Page 64 of A Kingdom of Shadows

He no longer cares for the stone as he swears, and I notice the strain in his jaw as he swallows. Pulling back his sleeve, he goes to bite down on his wrist, but I'm desensitized, not wanting to heal right now as I stand and walk past, staring at the ice walls around me. Everything feels too small, too tight, too much.

"Where is he?" I hear Darius ask, but even with his low tone, I can tell he has realized. "Nara," he whispers, the ache reaching my ears. "Tell me."

My eyes screw shut, and the moment the Tibithian fell replays in my mind like the most torturous nightmare.

When Darius repeats my name, I whirl to look at him. "You really want to know?" My voice raises, my body fires up, and I'm suddenly untethered.

His eyes are serious as he attempts to walk over, to console me, but before he can, I whisper, "I couldn't save him."

And then I can't hold it any longer.

For the first time in so long, I burst into tears.

Darius's expression crumbles. Pain, sadness, worry, and so much more strike his gaze as I weep profusely before him.

"To think, all my life, I knew what I wanted, and I had it just for a brief moment," I say through gasps. "I thought I could find some sort of justice for my father. I thought I could hate dragons the way I wanted to for so long. But no." I shake my head, and the lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow. "Instead, I met Lorcan. I met you, the general, the queen."

Darius shakes his head, walking toward me like nothing else matters. I look at him and wipe each tear as I continue, "I believed she was protecting our land. I thought what she was doing was good, but she made me weak. She used me and then made me do things I wish I never had."

My lips quiver as I fight so hard to gain control.

I can't. I'm spiraling.

"I thought for once I belonged somewhere, but I never did." I'm trembling. I'm hurting. "I never have."

"Nara, please—"

"And then she wanted me to prove my loyalty!" Despite my abrupt laugh full of hysteria, I slowly hunch over, clutching my chest as I break out into a wet sob. "And then she made me kill a dragon."

Darius's hands come toward me, but I shake them away as I wipe my cheeks. It doesn't matter to him; he still yanks me into his arms as I thrash and cry out, "No—no, I killed her, I stabbed her in the heart, I—I—" My sobs become muffled as he holds me against his chest, whispering comforting words. I'm letting every part of me out, every single emotion I've kept to myself from what happened in Emberwell up until now.

His hand brushes my back as I clench my fist around the fabric of his clothes. My shoulders shake, and my weeping turns into silent ones. I can't feel my legs, and if Darius's arms weren't around me, I know I would fall. I would collapse here and want to stay until everything else disappeared.

He draws back for a moment, clutching my face in his hands. His thumbs brush my damp cheeks, and he looks at me like I'm his life and death in one. "She did not make you weak; do you hear me?"

I'm trying to blink past my tears, but they fall. Fall. Fall.

"You never gave up." His voice has such conviction that every thread of determination forces its way through me. "You did everything to protect your brothers, save me. Hell, you're here now doing everything in your power to save Zerathion."

"But I couldn't save the Tibithian back there," I gasp through tears. "I couldn't save the dragon... I couldn't save Lorcan." My voice breaks at his name, my eyes cascading with the heavy ache of my chest as I blink enough to see the torment in Darius's eyes—torment and heartbreak that shrouds his worry.

"There are times when you have no choice other than to watch life slip away, but I'll be damned if you believe even for a second that it could be your fault. I'm with you, Goldie, through the good and the bad. You can hate me, push me away, but I will always do anything in my power to take any bit of pain you feel away from you."

I'm nodding, trying to purge this agony out of me.

See this?" He grabs my right hand, pushing down my thumb and pinky so the rest stays up. "Place them on your heart."

Not wanting to ask questions, I place the three fingers against my heart and feel the fast rhythmic drumming.

"Remind yourself of these three things—" Darius holds his gaze with mine "—that you're here, you have a purpose, and you cannot and never will be daunted."

The burning pain in my chest subsides as I repeat in my head that I am here.

I have a purpose.

I cannot and never will be daunted.

Darius pulls me toward him again, my head lying on his chest as we stay in this embrace for a while, and I listen to his heartbeat as if it were my music, my salvation.

---