Page 240 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Jakon wished he felt even afractionof relief to watch his wife’s killer die under his hand. He felt nothing. So cold and numb as he released the handle, leaving the blade Marlowe had crafted lodged in, as if they’d done this together.

But he was alone. So terribly alone he couldn’t bear it.

Jakon fell to his knees, aware of a presence watching him from the shadows, but he didn’t care. He wept. With nothing left to work toward, no one else to kill or blame to unleash all that was killing him inside without her.

How could she leave him here? Oh, how he wished he’d died right next to her.

She saw the end of the world.

This world had been so cruel to Marlowe that maybe he wished for it to end. Maybe he was rooting for Faythe to burn it all to the ground if that was what Marlowe had seen.

“At least it can’t hurt you anymore, my love,” he whispered to the ghost of her spirit that lived within him.

Jakon lifted himself off the ground. His frayed and heavy soul wanted to keep him down, but he wasn’t finished. Not yet. For Marlowe, he wasn’t finished.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Tarly

Tarly had fallen unconscious when he hadn’t meant to. He came around groggily, registering the lightly snowed-on grass under his glove. Dusty snowfall fell on his face as water ran above his head. He was beside a small stream.

A loud huff jerked his stiff body in fright. Until he remembered his horse. He’d dismounted to refill his water skin and tend to the beast, but he must have passed out. His fatigue and pain were becoming intolerable.

Tarly pushed himself up on his one good arm. He’d had to fashion a sling for the other that had become useless. He wasn’t fighting the tiredness with hope anymore. He could no longer wield his bow, so he was of little use to anyone.

All that kept him moving was the persistent image of an angel in his mind—with beautiful golden-brown skin and the most stunning curly silver hair. He recalled Nerida’s firm encouragement to push forward, her laughs to wake up, the ways in which she looked at him like no one else to brave the wretched days.

He’d traveled for more than two weeks from High Farrow, where Izaiah had taken them after they’d fled Rhyenelle. Tarly harbored guilt for leaving so soon, when Jakon was grieving deeply and Izaiah was wounded badly. Selfishly, the dire events they’d escaped from made him even more desperate to reach Stenna’s fall—the meeting place Tauria, Nik, and Nerida planned to head to as well.

Tarly didn’t know if Nik would have gotten Tauria out of the high lord’s clutches yet. Or if Nerida had made it back from Lakelaria to be there by now. With Tauria and Nerida’s magick combined, they hoped to reach Hilia’s Cave and discover if it safeguarded the Aetherbonds that could silence a person’s magick no matter how powerful. Or the Spellthief, a dagger that couldsteala person’s magick.

Though he yearned to see Nerida, he didn’t know how she would receive him after he’d abandoned her. He’d gone to Rhyenelle to serve a better purpose in this war rather than accompany her to Lakelaria on a selfish quest to find a cure for his dark fae bite.

He felt awful for it now, but his time was rapidly running out, and he wanted to try to make something of an impact.

His teeth bashed together as he trekked through the forest despite his feverish skin. Tarly believed his life hung in mere days, or less.

It took everything he had to mount the brown stallion. Barely able to sit straight, he edged the horse forward, using all his focus not to lose balance in his hunch and fall off.

Tarly found his fate both cruel and amusing. The moment he found the will to live, life was no longer his to plan for. If he hadn’t met Nerida, perhaps this ending would even be welcome.

The deep echo of crashing water told him he was near his destination. Peeling his sight up, through the tree line ahead hesaw the rocky shore of Stenna’s fall. He’d only been here once: on the day he met Nerida.

She’d told him the stories of the fall and the nymphs that had once ruled the lakes and oceans—or still did but remained secluded from land beings now.

He never wanted Nerida to stop telling him the wonders she’d gathered in all her travels. He wanted to follow her, even when she didn’t want him, to the ends of the world.

Tarly had learned that love was the most vulnerable emotion a person could expose themselves to, but the reward, should that love be true, was worth the risk of a shattered heart.

The great lake expanded far and wide through the end of the trees he passed through.

His heart pounded in his chest, tight and protesting, warning it didn’t have many beats left. Tarly dismounted clumsily, barely finding steady feet. Urgency gave him a false sense of stability as he stumbled out through the trees, catching himself on one at the edge to scan down the rocky bank.

He was alone.

The next breath that left him deflated his whole body, which sank down. He rested his head back against the tree, looking over the peaceful sight.

Oh well,he thought.At least this is a calm place to die.

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