Before she could strike I reached under my pillow and pulled out the blade I always kept there. She fell into me, and at the same time my hidden blade sank into her shoulder.
Fighting against the dampening rune I gathered all the strength I could muster and threw her off me with a strangled roar. She flew across the room.
In my tortured and half-blind state, I’d reacted like I would to any threat, protecting myself at all costs. Rosaline’s body hit the opposite wall, but rather than sinking to the ground, she stuck there with her toes hovering above the floor.
The blade dropped from her hand, clattering to the stone floor. Her eyes were wide with shock as she slowly lowered her gaze. My own traveled from her face down her body and the blood froze in my veins.
The pointed brass end of the wall mount where I usually hung my sword protruded from her middle, just below her breasts. A bloom of red was already spreading on her white nightgown.
No.
Through the excruciating pain, I pushed myself off the ground and rushed to the wall, still wobbly and feeling like I was treading heavy water. Even though it only took a moment to reach her side, blood already saturated the front of her gown and dripped to the floor.
Ripping the sheet off the bed with shaking, agonized arms, I tried to cover the wound, to stop the blood flow, but it was no use. It was too late.
When I looked up at her I could already see the light dimming from her eyes, but what I read in them was regret.
She tried to say something and a trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth.
“No,” I said, taking her hand. “Hold on. I’ll go find a healer and we’ll fix this.”
I didn’t know what I was saying. Even if the best healer in the world had been standing there with us, he wouldn’t be able to save her. She was a healer in her own right, and knew this was beyond something fixable.
Besides, she had just attacked me, had admitted to only wanting me for my money. Why would I want to save someone who wanted me dead?
But I knew the answer to that. Because I’d loved her. I’d loved her with a depth I didn’t realize I was capable of.
Yet my heart and my head weren’t synced. I knew I wasn’t thinking right. I couldn’t reason correctly through the pain: physical or emotional.
She moved her mouth again and I leaned in, frantic to hear her final words. I so desperately wanted to know that this had all been a horrible mistake,that she regretted attacking me or some blood magic had made her do it, but instead the barely audible words she spoke were, “This should have been you.”
My eyes popped open and I found myself twisted in bedsheets with a layer of sweat drenching my body. I blinked several times, trying to anchor myself in reality after reliving that nightmare.
Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare,I chanted over and over to myself as I tried to wrangle my breathing and heartbeat.
Not a nightmare though. A memory. A flashback. Because everything about that had been real, and I feared I was falling into the same trap again.
It was impossible to calm myself completely, but when the panic dropped to a manageable level I glanced over and spotted the slight form sleeping soundly next to me.
Even knowing it was Aribella and not Rosaline, I was flooded with terror again.
My body moved jerkily as I slipped from the bed and practically tripped to the window, flinging it open to let the fresh air in. I desperately ached for a cold slap against my overheated skin, but unfortunately the temperature never really cooled in my brother’s kingdom, even at night, and so I was hit with muggy warmth instead.
As I stood at the window I gulped the moist air in like I was starving for it. I took in lungful after lungful of it, but no matter how much I inhaled, it didn’t feel like enough.
It was this room, it was stifling. I had to get out.
Trying not to make too much noise I shoved my feet into my boots and threw my shirt on, not bothering with my coat, and stumbled from the room. I didn’t want to wake Aribella, but I felt like if I didn’t get outside immediately, I was going to die.
I tripped down the stairs and staggered through the dining hall we’d been in the night before. When I pushed out the exterior door, practically flinging myself out of the inn, my heart finally stopped feeling like it was going to explode.
Bending over, I braced my hands against my knees and forced myself to take in slow breaths, focusing on inhaling for five counts and exhaling for five counts.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, bent over in the middle of the street, until I was able to straighten again.
Luckily, it was well into the night and there weren’t any fae loitering around. I glanced over my shoulder, tipping my gaze up to the window of the room where Aribella still slept. The slight breeze from the open window caused the curtains to flap inward gently.
My heart sank. I couldn’t do this.
