Page 184 of Crown of Darkness
I’m coming. I’m coming to get you. Just hold on.
“Take me,” he calls. “And let her go.”
Angharad freezes, as if she can sense some piece of a trap.
“Lower your shields,” she calls.
Thiago pauses, and then he’s opening to her—to me, to the world.
His essence almost overwhelms me.
In a heartbeat I know every inch of him; the boy who ran gleefully through a snowy forest with dozens of other children even as he yearned to find his true family; the warlord who knelt before a queen after saving the life of her firstborn son before grimly lifting his face to hers and hoping she would see him, hoping she would recognize him; the prince who hid his identity from the world so he would never besmirch her; the son who begged her to keep breathing, forcing his hands to try and still the bloodflow even as she lifted a tremulous hand and gently stroked his face for the first and only time….
This has to be one of Thiago’s tricks. He’s just trying to get closer to her. But my heart quickens with sudden dread.
“I’m sorry, Vi.” It’s a whisper, a caress of sadness. “For not having the time to show you how much I love you.She’s too close to Amaya.”
He half turns to look at me.
No, no, no, no, no.
A scream tears from my throat as Angharad darts forward, quick as a snake. She drives her blade right into his chest, and power explodes out through him, the Darkness whirling around him in one frenzied burst as if, even at the end, they choose to try and flee rather than defend him.
“Thiago!”
He forces his gaze to mine, a soft smile on his lips as he wraps his arms around Angharad, crushing her close to him.
“You were my hope. You were my light. You were the queen I always dreamed of serving. Thank you.”
And then he’s gone.
It’s like a knife through my heart, death scything through him with a vicious surge of power. I scream as his vibrant eyes grow dim, and then his body is falling and—
He’s gone.
The warm, constant presence in my mind vanishes as if it was never there, wrenched from me by a merciless grip. There is no us. There is only me, left alone and shaken in the depths of my wretched body.
“Thiago!” I scream as I sprint toward his falling body.
He hits the ground, his head bouncing, and even from here I can hear the crack as the stone in the center of the Hallow splits.
The Hallow has its kingly sacrifice.
Power shivers through the walls, a blinding white light shooting through the cracks in the stone and spearing into the heavens. It forces me to slow, but I have to get to him, I have to see him, to try—
And then light erupts.
A wave of force slams me to the ground. Pure power. An enormous shadowy form made of smoke spills from the Hallow. I hear a roar of fury echoing through a voice so deep and guttural that it vibrates through my chest.
And I start crawling.
I will not let him die alone.
I will not let him die for nothing.
All I can see is the little girl curled in a fetal position on the stone, and sheneedsme.
Angharad smiles, standing in the precise center of the Hallow. The glow of power suffuses her, and when she opens her eyes, they’re an eerie, emotionless black. “Come forth, my lord.”
