Then, everything around me blinked out into a void of nothingness.
Chapter 67
Sybilla
Iwoke to the smell of spiced cologne and smoke, feeling more sore than I’d ever experienced.Could I move?
I tried to run my hand over my face, but found my arm constricted in a sling. I winced.At least the grime of the arena was gone.
Someone had dressed me in a nightgown and tucked me into familiar divinely soft silk sheets.
I felt his presence.
Turning my head was painful. I did it anyway to watch Krait sleep in a chair beside our bed in Umber House.
He had cleaned himself up, too. There was a furrowed line in his brow as though he’d not left the battle in the pit behind him. My heart sank as I realized therewassomeone we had left behind in the amphitheater.
Visions of my silver-haired friend glowing, levitating, hit me. That was before…The next memory nearly made me choke.
“Krait,” I croaked out and pushed up onto my good elbow. I needed to hold him—needed to know he was really there.
His smoky, iron eyes snapped open, and the lines in his forehead softened. “You’re awake.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked. He rose and leaned over to place a glass of water to my lips, making me drink before he’d answer.
“A couple of days,” he finally said. He sounded as though those were the first words he’d spoken in just as many days. Knowing him, they might have been.
Tears ran before I could say anything more, and when I reached out and grabbed his shirt, he softened and slipped beneath the sheets to hold me. I clung to him with my good arm, not wanting to face the day, not wanting to understand the gravity of what had occurred, not wanting to hear what, or who, else we may have lost.
As though sensing my concern, he smoothed the curls away from my temple. “Everyone else made it out.”
“Everyone else is safe?”
He nodded, but his expression seemed guarded.
I shoved my face into the space between his neck and shoulder, breathing him in. We lived, so many did not. “He killed themall...All the civilians of Sahlmkar.”
He hummed sadly. “They will be memorialized. The people of Sahlmkar long ago promised themselves to Death’s bidding...As I told you, they were not bad people. They placed their faith in a cruel Origin.”
I sobbed into his shoulder and said through the tears, “I tried to get to Ryn. I should have gotten there quicker. I could have stopped him.” The image of my friend’s body turning to dust made my stomach twist and nausea build. During our last interaction, we’d been short with each other. I’d taken that time for granted.
He squeezed me tighter and kissed me on the top of my head. “Don’t do that. There is only one person to blame.”
Meeting his gaze, I whispered, “Is Caym gone?”
Krait offered me a sad smile. “Yes. For now. It seems you aren’t so shit with a sword anymore.”
Choking back a weak laugh, I shook my head and said, “I got lucky.”
Isleen’s words haunted me.Stop. Not kill.How would the Death Origin come to rise again? It couldn’t be predicted by any prophecy. We’d reached the end of those pages unless another scribe stepped forward.
I winced against the pain in my ribs.
His jaw tightened as he ran a hand through my hair and gently brushed my temple with his lips. His eyes stayed closed, and he rested his forehead against mine. “Youdidget lucky. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking failure wasn’t an option. I saw a way to stop Caym from taking this city, and others, and that seemed worth dying for. Lymrasi said at all costs.”
He shook his head against my forehead. I raised my good arm to take a fistful of his hair and brought his lips to mine in feverish gluttony. Having him here with me was the only thing tethering me to this reality—the one where Death had risen, where I’d stopped him, where we’d lost a friend and had nearly lost another city.
