Page 105 of Magick and Lead
He’s gone, Dear Heart.
“No!” I snarled.
Charlie’s words came back to me.I’ll die for you, if I have to. Would that be enough?
I shook my head, buried my face in my hand.
“Well,” a voice behind me said.
Alarm prickled through me. There was danger in that voice. In a blink, I was on my feet, sword in hand.
A man in a black suit approached me. Five other identically dressed men followed in his wake, along with someone I recognized, a pretty woman with short blonde hair.
Kitty.
Seven or eight armed soldiers came behind them, making a semicircle around us. Othura crouched, a low, warning growl in her throat.
“Well,” the man in the front said again, his eyes moving between me and Charlie. “It appears the mighty ace has fallen at last. And just when the battle was getting interesting.”
Careful,Othura said in my mind.He’s a blooddrinker. All the ones in suits are.
But careful wasn’t something I was remotely interested in being. Rage and grief welled up in me like a geyser, and there was nothing I would have loved more than to take those feelings out on someone. But the blooddrinker—vampyre—as we humans called them—didn’t come any closer.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Langford, of the Special Intelligence Bureau,” he said, showing me a badge.
“Are you responsible for this?” I demanded, pointing to Charlie.
The man’s expression didn’t change. “The Lords of the Void control all things. All of us are merely their puppets. Even you.”
“I’m no one’s puppet,” I spat. “And Charlie was?—”
Was. I’d said the wordwas. My throat closed up; I could say no more.
“The Lords of the Void wish to congratulate you,” the blooddrinker went on. “You accomplished what you came here for. You came to kill Charlie Inman. He’s dead. They say it is a great accomplishment. It shows resolve far beyond what anyone thought you were capable of. It shows you will be a great queen.”
I’ll send you to the void,I wanted to shout.I’ll send you to the lowest pit where the screams of the Thousand Terrors will echo in your ears for eternity.But my mouth would not move. My face seemed frozen, along with my heart, my mind, my soul.
“Now go. The Lords of the Void bid you return to Maethalia,” the vampyre said. “You’re free to go. Your people need you.”
He was right, my people did need me. I knew it. I should take this mercy and run. But how could I go? My eyes driftedback to Charlie. He couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead. Our story couldn’t end this way. It was impossible.
And yet… a dragon stone might protect a rider from flames, but it did not give life to a person with no breath, nor quicken one whose heart no longer beat. It could not bring a person back to life. And no living person could be as cold and still as this…
I approached Charlie, my boots whispering through the ash, and knelt again. This would be the time to cry. That’s what a normal girl would have done, a girl who wasn’t completely broken. But my eyes felt as dry and hot as the embers raining down around us. My face, as frozen and still as Charlie’s—Gods, that handsome, beautiful face…
He's not dead,I thought again.He can’t be.
But he was. There was no denying the truth that lay right in front of me. He was dead. And I’d let him die.
From what seemed a million miles away came sounds. Shouts. Monstrous shrieks. The boom of a cannon. Thetat-tat-tatof gunfire—coming closer.
Essa, we have to go.Othura said in my mind.There’s nothing more we can do here…
But there was something. There was one last thing. I could say the words I’d should have spoken to Charlie a thousand times. The truth I’d been afraid to admit these past few days, even to myself. I owed him that, at least. So, I bent slowly and placed my lips to his cold forehead.
“I love you, Charlie,” I said.
