Page 158 of Sanctuary with Kings

"You can't save them.Ican save them," he choked out.

I turned Excalibur in my hand, my palms sweating. Esther called my name behind me, but I shook my head. I knew this man. I knew his lies and his manipulations.

"No more bargains. No more leeching strength from me or anyone else," I said. I frowned at him, trying to find the creature that crawled through my nightmares, that pinned me behind stone walls and stared at me from shadows.

"They're no better than I am!" he cried out, swelling in the cage of the roots, his face turning red as his hair kept fading to white. "I. Am. A. King!"

I winced as he spat, shouting.

"You were," I said. "You were a king. And you hated the idea that any creature, man or monster, might be stronger than you, more powerful,better. So you clawed your way into their world and broke them down to sit under your boot. But you're a coward, and you're an old man, and you've never understood the first thing about power or people."

Birsha's breaths fell into pants, a grunt of pain sounding, and then a strangled cry as something in the tangle of roots snapped.

"You won't save them!" His eyes were wild, a slight foam of rage around his lips as his jowls sagged.

I took a deep breath and lifted my sword. "I helped keep you alive for long enough. I'll do my best for them too. But this is the end now, Birsha, king of nothing."

You might be condemning Asterion to death, a small hiss sounded in my head. But if I let Birsha live, if I gave him another chance to run, to rebuild himself, I would condemn so many more lives, so many women like me. I knew what Asterion would do, whatneededto be done.

And I believed that I could save the man I loved.

"He underestimated you too," Hazel said from behind me.

Birsha's eyes flashed wide. "Wait—!"

"He did," I said, and then I slashed the blade in my quaking grip forward.

Excalibur was light and smooth in my hand, fashioned to be victorious. With temples and houses falling around the world, Birsha was already at his end and an easy meal for the ambitious blade.

I held the ancient gaze of the man I had never been able to see clearly before now. I stared into Birsha's eyes, even as they turned, as they fell in a tumble to the ground, as they grew pale and opaque, dusty and decaying, dissolving into ash.

"What if he was telling the truth about—" Esther's voice broke, and she stepped to my side as Excalibur grew heavy in my grip.

I swallowed hard. "Birsha doesn't know the first thing about Asterion's strength. It isn't a piece of his body to beeaten. They're alive."

Hazel gasped as the roots gobbled and tore through the remains before us, twisting and tangling and digging through the earth, new life growing up from the ground at a terrifying speed. They rolled over the ground like shallow waves on the seaside, pushing us back, sucking the dust and bone and ashes of Birsha into the dirt to feed their own growth.

"Yews like death," she murmured. "They'll be good guardians."

Evanthia!

I grunted at the shout in my head, stumbling away from the rioting growth. "Here! The others?!"

All fine. We're breaking into the mountain now. Come.Hywel landed in the open field, his body steaming with heat, nose puffing out fresh smoke.He's dead.

"Yes. Yes—He—" I whined, my knees wobbling, salt dripping between my lips as my breath hiccuped. "Hywel," I pleaded.

Hywel's head ducked down as I reached for him. His hot, dry breath burnt away the tears on my face that had fallen without my noticing, and his tongue slipped out between his lips to lick away the ones that came after.

He's gone now,blodyn bach. No more nightmares.

Hywel nudged closer, and I climbed onto his snout, holding the horns on his face and weeping into his scales as my chest throbbed and tore and seamed itself back together.

Share the saddle. I'll fly you back,Hywel offered Hazel and Esther.Quickly, now.

Hywel's flight back to the mountain was gentle, his scales shedding heat to fight off the chilly air of evening.

"I spent half my life in that man's grip," I whispered to Hywel, the fury of grief softening for a moment, turning my body limp and tired.

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