Page 92 of The Cruel Dawn
He smiles. “Is this merely another nightmare? Only one way to know.” He lifts his softening hand—there, on his left finger, sits a silver band with a large blue jewel. He peers at Jadon. “Kill me and you will have the ring.”
“Do it,” Philia shouts at Jadon. “Or I will.”
“You don’t have to die today, brother,” Jadon says, shaking his head. “We can fix it. Fix you. Be a family.”
“It would be best foryouto do it, as family,” Gileon says to Jadon. He then frowns at Philia. “Miasma is supposed to end me, not some bitch with a borrowed bow.”
He turns back to Jadon. “Here you stand, with the power to do one more thing for your little brother.” He chuckles weakly. “Remember playing the hiding game with Mother? We didn’t find her that last time…” His blue eyes, clouded in contemplation of certain death, now brighten with memories. “I miss her.”
Jadon dips his head. “I miss her, too.”
Beaminster is filled with broken people, including this man standing before me.
“Elyn…” I whisper.
“I know,” she says, moving closer to me.
In two steps, Gileon slips behind Philia and holds a stiletto to her throat.
Philia is too startled to shriek, but her eyes bulge with fear as the tip of Gileon’s sharp blade presses against her neck. Her mind twists and screams,“Let me go! Olivia never loved you! I’d kill you if I could.”
“Where will I go after this, Adjudicator?” Gileon asks Elyn. “After I open my eyes, where will I be?”
“Gileon,” Elyn says, “I’m notyourjudge. Your fate is not mine—”
“Tell me where I’m going!”Gileon shouts. “Or I will slit this bitch’s throat. I have nothing to lose, and I can take this whore who stole my fiancée—”
Jadon thrusts his own dagger into Gileon’s decaying neck.
Gileon’s dead blood gurgles around Jadon’s knife like sludge, rather than spurting like that of a vibrant man with a healthy heart. The prince’s blue eyes brighten, grateful for his coming release. His mouth moves, but he can no longer speak.
Jadon catches his brother before he falls, kissing the dead man’s cheek as he slowly lays Prince Gileon Wake onto the rug.
Philia lets out a sob and stumbles over to Separi.
“It’s all right,” the Renrian murmurs, holding the trembling young woman.
Elyn slips the ring off Gileon’s finger. We all leave the tent, allowing Jadon his privacy as he mourns his brother alone.
Even this rotten air is healthier than the air in the tent. Elyn and Separi tend to Philia and me. Both of us are weak from our prolonged exposure to Jadon.
“We can’t take that long again,” Elyn whispers.
The signet ring will unlock WISDOM from theLibrum Esoterica.It holds the answers to everything.Gileon Wake said that. Searching for those answers, though, will take me an age and—
“I’ll read theLibrumas quickly as I can,” Elyn says, catching my thoughts.
Jadon, gray-faced, pushes aside the tent flaps and steps out into the light.
I want to hold his hands and bring them to my own heart, but he’d take my heart—and my life with it. He’s taken so much already.
24
Separi’s not fucking around.
“You could’ve endangered everyone in that tent,” she shouts at Philia. “What if they didn’t want him to know they had theLibrum—?”
“But he alreadyknew,” Philia retorts. “You’re being a—”
