“I’m his bodyguard!” Magdala shouted. “I go wherever he does! Let go of me!”
“You must stay here.”
“LET ME GO!”
Rage sliced through her, and Magdala brought back her elbow, striking the woman in the jaw. She stumbled away, swearing, and Magdala charged up the stairs.
She ran unsteadily through the palace, bumping into walls, leaving drops of blood on sky-blue carpets and handprints on gold-leaf wallpaper. Her head ached like it was pressed in a vise, but she ignored the pain, blinking back the crowding dark. She couldn’t balance on the stairs, so she dropped onto her knees and dragged herself up, hand overhand.
Her mind fixed on Asherton, dead or dying, alone and surrounded by enemies. She’d promised him she wouldn’t leave him. She’d promised him they would bleed together.
She should have shot Huxley when she had the chance. She should at least have threatened him, hired mercenary guards, held Asherton down and refused to let him up those stairs.
Finally reaching the second floor, Magdala staggered to her feet again. Angry voices echoed down the corridor, and before she could reach Asherton’s room, the door burst open and he stumbled out, clutching his left arm against his stomach. His shirt was open, and his body was shiny with sweat and blood. She had never seen him like this—his face dark with rage, his eyes burning.
“Where is she?” he was shouting. “Bring her to me now!”
Magdala’s relief was so potent, her knees buckled. She leaned against the wall and slid to the carpet. He was alive—that was all that mattered.
“Ash,” she called to him.
When he saw her, his face crumpled. “Mags!” he cried, his voice breaking. He ran to her, reaching out his right arm. His left arm was the wrong shape, bent at a sickening angle, the skin a watercolor mottle of magenta and blue.
Attendants tumbled after him, catching his shoulders and trying to pull him back into the room. He shook them off, his face pale, his nostrils flaring.
“You’re hurt,” Magdala panted, but he dropped to his knees in front of her and dragged her into a crushing, one-armed embrace, his hand tangling in her matted hair.Magdala sank into him, clung to him so tightly she tore the seams of his shirt.
“I thought you were dead,” he croaked into her neck. “You wouldn’t wake up. I screamed at you and you wouldn’t wake up.”
She remembered a voice shouting her name. Pleading. She pressed her face into his shoulder and let him squeeze her until she couldn’t breathe.
She sat back so she could inspect him. Blood dripped into her eyes, but she wiped it away. “Ash, you’re hurt.”
“I didn’t know where they took you …” he continued, frantic and disoriented, like he couldn’t hear her. “They wouldn’t tell me where you were …”
“I’m right here, Ash.” She laid her palm against his cheek, closing her other hand over the back of his neck. “I’m here with you, like I said I would be. Where you go, I go, and I’m right here.”
An attendant gripped her arms and tried to pull her away.
“No!” she cried, clinging to him. She would not leave him again. Never. They couldn’t make her.
“GET OFF HER!” Asherton bellowed. He shoved the attendant aside and then helped Magdala to her feet with one arm. Leaning on one another, they stumbled back to the bedroom and sank onto Asherton’s bed. The world spun, and Magdala worried she might vomit. She turned her face into Asherton’s chest, and he laid his open hand on the side of her head, pressing her against him.
“Ash.” Zephyr appeared out of the mist, the physician’s head bobbing anxiously over his shoulder. “You need to be attended to …”
Asherton’s voice sounded far away. “Her first.”
“We must see to you first,” the physician said nervously. “It’s the royal protocol.”
“To hell with the royal protocol! You will see to her first!”
“But Your Majesty …”
“Have you all forgotten who I am? I am the king of Allagesh, and I will not be ignored! HER. FIRST.”
“No, Ash,” Magdala moaned. With a rush of dread, she remembered stories of soldiers mortally wounded in battle who held onto life until their wives or lovers came to them, and then they gave up and died. Was she certain he hadn’t been shot or punctured a lung? What if a shard of shrapnel pierced him and he was silently bleeding inside?
The curse. It was the curse.
