Page 145 of Burning Heir

Naraic followed, not listening to my pleading demands to stay back. I gripped Damien’s waist as he palmed the air, casting a flurry of glass and sand. I screamed as shards whirled, slicing into my hands and legs.

One sliced Naraic’s neck scales as he dove at us, wild eyes pleading like I’d never seen before. I couldn’t hear Naraic, and maybe that was for the best.

His talons shredded through the glass, stirring the shards in all directions. I opened my palm, twirling a rope of flame around Naraic’s neck.

“I’m sorry, Naraic.”

He growled, snapping his barred jaws like a wild beast, scorching a cindered mark around his scales, wings thrusting to break free. A white flash struck us as we traveled through the portal.

Fragments whirled, slicing me, slicing Damien. I screamed in agony. “Damien!”

Clipped mirrors and sand throttled the air.

Emerich hurled me off, crashing onto the unforgiving ground. Blurred vision, a brisk breeze, and cool dirt pressed against my cheek. Head throbbing from the impact, I rose to my bloody knees, tasting the metallic tang of blood on my bitten tongue.

“Damien!” I cried, staring into the shallows of the dark forest.

No answer.

I swung my gaze along the starlit woods, searching for him, for Emerich. But only wisped trees scorned the dirt path.

And then it was blood.

A bloodied body lay on the darkened dirt with a glass shard sliced through his neck.

Oh—Oh.

I ran, unsure how I hadn’t collapsed from the sight. A deep gash trailed along Damien’s neck, a shard sticking out of bloodied flesh. His pale eyes shifted in every direction before latching onto me.

I crawled toward him on my hands and knees, bracing his cold cheeks. “Damien, you got struck,” I cried. I was tired of crying.

“Severyn, take Emerich—find Archer.”

“I’ll save you,” I said. “I can save you.” Burning tears fell onto his forehead as I brushed the dirt off his chin.

“I’m not dead. Yet,” he chuckled low and reached for my face. “Severyn—”

Yet. Damien would not die. “I’m not leaving you!”

“It’s me or you, Severyn. One of us will end up in Malvoria or worse…”

He wasn’t dead. I couldn’t save him, not yet. But how long would yet last until he was choking on his blood? How many breaths did he have left in him?

“You’re not fucking dying,” I hissed.

A shaking hand reached for me as if I would be his last sense of peace. “I loved you since I saw you, Severyn, and I need you to know that. I need you to know that it kills me that I will never be him.”

A trickle of blood dripped from his trembling lip. “I need you to know that—I love you as my last words. I don’t care if you don’t love me back, but… you… need to know it. If you bring me back, at least this voice has admitted it.”

“Damien,” I whispered as his hands clawed for air, choking on his every breath. “I’ll save you.” It killed me to watch him like this. I crawled back toward Emerich, knowing I had two lives to save in moments. I reached for those algae-streaked scales—

“We were never rivals,” he said, eyeing his pocket. “Take the letter… it’s the one we received at the sanity trial… I only wish things would have been different between us.”

I shakily reached for his torn pocket, gliding my chilled hands over a folded sheet of parchment. “You’ll wake up. You have to.”

I couldn’t save everyone—it would kill me knowing how many times death had crept into me. And as Damien took his last breath, I stayed there for a moment, allowing the silence to take over.

One less. One less to the title.

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