Page 115 of Merciless Is My Crown

“Help it is.” He swung his arm around my waist. “We are a seriously fucked-up bunch. Not exactly sure how we’re supposed to be assassinating the Shadow King in a few days.” He took one final glance over to the now-larger group of witches working on Zephryn. “The Oracle brought Raziel back to the fortress herself and used him to try to trick Anaria into revealing her hand.”

My lungs stopped working. “And did she?”

Tavion grinned. “Our girl? Fuck no. The Oracle left with her tail between her legs and a chip on her shoulder, although Raz is still recovering from whatever she did to him. Anaria thinks the whole thing was an illusion, but I’m not so sure.”

“At least we got the pendant,” I said quietly. “If we can get their friend out, maybe this trip will have been worth it.”

“Not if we lose both Torin and Zephryn in the process. What the fuck happened?”

It took me the entire humiliating trip inside to explain, and I repeated the shadow-doorway-spitting-monsters scenario twice, since Tavion clearly thought I was hallucinating. I was eyeing the impossibly long staircase when Zorander thundered toward us.

“Vesper can’t bring Torin back,” Zorander muttered on his way past.

Tavion dragged a hand down his face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she can’t die.”

“They have the best healers in the coven working on her, and they can’t restart her heart. The cold was too much for her mortal body to withstand. Anaria’s with her now.” Then Zor was rushing away down the hall.

The seer had been our enemy more than our ally over this past century, but this…

“Fuck. She lost her cape, but we didn’t have time to do a fucking search. We had to get airborne or die.” Tavion glared at me over my piss poor choice of words.

“Losing the seer after what happened with Adele with be hard for Anaria.” Tavion lowered his voice as a group of witches rushed past. “We should be with her. Especially if this ends badly.”

“I’ll come with you,” I offered, though where I went was completely up to Tavion right now. “Because you’re right. Anaria shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Enemy or ally, after a hundred years, Torin was more than just the architect of our conspiracy.

Losing the seer would leave a hole, even if none of us were willing to admit it.

Zephryn and Simon would be devastated.

Losing Anaria was the worst fate I could ever imagine. The world burning down? That I could accept so long as she was with me, but this world was nothing without her.

46

ANARIA

No one looked up when I burst into the kitchen, a testament to how wholly they were focused on their task of saving the female laid out on the table, Torin’s milk-white face framing ice-blue lips.

Simon grasped her hand, his eyes the color of mud, his expression blank as he stared down at her. Weary and defeated and helpless like the rest of us, but unlike us…his heart was being ripped apart.

Maybe mine was being ripped out a little, too.

I crossed to him, clasping his hand in mine, and stared down at Torin.

After seeing her stand beside the Fae King, then the Oracle, I’d never once thought of Torin as vulnerable, but gods, she was so fragile. We couldn’t lose her. Not now.

And not just because we needed her to help us kill the king.

Vesper rocked back from the table, frustration deepening the lines on her face as the rainbow web of magic faded.

“I might be able to help,” I said softly.

An old witch looked me up and down, not unkindly but with the keen eyes of experience. “You’re no healer, and even if you were, she is beyond our help now. Best to let her go to the Great Beyond and rest.”

“No, I don’t have healing magic. But I have something close.” I held the keystone out to Vesper and she reeled back, shock written across her face, withered hands gripping the back of a chair. “I brought Zorander back from the dead with this stone. If I could access its magic, as unskilled as I am, certainly you can work a miracle to save Torin.”

Vesper held out her hand and I dropped the stone into her palm, power rippling through the room the second it landed. As if two mighty magics had merged into one.

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