Tears ran down his face, rushing harder at the thought that he never took the time to cherish what he had. And now it was too late.
Hunching over her, Dominic nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, as if his warm embrace could bring her back. He took her cheeks in trembling hands, angling her head to face him.“I hate you.”His broken whisper was barely audible through cracked sobs. He waited for her snarky response.
But of course, there was only silence.
Rage and sorrow and grief sluiced through him, sending tremors sliding along his bones. His fingers curled in her dark hair, gripping the soaked strands tighter. “I hate you . . .” he said through the ache in his chest. “Ihateyou . . . for leaving me,” he seethed through his cries. For coming to Andreilia and proposing a war of hearts and a suicide search for the Realm Fracturer, leaving both unfinished. For smiling at him like he was all she needed and making him think he was finally enough. For making him crazy enough to fight for her every second of every day. For making him wish this bloody war of hearts didn’t even exist and that her key belonged to him . . . and his to her.
It felt like his chest was cracking apart. Like that gaping hole where his heart was supposed to be expanded and dragged his lungs down into the abyss, pulling him down with it.
The lifeless body in his arms abruptly shot up. Water spurted from Adara’s mouth as she leaned to the side, coughing the ocean up from her lungs. Dominic’s breath hitched. His hands trembled as he hastily wiped the tears from his face. Tentatively, he reached out to touch her. He needed to feel that this was real. That Adara was truly alive, and it wasn’t some image conjured from his imagination.
Dominic’s fingers grazed the back of her shoulder, and she weakly collapsed into his arms. Relief flooded him at her feeble movements, his breaths quivering and his pulse slowing. Adara’s back lay against his chest. The heavy rise and fall of her chest reassured him that she was truly here. Alive. Those gorgeous sapphire eyes found his, and he took every moment he could to memorize them, admiring the way her irises shimmered like dancing flames that burned the hottest blue. Her lips parted, and oh, how badly he wanted to press his mouth to them, to feel her reassuring breaths.
A fractured laugh racked her body. “I think you broke my ribs,” she muttered through wheezes.
A collective exhale from the Andreilians sounded across the deck.
“Better to have broken ribs than to be dead!” Asher exclaimed from somewhere behind Dominic.
Adara’s fingers laced with his. Something slick and smooth pressed to his palm as her hand slid away. His fingers curled around the object, hiding it in his clutches. It was flat, hard like a stone. Lines creased his brow, eyes narrowing on her. A gentle smile curved her lips, and she nodded toward his hand. He slowly unfurled his fingers.
A glistening blue dragon scale lay in his palm.
The fourth out of the five relics they needed to forge the Realm Fracturer.
Whoops and hollers ruptured the silence, the others suddenly alive with enthusiasm. “Looks like we’re calling this shipThe Flamecarriernow!” Caleb yelled in triumph.
That earned another broken laugh from Adara. Dominic didn’t have the energy to celebrate, but a broad smile spread across his face. He pulled Adara closer, careful of her injuries, and breathed her in, holding on tight before he could fall apart.
Chapter 53
Sunlightpiercedtheveilof black that was her eyelids, forcing her eyes to blink open in a haze. Adara groaned at the sharp pain that pierced her chest when she sat up, her cracked ribs protesting the movement. She relished the pain, a reminder that Dominic had dove into the Plagued Sea and brought her back to life.
Wood creaked as the ship rocked on gentle waves. Adara stumbled when she stood from the cot, her left leg throbbing, and caught herself with a hand on the wall. The vast blue of the ocean was all that could be seen through the porthole. Nopirates, no lykrens. Memories came flooding back, and Adara hurriedly lifted her shirt—which someone must have changed because it was no longer stained with blood and shredded to pieces—to expose her stomach. She breathed a sigh of relief, lungs straining to expand as her ribs yet again ached. The lykren had sunk its teeth into her, yet it appeared all that remained of its acidic venom was a mass of mangled, blistered red skin. A pail sat next to her bed, filled with some odious dark liquid she only assumed was her vomit as her body purged the lykren blood she’d swallowed. Her muscles burned with each step she took, but she wasalive.
She smiled to herself in the empty cabin. Dragons, apparently, could withstand lykren blood.
That smile faded all too quickly. Her strides lengthened as she thought of the others. Adara had managed to slay the most ferocious creature in the sea, Hel, theworld, other than dragons, of course. But no one remembered those existed since Blemythia was gone, but she had no clue if her friends had managed to escape unscathed.
She ignored the aches and pains and straining muscles, as she made her way to the main deck. Bodies shuffled about, adjusting the rigging, passing out rations, steering the ship as wind filled its unfurled sails. There seemed to be a gloomy cloud that followed their sluggish movements.
“Look who’s finally awake!” Asher greeted, jogging over to her and tugging her into his embrace.
“There’s our badass Flamecarrier that not onlysurviveda lykren butkilledone!” Caleb’s wide grin was a flash in her peripheral before his arms were around her, too.
She wrapped her arms around them but didn’t respond with the same fervor. Her eyes scanned every single Andreilian bustling about the ship. Two faces, she noted, were missing. Herheart stuttered in her chest, lungs struggling to take in a full breath.
“Dominic?” she asked, pulling away from Asher and Caleb.
“He’s fine,” Caleb said with a dismissive wave, but that did nothing to quench her worries.
“Asleep in the captain’s quarters,” Asher confirmed, easing her concerns. “He’s got a deep cut across his abdomen, but Vesper stitched him back up. You’ve been out for a few days, and he’s been reluctant to leave his room.”
Adara nodded, swallowing the lump of dread in her throat. “And Silas?” she asked.
Asher and Caleb exchanged a dismal expression that told her all she needed to know. Her legs threatened to give out, and Asher placed a gentle hand on her arm, thumb stroking over her skin.
“He’s—”
