Page 179 of Of Masks and Fury

Then he was out again, his body going slack. But his pulse steadied beneath my fingers, stronger than it had been before.

I sagged against him, my vision swimming at the edges. Whatever I’d given him, I’d given it completely. I didn’t care.

Kerralyn squeezed my shoulder. “Whatever you did, keep doing it.”

I sent more magic into him. And I talked to him, telling him things I’d never said out loud, confessions that had lived in my chest for too long.

“I was afraid to love you,” I said softly, stroking his hair. “Everyone I love dies. My mother. Addie—or so I thought. I kept waiting for you to be taken from me too.”

His hand twitched in mine.

“But you made me feel powerful, like the magic I carry wasn’t something to hide but a thing that could make me stronger.” I traced the line of his jaw, the stubble that had grown there scratchy. “You looked at me and saw a queen when everyone in my court saw an executioner.”

Another twitch. He was listening, even unconscious.

“When you wake up.” I kissed his forehead. “I’m going to tell you all of this again. And you’re going to wake up because I haven’t given you permission to die.”

The ghost of a smile touched his lips.

Silence crept in around us, almost eerie after what we’d been through.

Derren’s gaze met mine. “How is he?”

“Alive.” It was all I could say with certainty.

Lexie, who’d stepped outside to look around, appeared in the entrance, sheathing her blades. “The dragons formed a perimeter. Nothing’s getting close without us knowing.”

Pherin and Gavelle soared back into the cave.

Nothing for very far.She landed on my shoulder, trembling with exhaustion.

Gavelle curled up against Trew’s side, his small cinderhawk body pressed to his bonded’s chest.

I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Trew’s blood pouring from his wounds. Saw the creature’s claws tearing through his flesh.

The silence of the wasteland outside was unlike any I’d ever known. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet; it was a heavy, thrumming absence, as if the very air was waiting for the rest of our world tostop breathing. It pressed against the cave entrance, trying to snuff out the small, flickering life of the man in my arms.

I gripped Trew’s hand, my fingers already stiff and beginning to cramp from hours of holding on. Pain shot up my forearm, but I didn’t loosen my hold. I sensed my grip was the only thing tethering him to this realm. If I let go, even for a second, he would slip into the gray nothingness that had claimed so much of this land.

For sixteen years, I had been the Lady of Mercy, a woman who stood masked and on a platform, watching others cross the threshold of death. I’d practiced the art of being a witness to endings. But here, in the dirt and the dark, the mask was gone, and I was just a woman terrified of the silence.

Please,I whispered, a desperate, quiet plea aimed at the Fates, at my mother’s memory, and even at the ghost of Velacross.Take the magic. Take my blood. Stitch the weave with whatever threads of mine you need, but don't take him. Don't leave me alone in this place.

A stray drop of sweat beaded on his temple. The dying firelight caught the dark silk of his hair. I counted his heartbeats against my own pulse, mooring my soul to the steady proof that he was still fighting. I sat in that heavy, airless stillness until the world narrowed down to the space between our joined palms, until I wasn't just watching him live.

I was willing it with every breath I drew.

His fever broke sometime before sunrise. I felt it the moment his skin cooled beneath my palm.

Kerralyn and I checked his wounds.

She nodded, satisfied. “The herbs and magic are working. The poison’s retreating.”

I wanted to collapse with relief. Instead, I kept my vigil, my hand wrapped around his. Whispering how much I loved him. How much I needed him by my side.

First light touched the cave entrance, pale and gray but growing stronger. It crept across the stone floor, illuminating the dried blood on my tunic and the bandages wrapped around Trew’s torso and plastering his shoulder.

His eyes opened, and I found him clear. Lucid.