Nothing was happening.
The rising beat in my chest, nowthatI felt. Where was I? Where had I been? A foggy haze blurred the memories I tried recalling.
Until she appeared.
I saw her, that vicious little vigilante with a freckle beneath her eye. She gave me a smile so wide my lungs nearly burst. Her outfit wasn’t her usual garb, no tight fitting black to be seen. She stood before me, radiant in white and silver. The memory opened up further, and we stood before a room of witnesses.
Married. We had been married. Nora had become my queen. The next scene of her fell before my mind, her dressed in one of her silky nightgowns that left little to the imagination, but her face was down trodden. She couldn’t come with me.
A trip. I was making a trip to the new settlement in Solei. We’d been traveling for days until we made it to the inn. I’d been on my way to eat when…That’s where the recollection ended.
They hadn’t killed me, and as I shifted again, I noticed the restriction around my wrists. Bound behind my back. My back, that leaned against a wall. My legs fought the weight that filled them. Tied at the ankles, too.
I took in a deep, slow inhale, the act letting me know I was resuming some semblance of bodily control. My mouth tasted bitter beyond being utterly dry. Drugged. The effects were fading, and my cognition increased with each passing second. My eyes were open now, confirmed by the faintest light between the wooden slats of a wall. Some sort of shed if I had to guess, based on the construction and musty, earthy aroma clogging my nostrils.
Voices approached. With no leverage or weapon in hand, I closed my eyes and slumped against the wall. The doors creaked open.
“Wake him,” a woman ordered.
Someone came near. Then water that doused my entire upper body, cold and unforgiving, shocking my system. My eyes opened wide of their own volition as I gasped.
“Well well, if His Majesty is finished his beauty sleep.” A massive, dark silhouette of a man towered over me.
I said nothing while trying to focus my vision on the two figures before me. My wrists strained against the knots that held them, working slowly to loosen the bindings.
“This is nothing personal, Your Majesty. We just can’t abide letting cursed men and women taint our lands. This is selfpreservation. History will remember you for being a great king, and your death will sound as a warning to the world that we are a people who will survive. We won’t be put in danger again. As a leader, I hope you can respect that,” the mystery woman said.
Before I even had time to respond, the woman gave a commanding nod to the man. In a smooth movement, his stride not hesitating, he unsheathed a dagger that briefly glinted from the faint moonlight beyond the door.
Panic swept over me like the assaulting force of an ocean wave.
I kicked to no avail, still held tightly together by something heavy. I hadn’t made enough progress with my hands. The man reared back his elbow, then thrust with no mercy and pierced my abdomen until the blade seated fully to the hilt.
A brutal wave of sharp agony splintered my vision, and just as quickly as he’d stabbed me, he swiftly withdrew the dagger. Blood soaked through my clothing in an instant, clinging to me with a deathly chill. It poured out of me in vicious spurts, and I couldn’t even hear my own gasps through the sharp ringing in my ears.
“I’ll keep the kingdom safe,” the woman said softly with no degree of remorse before turning on her heel and walking out. The man wiped the bloody dagger against his side and followed her out, shutting the door behind him, trapping me in darkness once again.
My organs wailed in pain while the blood spread with haste. Breathing became difficult, each inhale going against the order of my body to minimize the pain. Surrounded by darkness, utterly alone, I feared the greeting of death. My thoughts wandered to my beautiful wife, my queen, my partner in crime and justice. I was glad she wasn’t here to suffer the same fate.
I almost welcomed the impending silence until I realized Nora wouldn’t be safe. Whoever these people were, they wanted tooverthrow our leadership. All for the sake of ostracizing magic wielders.
She wouldn’t see the threat coming. No, I couldn’t leave her. Renewed with purpose and shaking off my shock, I echoed Marco’s instruction in my mind. I sank into myself, planting that stream of consciousness inside my body to follow the damage.
Except when I reached for the familiar well of light, there was none. Fighting the dizziness that clutched my mind, I furrowed my brow with concentration.
Nothing. There was no light to reach for, to send to the places that required healing.
A heavy, haunting tiredness wrapped its clutches around me in a strangling hold. No, I wouldn’t give up.
Nora. I had to tell Nora.
Panic and fear ramped up the beat of my heart, only forcing more of my life blood onto the dirt covered ground.
My eyelids fluttered as I fell onto my side. I’d been moving, attempting to crawl my way to my wife. Flashes of her smile radiated in my mind. Moments we’d danced together. Laughed. Sparred. Kissed.
The light of memories flickered, fading into the increasing oblivion. It took every ounce of energy to hold a weak smile, the last words whispering from my lips before I had nothing left to give. “Keep fighting without me,my lady.”
33
