Page 70 of The Curse of Golden Blood
My throat tightened, and I choked back a sob. Tears burned in the corners of my eyes, and I willed them away. I couldn't cry. Not here, not now. I had to be strong. I had to be strong for him.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. Opening the book to the next chapter, I began to read.
I didn't stop for a long while. My voice rang out through the healing dome, echoing off the polished stone walls.
When I finished the final paragraph, I closed the book and looked down at Riden's face. His lips were pale, and his cheeks were flushed, as if his body were clinging to life by a thread.
"Goodbye, my friend," I murmured. "Rest easy."
I stood in the warm water, staring at his body. I'd promised him. I'd promised that I would be here when he left, that he wouldn't leave this world alone. And I had kept my promise.
I reached out and stroked his cheek gently, letting the tears fall at last. There was nothing more I could do now.
Slowly, I turned away from Riden and made my way back toward the stone path. The sun was beginning to set over the mountains, bathing the garden in golden light.
It was a beautiful day. Too beautiful for death.
But death comes for us all. I used to think the fae were above it. I was wrong.
eighteen
Striking The Heart
Zydar
Therainhadbeenfalling since dusk, thin and cold, beading along my skin and tracing slow rivulets down my spine. The training grounds for the high fae were nothing like the mortal pits—this arena was built to sharpen the lethal, not teach the clumsy.
Black stone walls rose in jagged arcs around me, laced with veins of stormlight that pulsed faintly like a heartbeat. The floor was a shifting plane of mirrored obsidian, slick beneath bare feet, reflecting the faint silver of the clouds above. Carved pillars circled the arena, each one inscribed with runes that shimmered whenever the enchantments awoke.
Four projections stood around me—phantoms forged from light and storm, their bodies a flicker between solid and insubstantial. Each carried a different weapon: a glaive, a chainblade, twin short swords, and a spear whose pointglowed faintly blue. They moved as one, circling me slowly, their feet silent on the glass floor.
I tightened my grip on my sword, breathing in the scent of wet stone and steel. I'd lost count of how many times I'd fought these phantoms, how many times I'd watched them break apart into wisps of light before reassembling. I'd mastered every move, every technique. I knew every weakness, every flaw.
And still, it wasn't enough.
As if sensing my resolve, the specters rushed forward, their weapons singing through the air. I twisted out of their path, my blade a razor edge of lightning as I sliced through their ethereal bodies. Over and over, I danced around their strikes, my feet light as shadow.
The specters changed tactics, splitting apart. Three circled me, weapons ready, while the fourth phantom lunged from behind, its glaive gleaming in the rain. I heard its attack before I saw it, and I stepped aside just in time, the sharp edge of the blade passing within a hairsbreadth of my neck.
Just then, a flicker of movement caught my eye beyond the shimmering boundary of the arena.
Miralyte.
She stood in the shadow of the archway, rain spilling over her hair and down the pale line of her throat, her face unreadable in the half-light. I'd told her the training grounds were off limits. Of course she'd come anyway.
Where was her supposed guard? Tomos, was it? Did he not care enough about her to keep track of her whereabouts? I thought they were friends.
At the thought of her and her “friend” whose name had made a blush bloom across her cheeks, I grew irritated again.
The nearest specter struck. I turned on it, my blade a flare of white-blue lightning that split its form clean down the middle. It dissolved into steam.
The others came at once, but I was already moving—one step, one swing, each cut precise, merciless. The rain hissed where it met the stormlight bleeding from my strikes. In the span of a heartbeat, the last phantom fell apart in a slow curl of mist, the runes on the pillars dimming back into quiet.
Silence settled, broken only by the patter of rain on stone. I let the blade fade from my grip, the last threads of lightning unwinding into the night air.
My gaze found hers again.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice low, though the words carried easily in the empty arena.
