Page 183 of Vicious Is My Throne

Just as Bella reported, the blight stopped to our north, a clear line of delineation that expanded every day, thanks to Zeph and Cosimo burning away the oozing rot that smothered what had been tumbled, rocky inclines and a lush pine forest. Later today, if Tavion was able, we’d see the destruction for ourselves.

I still felt like a hollowed-out shell.

As if everything had happened to someone else. Or I’d been watching from the sidelines. But…I stopped rubbed my aching thigh, well aware Raziel watched from across the library, cataloguing every move.

Counting how often my fingers paused over the lightning mark, which now wrapped long, black fingers all the way around my leg. At this rate, we’d be monsters by the end of the year.

“I’m fine,” I muttered. Not that he’d believe me, the worry wart.

“You should be in bed.” I rolled my eyes and Raz’s lips tightened, and off we went until a million little micro aggressions later he spun on his boot heel and stalked out of the room.

“That was productive.” Tristan uncurled himself from his chair. “He’s not wrong, Anaria. We should talk about what happening to us.”

“Talking doesn’t fix anything,” I pointed out, noting how his own hand drifted up to absently rub at his chest. “Raz knows that as well as the rest of us. We’d be better served making ourselves useful and getting this city back to normal.”

Tristan stood his ground. “And yet Torin has us sequestered in the Keep until our health and magic is restored.”

“She has no right to lock us up.”

“You gave her that right when you appointed her steward in your stead.” He never wavered from that irritatingly placid serenity, and my hands curled into fists, rage bleeding through me unchecked.

“And before you explode, let me remind you Tavion was half dead when she hauled us off that mountain. If they hadn’t reached us when they did, we’d all be buried beneath the rubble. So I think, princess, you might want to tone your anger down a notch.”

Yes, the entire mountain had collapsed not a minute after we’d all loaded onto Zephryn’s back.

Yes, the namesake rock formation had tumbled into the valley below, crushing everything in its path—which would have been us, if Zeph hadn’t lifted off in time, or Tristan hadn’t taken off a few seconds later.

But Sylvi was buried beneath tons of rubble and rock.

And we’d just…left her there.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

“I’m just…” I lowered my head to my chest. “I’m just…Nothing feels real. None of it. Like I made everything up in my head and eventually I’ll wake up from a bad dream.”

I rubbed the mark again, the thick, pronounced veins throbbing. Their marks were even worse and I felt their pain through the bond like a dull, thudding heartbeat.

We’d lost Nightcairn. Caladrius.

The entire north. We had lost everything.

Tristan snapped the book closed and unfolded his lean body from the worn leather chair as gracefully as his wyvern unwound his sinuous coils.

“This is real. We’re alive. Corvus and Gelvira are dead. And yes, we will always bear these marks, but maybe…” He dipped his head to take a deep breath. “Maybe these are reminders that we survived. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, but couldn’t summon the resolve to mean it. That didn’t keep me from leaning into him, letting his arms tighten around me, basking in this feeling of protection when I knew how fleeting safety was.

“The kings are gone. The gods are gone. This world…” Another of those long, indrawn breaths that seemed shakier then the one before.

“In all my years, I have never felt such a sense of possibility before. Like finally, I can start living. Like we can have that future we’ve all dreamed of.”

I closed my eyes. How I wished I felt the same.

Up close, Corvus’s devastation was sobering.

It was one thing to be surrounded by dying trees.

Or see tendrils spreading across the far-off lands we flew over.

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