Page 139 of What Blooms from Death

“…Are you okay?”

He blinked, smiling softly at me, as though he’d just woken up. “I’m fine,” he said, handing me the blade.

Odd, I thought. But I was too focused on what awaited me outside the room to think about much else.

I finished securing the knife back in its embroidered leather sheath, then forced myself to make my way to the door—though I stopped short of reaching for the handle.

Aleksander followed, wrapping his arms around me from behind, pressing his face into my hair and breathing comforting warmth over the curve of my neck. “We’ll figure everything out,” he promised.

I somehow managed a nod.

It was only after I’d left and started making my way down the hallway that the strangeness of his moment with the knife truly struck me—along with a potential explanation for it.

He hadn’t been able to see anything when we’d tried working our magic on this very same knife yesterday. But if I knew anything about this man, he’d likely spent the whole night trying to perfect this spell that had eluded him. Likely the whole morning, too.

Had he managed to uncover a glimpse of the future in that knife?

It was the only explanation I could think of for that horrified look that had briefly crossed his face.

But what had he seen?

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nova

I didn’t makeit far before I heard a scream.

It was such a sharp contrast to the blissful quiet and peace I’d experienced in Aleksander’s bedroom that it took my mind a moment to accept what it was hearing, to jolt me entirely back into the reality of the world and wars I was now a part of.

Following the scream—and the rising babel of other voices that followed it—led me to the bedrooms where Rowen and Farren had been staying, which stood across from one another in the hallway running perpendicular to Aleksander’s chambers.

The doors to both rooms were open. Servants and guards rushed back and forth between them, hurriedly exchanging words and harried looks. I caught a glimpse of a bloody blanket wrapped in the arms of one of the servants. Another left a trail of scarlet footprints in her wake.

Chaos further enveloped the space as I stepped into it, my arrival drawing multiple gazes. Heads bowed. Bodies shrank away in uncertainty. Most voices dropped to a whisper, but they were joined by the voices of more arriving onlookers, and so the overall clamor in the narrow hall grew louder still.

The frantic march between the rooms continued. Several people were soon calling for someone to fetch my brother, their voices booming to be heard over the panicked chatter.

There was so much noise that I didn’t realize Aleksander had joined me until I felt his hand press against the small of my back. I knew it was him, even without turning around, as there was magic in his touch—a warm burst of comforting light amidst the mayhem. It sank into my skin, briefly transporting me back to the moment where I’d rested in his bed, wrapped in the warmth of his arms.

Had that really only been minutes ago?

The warmth didn’t last.

Before I could find my voice and demand answers from any of the people before me, Zayn strode furiously from one of the rooms, his hand tightly gripping the sword hanging from his belt. He looked as though he was considering unsheathing it and silencing everyone around us with a few precise swings.

I’d never seen him look so upset.

Aleksander stepped away from me, cutting his cousin off before he could do anything drastic. He held tightly to Zayn’s arm, speaking in a low voice, trying to calm him down; it took several moments before Zayn seemed to realize he was even there.

While the two of them discussed something in the language of their own kingdom, I gathered my courage and walked numbly toward one of the open rooms.

Worried expressions followed my every movement, but no one tried to stop me.

The room was dark, lit only by a lamp in the connecting washroom that spilled a weak glow into the space. Two candelabras were lying on the floor, along with an assortment of other objects that looked to have been knocked from the top of a dresser. The room smelled of wax and smoke…

And blood.

Making my way around to the other side of the bed, I quickly found the source of that sharp, metallic scent: a body. Its throat had been slashed wide open. The face was horribly mangled, but after a moment of staring, I managed to make out a familiar pair of eyes, wide open with the haunting, unseeing gaze of the dead.

---