“A cure has been found.”
Before Ayla could finish processing exactly which cure had been found, the Queen moved her hand, and a being appeared next to the goddess. Ayla recognized the sound of a gasp, the innocent presence of someone very familiar, and her heart split.
Nina ran to her. She caught Ayla’s arm in both hands, whispering her name as if it were a prayer. “Hold on. Hold on, Ayla.” She pressed a crystal vial into her palm.
It felt too easy. Too convenient. Too impossible for Nina to be here. Was the Queen playing with Ayla’s mind? Had she lost the ability to think without her interference? In that case, she was done. For good.
Without thinking twice, she whispered, low enough so the Queen couldn’t hear. “What did you tell me after I introduced you to my family?”
She felt Nina’s shock in her halt. “Why… I said, What a strong Ruler you will be.” Nina swallowed, then added in a whisper, “It’s me, Ayla—Nina. Your little dove.”
The reassurance was vital, even if the terror of realizing Nina was in the grasp of the Queen was ever-increasing. Had Indianna truly managed to find a way to get rid of the Queen’s intrusive ink in another person’s body?
“Is it true?” Ayla asked, voice low, leaning towards Nina’s body, feeling her close, grounding. “The cure worked?”
“My hair is completely white. Her ink is gone,” Nina confirmed.
Ayla pursed her lips. The Queen was letting Nina move freely, unconcerned. She hated knowing the goddess was too sure neither of them was a threat. She hated feeling her body restrained from free movement. She wanted to hold Nina, embrace her, protect her. She couldn’t. The realization of how doomed they were hit even harder when the Queen urged, “Drink the cure, Ayla Brachyan.”
Damning the Queen of Cardinals, Ayla drank because she was forced to, her arms following the orders that didn’t belong to her. As she ingested the liquid, she felt the black ink in her veins starting to vanish.
She gasped, feeling the ink disappearing as the cure worked, bleeding out of her veins as her muscles uncoiled. Control trickled back into her limbs. She drank every drop until the vial was empty.
But Ayla knew. There was only one reason the Queen would free them from her ink—if she had no intention of letting them leave alive.
She inhaled Nina’s scent and exhaled deeply.
It was now or never.
To voice the truth, or die with it.
She concentrated on Nina’s touch, still holding her arm with both hands, on the frantic rhythm of her breath. She was the only being who mattered.
“The moment I saw you, lightning struck my heart,” Ayla said, voice breaking on something too long buried. “You were the light I missed, the force I was yet to discover. I love you, Nina. I love you with all my heart.” The words left her like a breath she’d been holding for an eternity.
She felt Nina smile, tears trembling on her eyelashes. She brushed a strand of hair from Ayla’s face, then pressed her palm to her chest. “Thank you for loving me. For letting me see. For letting me feel. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for letting me love you before I even knew I did.”
“There isn’t a world in which I wouldn’t have loved you, little dove.” Ayla’s chest ached so fiercely she feared her heart would stop. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your soul is too bright for this world.”
The Queen’s laughter shattered the moment. Sharp, cruel, inevitable.
“Isn’t it just?” she hissed, clapping once. The sound cracked through the Temple like a whip. “Let me change that right now.”
Before Ayla could acknowledge the precious time she had missed by talking instead of confronting the Queen, black crystal shackles closed around her wrists. Crystal shackles clamped around Nina’s wrists. Nina screamed, her body jolting as a searing pain ripped through their arms.
Ayla hissed, feeling the needles inside the shackles bite her skin, injecting fresh black ink.
“Where is your cure now?” the Queen sneered. “Foolish beings, playing with powers you cannot comprehend. You are worthy of death.”
Then, the black ink surged through Ayla’s veins, flooding her chest, her mind, her heart. Her body betrayed her, collapsing to the floor. A thud answered hers—Nina’s knees hitting stone.
With the last of her strength, Ayla crawled, inch by inch, until her back pressed against Nina’s. Nina arched her back into her, desperate for contact, for closeness against the void.
“Together,” Nina sobbed, voice breaking.
Ayla clung to the word. Just one word. The last word Nina gave her. After that came only broken gasps, until silence took her.
“Til our last breath,” Ayla whispered.
