She swallowed hard.
She’d closed a breach once before—the small tear by the castle gate. Maybe she could force this one shut long enough to figure out her next move.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Necessary.
Her body moved before doubt caught her. She stepped toward the seam and lifted her hands, reaching not for her flame but for the trembling threads within the split.
I have to patch it. Just long enough.
The breach surged toward her, darkness and smoke leaching out of the seam and slamming into her with enough force to drive her to the ground. Sprawled across the broken marble, she realized the threads were fighting her, forcing her back. She rose to her knees, searching for a tighter hold. The threads shimmered, tugging against the breach. She begged them to let her seize them, but every tug scraped her own flesh raw.
“Hold,” she whispered, to herself or to the tear in the Veil. She couldn’t tell.
Her father’s voice rang out across the chaos, barking orders as he drove the last of the guards from the hall, forcing them to flee for their own lives while he stayed behind. He was utterly exposed now.
Fuck. She couldn’t lose her father too.
The dais buckled beneath her knees. The breach widened.
If she could hold a little longer, reinforcements might reach the hall. But if she kept pushing herself like this, she’d reach burnout, fatal if pushed past the breaking point. If she died here, it would be an honorable death—queen for less than an hour and yet trying to save Orchid with all the strength she had left.
She poured everything into the threads that scraped her hollow from the inside. Heat built behind her eyes until her vision blurred. Something wet slipped from the corner of her eye down to her jaw. Sound thinned into a high, needling ring over the widening tear. Bitter smoke coated her tongue—resin, ash, and iron.
Jakobav turned. His eyes found Ella and stilled, and whatever he saw there made him move.
“Ella!” His voice thundered across the space between them, raw and absolute as he ran.
Ella’s body shook with effort. Her Threadwalking power wasn’t working—her sigil tattoo flared weakly and guttered out.
Then her power fizzled out entirely, her body collapsing.
Fuck. I burned myself out. All for nothing. I’m going to die here.
Her knees slid on grit. Jakobav reached her as the hall doubled and blurred, her father’s face wavering through heat and tears.
“I can’t hold on,” she rasped, the words tearing the sore place in her throat.
She sagged into Jakobav’s arms, a small, brittle laugh catching on the way out.
“The prophecy,” she whispered, half-mocking and half-broken. “Crowned under the red sun. What a joke. All of this, and nothing to show for it.”
With each breath, she was letting go.
His arms tightened around her and refused to yield.
“Do not let go. That is an order.”
Her tears came harder, burning down her cheeks.
“I cannot,” she sobbed.
She wiped her face and stared at the liquid on her hand—bright scarlet, not clear like water.
Blood tears.
