Page 54 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I was going to die–but I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Barely conscious, I felt myself falling. With my last shard of hope, I angled my body so that I toppled toward the edge of the table, right where Kaya’s box sat.
My body slammed against the floor. The switchblade and fangs pushed further inside my flesh.
The last thing I registered was the heavy opal breaking next to my head, and a sweet scent wafting through the air.
Then darkness descended upon me.
Chapter
Sixteen
EVIE
“Her leg ismangled.”
“She will heal.”
“A razorback snake couldn’t do this, juvenile or not. Not on its own.”
“She cut herself to kill it. An admirable act. Or one born out of sheer desperation.”
“They’ll try again. I’m going to kill them and be done with it.”
“We both know you cannot without endangering the Clan. Not yet. And you don’t know for sure they were behind this.”
“Who else would wantmyfuture wife dead?”
The whispers brought me back from the shadows. My head hurt. My back hurt. My leg throbbed. Even my teeth ached.
If this was death, it was more painful than the legends described it. And if these were the gods, they were too gossipy,with rich, amber voices. How was I supposed to ask for forgiveness to ascend into the sacred garden from them?
But…if I felt pain, then I wasn’t dead.
That would have been too easy.
I woke with a start, but didn’t open my eyes. I let my senses tell me the story my eyes couldn’t.
I wasn’t alone.
I wasn’t on the floor, bleeding out of this existence.
I was cradled in soft, Citadel sheets. Not mine. They had a different, woodsier smell, and the mattress was softer.
The bed dipped somewhere near my leg. Someone sat, barely an inch away from my thigh, which was swathed in a tight, soft fabric.
Silence pulsed in the room.
I only had one chance and no weapon.
“I know you’re getting ready for an attack, but it’s me,” Zandyr’s voice rang out.
I was so exhausted from my ordeal, I was actually happy to hear him.
“That only makes me want to do it more,” I mumbled, half the words slurred.
Fighting the ache, I opened my eyes. His ice gaze bore into me, even in the shadows of the room. No candles, only the glimmer of the stars reflecting through the closed window.
