Page 124 of Bloodguard

I know that voice. Lord Ugeen. That sniveling opportunist.

The troll lifts Father by the spear and holds him up and away. Father straightens his feeble arms, his hands opening and closing as if trying to reach me across the several yards between us. His lips move, and his last words almost break me.I love you.

“Finish him,” Ugeen spits.

An elf appears on horseback, coaxing his steed into a canter, his sword raised high.

It takes a moment.

Just a moment.

For him to swing, and for my father, my hero, to die.

Someone screams. And screams. And screams.

That someone is me.

I break loose from the arms holding me, slowing my pace to a jog as I near Father’s unmoving form.

No. This can’t be right.

Father isn’t— I mean, hecan’t be. This is too impossible to be real.

Father—he isn’t dead. Well, he’s hurt, yes, but I can fix him. I fix people all the time. One of my potions should help. I must figure out which one. It shouldn’t take long. We have time.

Yes, time.

A sob burns through my throat.

Please, let me have more time,withhim,forhim.

I stop short and look around, trying to make sense of how his head lies so far from his body. We almost made it. We almost won. The wagon isn’t far away. I can still reach it. That’s right, reach it. Escape is still possible. We earned it after how hard we fought.

“Father?” I plead as I hold back my tears.

Tears are useless.

“Father,” I say again. “Please. We need you. Giselle and Papa and Neela andme.We need you.”

My eyes sting. No. No crying. Tears arefuckinguseless.

But they fall anyway.

No matter how hard I tell myself that Father isn’t gone.

I leave his body just long enough to retrieve his head and position it with his torso, where it belongs. I stroke the side of his face. His skin is cool. “We’re better together. All of us were always better together.”

Thick fingers clutch my shoulders. Neela is here, her presence all the permission I need to scream.

And I do, until my vocal cords are raw with pain.

Neela kisses the top of my head. Like me, she’s aware the guards have us surrounded. Like me, she doesn’t care.

She lowers her bruised and bloody body beside my father, her arms wrapping around his torso. It’s then I see the hilt of a dagger protruding from the center of her back. “I never had a friend before him,” she says.

“Neela…”

“He chose me,” she continues, her blood saturating the soil. “When no one else would have me.”

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