Page 138 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Darkness. A solid wall of pure, unending darkness.

A warm palm loosely clasped her forearm before she could step further. Alora warily glanced over her shoulder as Thalon cautioned, “You must remind him what’s in here.” With his middle finger, Thalon tapped his chest—his heart—twice. “Remind him who he is. Who he’s not.”

Alora squeezed his palm and nodded. Without a word, she turned and focused on the darkness as Thalon reluctantly closed the door.

The room was utterly freezing when shadows swallowed her.

Starlight rippled down her body, making her a walking flame. Those beautiful shadows, heavy with pain and wrath and humiliation, danced like they were the night sky and she was the star it had called its own. Every brush against her stars and flames like a plea, an answer to something they had so desperately longed for, for so long, that only their powers could break.

Smokeshadows led her forward over the wooden floor teeming with broken things. A wall of shadows stopped her path when she stumbled, only opening for her in one direction when she moved on. Through the star-kissed glow of her flames, she recognized shattered pieces of marble, crystal, bloody shards that were once statues of Magnelis.

Was that the staircase? It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Chunks of it were scattered around, along with the silver railings.

She imagined this to be what battlefields looked like, only, instead of blood, it was memories slain.

The watery slap of her boot crunched broken glass.

Unless the windows had been blasted out on the level above and hurled across the foyer, she was at the fountain below. And by her next step into a pool of water, she realized shewasand waded through the shin-high pool to where she felt Garrik’s presence reaching for her.

She willed her starlight brighter. The shadows opened …

Alora sunk to her knees like she’d been struck by a critical blow, soaking her leathers.

Garrik’s face …

He was under there somewhere.He had to be. The magic consuming him… Under the black veins marbling his skin so terribly that he was nearly covered in black. Soulless eyes didn’t move—didn’t flinch—as she raised her hands and cupped his cheeks.

“Sweetheart.” Barely recognizing her voice.

But he didn’t move. Just stared at a shred of canvas soaked in the pool in front of them.

A shadow gathered beside him, taking the form she had met in her tent. A coil of it formed a hand and brushed his face. They were attempting to stir him, too. To get his focus to leave that horrible picture of Magnelis staring up at him with as little heart and soul as what captured Garrik’s eyes. On the wall in front of him, Garrik’s mother was perfectly preserved and untouched. The faeling in her arms … nowhere to be found.

Turning to the shadow, Alora couldn’t see its eyes but knew its attention was fixed on her as she pleaded, “Get him out of here.”

She didn’t question how smoke felt solid. How shadow and ash and clouds whorling could grab hold of her.

Darkness unfurled and climbed up their legs. And before it carried them away, she saw the foyer engulfed, returned to everything it was before. Not a trace of devastation remained.

The momentthe shadow closed the door behind them, Garrik slid to the ground. Still in a rage daze, he stared, unblinking, propped against the wall. As if he wasn’t seeing the couches, the fireplace, not even the rain pelting the window of Alora’s rooms.

Garrik’s hands were shaking, though. Fisted tightly on the floor beside him—which wasbadbecause they were bruised and bleeding. One looked broken as if he’d punched stone over and over. By the blood-covered marble in the foyer, she didn’t doubt that’s exactly what he’d done.

Alora willed her heart to calm and ran to the bathroom. Shuffling through drawers and cabinets until she found cloth and oils scented like myrrh, lavender, and rosemary.

He was still staring when she knelt beside him and placed a bowl of warm water and oils by his leg. His skin was so frighteningly cold, but the overwhelming blackness marbling his flesh had diminished enough to reveal moon-white skin. She held onto the hope that he was returning to himself. That the effects of thatbitch’smagic were settling and she would soon see ink leave his eyes.

Alora hadn’t realized how much she needed to feel him when the cloth dipped in the water and she took his shackle-scarred wrist. Where she imagined he’d wince or stir from discomfort or pain, he only sat there rigid, stiff.

Alora brushed the cloth over his hand in gentle strokes. Indeed, careful of broken bones and swelling, until not a trace of blood remained.

The shadow lingering at her balcony doors moved closer, and she turned to ask, “Can you heal it?”

It shook its head, slow and precise.

So, she splinted it, surrendered to the healing qualities of Garrik’s High Fae blood to do the rest, and continued on to his other hand. The trembling had stopped now, but how much longer would it be until he returned?

She reeled in every bit of courage to keep from sobbing and tenderly whispered to those vacant eyes, “Take as long as you need in there. When you’re ready … I’ll be right here when you come home. Just, please … come home. Come back to me.”

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