A risk.
But I need to know.
Stretching across the bed, I reach for the tome on my bedside table. It’s crooked spine just wrong enough in my hands to feel right. I brace myself.
What if the magic is too distant now? What if I lost more than I realized? What if the blade—or the trauma—severed something I cannot reclaim?
I open to the ribboned page. The words bloom before me. Clear. Immediate. Meant for me alone. Relief floods me so suddenly it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs. The ink lives. The prophecy speaks. Magic remains.
I clutch the book to my chest for a moment, letting the truth settle.
If the magic is still here, somewhere beneath the rubble of this night, then maybe… maybe everything will be alright.
I begin to read aloud.
The images rise effortlessly. The tone light. Almost frivolous. A small mercy after a day carved by grief. The fate of a farmer blessed after a brutal storm—a story soft enough to carry us. Vale drifts lower against the pillows, his eyes fluttering closed, his breathing evening out at the sound of my voice. I thread my fingers gently through a curl of his hair. A promise. A tether. A reminder that we are alive. That the night hasn’t claimed us whole. And in that fragile, flickering quiet…
For the first time since the attack, hope—small and trembling—finds its way back to us.
Perhaps prophecy can carry promise after all.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The sun shines too cheerily for the night we’ve endured. Snarled muscles ache as I rise from the bed, stretching only tightens the knots further.
Strange fatigue lingers—worry and grief exact a unique toll.
Still wrapped in a robe, Vale speaks to someone just beyond the door, informing the others we will soon be ready, no doubt. By the time we are dressed, Soria and Odrin wait to join us.
We walk the halls in hushed solemnity. The distance to the hospital ward is thick with fear. I do what I can to hold to hope—imagining Ace’s wicked grin, demanding to know what took us so long.
The image vanishes when I see the grim look on the healer’s face. “He remains stable,” he says quietly, “but the wound is not behaving as it should. Healing isn’t merely slow—it seems not to occur at all.” His hushed words shake something inside me.
“Can we see him?” I ask. I know they would not deny Vale and me entry unless they themselves were in the midst of urgent work. The eerie quiet of the ward makes it clear that is not the case.
“He is resting. Still weakened from the strike. I suggest keeping it brief. He may have a long fight ahead of him.”
We fall into place around Ace’s bed. I sit beside him and reach for his hand. It’s icy cold—too near to death, too far from life. I look up at Vale standing behind me, and the same worry washes over his face.
“We’re here, Ace,” I say softly.
His pallor makes me want to weep, but then the faintest squeeze answers my hand. A ghost of a smile lifts where fresh tears threaten to fall. He tries to speak—no doubt something wickedly amusing—but the effort is too much in his frail state.
I keep talking to him anyway. Soothing with my words, my presence. When it becomes clear he has only a wavering awareness, Vale and Odrin confer with the healer. I try not to listen too closely, pouring what steadiness I can into the man before me. They’re right. He still needs his strength. As much as I want to stay, Ace’s innate need to charm us seems to ask too much of him just now.
I hold a damp cloth to his forehead. His head rolls slightly when I adjust it, and the way his face sits between listless and pained crushes my heart. My fingers hover over the bandage on his bare chest, the blanket resting just below the dressing. Bright red bleeds through to the surface.
I remember Vale’s wounds. How he barely survived.
Barely. But he did.
After reminding Ace to fight, reminding him how loved he is and how much we all still need him, we step out into the corridor. “The blade that pierced him seems to be cursed indeed,” Vale says. “The healer says the wound still weeps. Ace fights for every breath. Even with their skills, there is little they can do for him now.” He remains strong, but it’s clear this attack has struck him as deeply as any blade.
“Someone like Fenloris wouldn’t have a blade like that by chance,” Odrin adds. “Just as poisoned as the sword that struck you. Whoever placed it in his hand surely sent the attack on you as well, m’lord. We know from what Mira shared that he informed someone of your movements. If we can uncover who he was working with, we may uncover the secrets behind that blade as well.”
Soria and I are brought up to speed. Odrin secured Fenloris’ office, but he and Daerin have had little time to make sense of the wreckage left from the melee. They sealed the door with the king’s own mark, ensuring anyone who entered would do so in direct defiance ofthe crown.
We arrive and step inside, each of us drifting in a different direction. Shattered glass has been cleared, the broken window draped with cloth. The room is a frightful mess. If it was organized chaos before, now it is true upheaval. With only those few souls trusted with the full truth allowed to cross this threshold, we begin to sift through the ruin.
