No. No. No. No.
The man crumpled at my feet, his eyes frozen wide, dead.
Pain bloomed like fire inside me, my legs buckling as the world tilted and spun. I fell...but not to the ground.
Instead, I collapsed into a wall of muscle, arms coming around me before I could hit the dirt.
I struggled to breathe through the searing agony tearing through my body, but all I managed was to choke on my own blood, my chest heaving, air refusing to come.
My eyes blurred with tears as Amelia knelt over me, her face stripped of its usual mischief, replaced by terror. Her gaze darted between the knife in my stomach and my face, her hands trembling as though she couldn’t decide where to reach first.
“Hey, hey,” she murmured, voice pitched high. “Take a deep breath in.”
That’s not exactly what to say to a dying person, I wanted to tell her, but my lips wouldn’t move.
Above us, the sky roared with thunder.
“It’ll be alright...uhm...” She turned, hitting her brother’s arm. “Merton, do something.”
Her voice sounded distant now, echoing through water. The pain in my stomach was fading—not gone, just muted, as if someone had wrapped me in thick layers of reliever. I didn’t know if I was going numb from too much pain or if there truly wasn’t any left. I’d thought a knife stab would hurt more, but apparently, death was soft, like sinking into solace.
“I can’t do anything. It’s not an ordinary knife,” Merton said from behind or above me, his voice hard.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a ceremonial knife. She probably doesn’t feel any pain but it’s eating her away slowly.”
That’s not exactly what to say to a dying person, I thought again, but the words stayed locked inside me.
Merton was right. The initial stab had been like fire. Now there was nothing. I couldn’t feel pain. I couldn’t feel much at all except the weight dragging me down and the slowing of my own breath. My limbs felt far away, like they didn’t belong to me anymore.
Can Thrax feel this?
The thought cut through the haze, forcing my eyes open.
I hoped not.
“Are you saying she’s going to die?” I could have imagined it, considering my mind state, but I swore I heard Amelia’s voice shake.
Merton didn’t answer. But the silence between them was enough.
I was going to die.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
SANORA
We remained in silence as they watched my life drain out of me.
And all I could think about was how good it would feel if Thrax were here. By my side.
I had cried so many happy tears in the past few days that when I realised I was going to die, my body couldn’t summon another. Even if I had them left, I didn’t have the strength to let them fall.
It was terrifying—death pressing down on me—but I let it sink in. I didn’t fight the realisation anymore.
I was going to die in Nimorran.
I’d thought coming here would give me answers, that it would explain the pull I’d always felt towards this place, that it would finally unravel the questions that had gnawed at me my entire life. And it had. But at a cost—it gave me truth and stole my life in the same breath.
