue shimmer. I want to throw something, anything. If I could kill Cryssa’s murderers again, and again, and again, I would. But I can’t. So, I open my mouth and scream. I scream the way she did when I locked her chamber door. I scream until my voice runs ragged. Until my throat feels raw.

It’s not enough.

Killing the men responsible for her death isn’t enough.

None of it will ever be enough to quell the wrath swirling inside me.

I shouldn’t have let her come here, I think, sweeping my eyes over the throne room. The grim sight of the carnage I caused is the only thing that meets me, and I turn away. I close my eyes, pressing them shut.

I’d known right from the start how this would end. The moment she insisted we go to the throne room, I’d known right away where this would lead.

How could I have been so foolish?

She would have been so angry with me if I’d stopped her. If I didn’t let her come here. If I’d picked her up, carried her over my shoulder, and left this place. She’d have been kicking and screaming, damning me to hell for getting in her way. Maybe she would have even come to hate me again.

But she would have been safe.

She would have been alive.

That would have been the only thing that mattered. That she walked away with air in her lungs.

Not iron in her chest.

My shoulders shake. That blast of energy when the arrow sank into her heart instead of mine…

Tears flow down my face, and I do nothing to stop them. I don’t need to go beyond High Keep’s walls to know she did it. To know she broke the curse poisoning the land.

She did it.

She saved us all.

But at what cost?

“Why?” I shout, though the walls can’t hear me. “Why her?”

Why her, and not me?

It was my father’s curse. It should have been me who paid the price. Not her.

None of this was hers to bear.

Gritting my teeth, I pull her to my chest and wrap my arms around her. Closing my eyes again, I touch my chin to the top of her head.

When I do, the air around me goes cold and utterly still.

I don’t have it in me to be wary. If there are more humans here to kill me, then I won’t stop them. I won’t fight.

Taking a breath, I open my eyes.

Silence meets my ears. No sounds of movement in the halls. Not even the familiar sensation of air moving through the room. It’s as if time has frozen still.

A warm glow has me squinting my eyes. Then, a dark shadow.

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