Cyrus scoops me up into his arms after he’s regained enough strength. The wounds on his body have closed and begun to scar over. Meanwhile, the adrenaline in my blood is flooded with relief. Washing in the depth of pain from the extent of my injuries. Cyrus rushes me to his bedroom, promising me pain relief through extra dragonblood he has hidden in his bedroom.
When he bursts into his room, several bodies are slumped around the room with the stench of blood wafting over us. He lays me on his bed and rushes over to a painting on the wall. He twists it up counterclockwise, and the wall clicks and shifts back to reveal a pocket of space.
“What?” he growls, then snaps forward, frantically patting down the area.
“What? What is it?” I lift my head to try and peer over him to see what he’s fussing about.
Shaking his head, he plucks up something and runs over to me. After I drink the vial he offers, I sink back into the pillows. “For a moment I thought maybe it wasn’t there since you seemed so flustered.”
He runs a hand over my head. Sighing, his gaze drops. “No, the Blood Ring…it’s…it’s gone. The painting’s frame was dragonfused. The only one who would have had access to it aside from me in my human form…” He slowly slides his gaze over his shoulder, across the room, and stops at the dead soldier on the ground. “Is Devin.”
“Are you sure it was Devin? He came to save Lyra and me earlier.”
“The only other person that knew of the Blood Ring in my room was Lady Bethany. And I killed her,” he admits quietly.
“You…killed her?” I repeat in disbelief, leaning up off my back as strength slowly seeps into my veins. The wounds on my body begin to seal shut.
He sucks in a long, hissing breath and straightens. “Well, the beast did. It was one of the last things I saw before he shut me out completely.”
I grab his hand, squeezing. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
Slowly, he turns his soft white eyes to me.
I whisper, “You are not the beast. And it’s gone now. You won’t ever have to worry about it again.”
His eyes slide away from me to the windows.
Hopeless.
Lost.
Sunken with defeat.
He slips his hand out of mine to grab a pair of loose pants on his loveseat, then tugs them on. “We don’t know that for certain.”
“Do you still sense him?” I ask, swinging my legs off the bed.
He returns and offers me his hands to stand. Eyes immediately hooked on my arm, which had been bloodied, punctured, and battered just moments ago. “No. It’s quiet where he once was. But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
I place my hands in his and stand. His fingers thread through mine as he guides me to the glass doors leading out onto the balcony. We step out onto it. A breeze picks up our hair and ruffles our clothes. Squinting while I hold back my hair with one hand, I scan the castle grounds below. Wishing to see the women escaping.
I can only imagine how breathtaking it used to be from this angle. Because now, it’s barely functioning ruins. Crumbling and tarnished. Overgrown with ivy and moss. Yet, parts of it are still beautiful even in its rundown state.
The breeze dies, and nothing moves.
Not a leaf on a tree, nor a cloud in the sky. Not a group of women slipping through the shadows for their safety. Nor Devin and Lyra.
Not seeing them, not witnessing if any of them made it out alive, drops my shoulders.
“What happened? How is it…” I shake my head, then draw my attention to Cyrus. “It was all an illusion?”
He nods, eyes scanning the horizon. “I suppose the beast really is gone, if the magic is, too.” His hand slips from mine. He walks to the railing, bracing against it. “Devin!” he roars, voice echoing out beyond the castle into the hills. Then his head hangs low. Everything around us falls silent.
Taking a few slow steps toward him, I rest a hand on his bare back. “What does it mean if he took the Blood Ring? If you don’t get it back?”
“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.” He lifts his head, sucking in a breath through his teeth as he straightens and stares out across the endless expanse of castle and mountains around us. “How am I supposed to explain any of this to the council? To the Close Circle?”
“You explain it just as it happened. They can hunt him down, can they not?”
