Page 63 of Married By Treachery

“Adina, lookout!”

The Depraved looked over just as Edom nearly made contact, then flapped its wings and pushed off the ground. Edom’s sword sliced through air, but before he could regain balance, the Depraved grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and lifted him.

Edom screamed and yelled and kicked and swung, but the Depraved did not let go. It hovered there near the ceiling as it looked at Raquel and cocked its head, and then it soared out through the window it had already broken with a howling Edom in its clutches.

And then the castle trembled violently.

Raquel fell over Jake and covered him with her body as best she could until the trembling stopped, and then she finally looked at him, at his injury.

At the blade sticking out of his chest, where blood bloomed bright and cruel.

“I…told you she still lived.” Jake tried to smile, but then he coughed. Blood stained his lips and splattered his chest.

“You idiot! Why did you sacrifice your life for me?” Raquel yelled at him, though she already knew the reason. The only reason anyone ever sacrificed their life for another. “I thought you didn’t—”

Jake gripped her hand so tight. “I…saw them too.”

Raquel blinked blurry eyes. “What? Saw what? What are you talking about—”

“We named the boy Ronan. And the girl Adi, after your mother, and she”—he coughed more blood, and Raquel felt as if that blade were suddenly inherchest—“looked exactly like you.” Jake lifted a hand and placed it upon her cheek, and Raquel choked on her tears. “So…beautiful.”

Raquel laid her hand over Jake’s. “Why are you telling me this now?” She was so angry at him. “Tell me how to help you! There has to be something…some form of magik—”

The floor trembled again, and more bits of rock rained down. Raquel tried to cover Jake’s body, but he grabbed her hand and held it to his chest, beside the knife, where his tunic was soaked in blood.

And he looked at her.

His eyes were molten but dimming before her eyes. “It was never your heart I needed to claim. It was mine. And you did.” His expression relaxed, his hand slipped, and the light faded completely.

“No…” Raquel shook him, again and again. “No!” Raquel screamed as more rock fell all around them. “We have a little house in the woods, and a child on the way, and you…” But the light was gone. His honeyed eyes dulled and stared at nothing.

Raquel’s chest twisted in anguish, and she fell over him, sobbing. Not really sure why it hurt so much, only that it did, and she found it suddenly very difficult to breathe. “You told me you loved me, and I…I never got the chance to say it back.”

Everything stopped. The trembling, the sound. Everything. The world was quiet, and then a bird chirped a fluttering melody nearby, and Raquel opened her eyes to…color.

Bright and brilliant.

A warm sun flickered through the treetops and mottled the forest floor in golden light.

At first she wondered if the curse had broken. If the disease and rot had vanished and returned this kingdom to its former glory, except the details caught up to her fast. When she’d closed her eyes, she’d been in the palace, but she was no longer in that palace. She was in a densely wooded forest. One she knew well, for it was just outside of Harran.

Jake lay on the ground before her, his eyes closed as though he were merely asleep, but that couldn’t be…

Wait.

Raquel stilled.

There was no knife, no signs of any injury. No blood stained his tunic.

“Impossible…” she whispered. Frantic, and a little hopeful, she pulled at the ties of his tunic and opened the front so that she could see where the blade had sunk into his chest.

And then his hands wrapped firmly around her wrists, stopping her.

Raquel’s gaze met his bright golds, which shimmered like the thread of the coat his mother had enchanted. A coat he waswearing. How was that possible? She’d watched Edom tear it in half! But there it was, sure as the sun, and it was no longer brown but the warm honey of his eyes, and when he shifted, the fabric reflected light and all its colors, like a prism. As if the coat had trapped light and color inside of itself.

“How… the knife…?” she stuttered, but then Jake released her hands and shoved himself to a seated position. He looked down at himself and touched his chest where the knife had been, and his brow wrinkled with confusion and wonder. His gaze shot to the trees, the high branches and blue sky and the sun shining brilliantly beyond.

And then he closed his eyes.

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