Page 242 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Her eyes turned desolate, accepting no amount of denial nor words of determination could slow or stop the inevitable claim death had on him.

Tarly coughed, turning violent, and he reached into his jacket for a cloth when the tang of blood filled his mouth. What he felt instead made him pause…

Blood.

He pulled out the vial he felt, having forgotten his possession of the Phoenix Blood potion. Tarly stared at the liquid, swirling as if alive in the bottle.

“Ooh, that’s pretty. What is it?” Edith asked.

“Where did you get that?” Nik inquired.

Tarly froze.

They didn’t know about Marlowe’s death yet.

He looked up at Nik, unable to suppress his horror with the news he had to deliver.

Nik’s stance slackened. “What?” he demanded.

“Marlowe gave it to me,” he rushed out, scrambling to find the right sequence of words to tell them how their friend had been killed.

No arrangement would lessen the devastating blow, and so he relayed the horrifying events to them as quickly as he could.

Tauria broke into cries, and Nik held her, his face completely blank and wide. He’d never seen him so ghostly, angry, and grief-stricken all at once—all of that displayed in Nik’s utter stillness.

“Are you sure?” Nik asked vacantly.

“I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could have done to save her, but…” He trailed off.

Tarly had reeled over that grim day many times, tormented by all the ways he could have seen Malin’s snap of madness just a moment sooner. Could have provided a distraction. Intervened somehow. Yet in all his reorganizing of events, he could hear the human’s gentle voice carried in his mind. As an Oracle, she would tell him the future could not be known by those involved in it.

“We need to get back to High Farrow,” Nik said tightly, no doubt thinking of Faythe’s reaction to the news.

They needed to grieve together, and Marlowe deserved to have her friends together to mourn and celebrate her life.

“What about the Spellthief dagger?” Edith said timidly.

Tarly didn’t know why he felt distrusting of this dark fae. She seemed shy and innocent, and maybe it was his own prejudice instilled in him against her kind that he had to work on.

“If you want to go back to High Farrow first, I understand?—”

“No—she’s right,” Tauria croaked, sniffing hard and wiping her tears with the back of her gloved hand. “If the dagger or bonds are in that cave, we have to find out.”

That was the heart-wrenching side of war still in motion—it granted no time to grieve the fallen properly. Healing was its own battle that awaited the living when it was over.

Tarly gritted his teeth, using his back against the tree for purchase to stand. He didn’t want to, but he had to use every last hour he had. He stared at the Phoenix Blood as if it were a riddle.

“What if she gave this to me to give to someone else?” he asked aloud, mulling over other possibilities in his mind.

“If it could give you more time, you have to take it,” Nik said coldly.

Tarly didn’t take his tone personally. Nik was dealing with his loss.

He looked at Tauria. “Nerida consumed the potion Nik gave her. We hoped it would advance her healing for me, but it didn’t. What if it amplified her water ability instead? For this task. Maybe Marlowe gave me this for you, to make your wind stronger to reach the cave.”

Tauria immediately shook her head. “I don’t need it. You’re taking that potion.”

His grip tightened around it. Why was he always the one with only selfish options?

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