Page 146 of Merciless Is My Crown

“That’s blood.” I flipped over the nearest soldier, stripped down to his skivvies. “Knife between the ribs. Neat work. He wouldn’t have made a sound.”

“So Tristan waited here to make the shot, got ambushed…killed the soldier, took his uniform.” Raziel took a deep inhale. “This is Tristan’s blood.” We both stared back at that charred circle of barren ground. “Fuck. He went and ignited the explosion himself.”

This time we searched beneath every wagon and tent, looking for a hint of red hair, of golden skin, of any sign of our friend.

“We should have started searching the minute he didn’t show,” Raziel snarled as he flipped over a supply wagon, sending firewood spilling everywhere. “We should have known something was fucking wrong.”

I didn’t say anything, dragging a tent away from a smoking fire, away from…

“Here.” The word got tangled in my throat. “He’s here.” I flipped Tristan onto his back, his face red and blistered from the explosion, the stolen uniform burned away to expose his equally blistered torso.

“Move,” Raziel growled. “Let me in there.”

“He’s not breathing, Raz.” My hands hung loosely at my sides as Raziel began feeding magic into Tristan’s limp, lifeless form, his body torquing up off the ground then collapsing again.

“Come on, you fucker.” Raziel hit him with another blast of power, magic shimmering over him like a blanket before it sank in. “Live. You’ve got to live.”

“Hit him again,” I growled. “Fucking give him everything you have, Raz.”

This was bullshite.

Fucking bullshite and I was not going to accept that we’d killed the king, restored the magic, yet lost one of our own. And Anaria…

There was no way I could face her and tell her we’d lost Tristan. I couldn’t destroy her like that. I rubbed my aching chest, probing at this strange, ephemeral bond that linked us together.

There.

A flicker of golden-red fire lighting the darkness.

“He’s still here. I can feel him, Raz, inside the bond or whatever the fuck you want to call this connection of ours. Hit him again.”

Raziel’s roar echoed all the way to Blackcastle when he sent his magic into Tristan, the ground around us trembling as magic spread out in all directions, and I swore a breeze faintly dusted with jasmine answered.

“It’s no good.” Raziel panted, staring down at Tristan’s burned, ruined face. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Then try again. Keep trying until it fucking works.”

He rocked back on his heels. “I have nothing left.” When Raz lifted his hands, not a flicker of power remained. “I’m finished.”

I raised my face to the sun and closed my eyes. “Tristan saved us. He made today possible.” Bone-chilling fury turned my blood to ice. “None of this would have happened if not for him. We’d be dead, and the magic would still be trapped behind that fucking wall.”

Beneath our feet, as if the world itself had been listening, something rose to the surface.

Raz went pale, sweat glistening on his brow as something primordial and ancient rose, touching us each in turn with cold, dry fingers, dragging over our skin and searching for…gods, I didn’t know what.

Only that this swell of power was death itself coming for us all.

Tristan’s body torqued, arching up violently over and over again, teeth chattering, heels drumming against the black, charred ground. Raz and I pressed our hands on him. Held him down until he went limp.

Until the air loosened and we heard voices once more, until our bones stopped aching from whatever the fuck that was.

Though his chest rose and fell, Tristan’s face twisted in excruciating pain.

“We have to get him to the Keep. To Torin, to a healer who can fix him before he wakes up.”

I nodded. Chemical burns were hideously painful, and even with his fast Fae healing, he’d scar if we didn’t get him help.

“I’m out of fucking magic, so we’ll have to walk.” We both looked across to the Keep too fucking far away. But in the distance, a lone, skittish horse dodged between the trees, still saddled. “You stay with Tristan. Give me five minutes, I’ll be back.”

---