Page 97 of Death of a Mortal

“Naci!” I could hear Nella’s struggle, but it wouldn’t be enough.

“Queen Malvina, please,” I coughed out. “Please, I’ve done everything you’ve both asked of me. And I’ll keep doing it all. You just can’t let him kill Nella. Don’t let him take her from me.”

She was my last hope. I just prayed to the gods that they needed me compliant more than the king wanted Nella dead.

The queen just stared at me, expression unreadable, as the king paced the dais in front of me, waiting for the guards to return with the castle servants.

Gods, this would be a massacre. The first purge in Ashenholt.

She backed away from the king just a half step. “The king will do what he feels he must, for the sake of the castle and the kingdom.”

It felt like a knife went through my gut. None of them was going to stop this.

“Noxie, you have to hurry! The guards are rounding up all the mortals in the castle. I’m afraid he’s going to kill them all until someone confesses.”

“I’m almost there!”

But it was too late. The guards were bringing mortals into the ballroom in a single-file line.

I saw the moment Halden realized it was Nella on the floor in the middle of the charred room. He ran toward her, calling her name, but a guard grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him face-first to the ground, too, breaking his nose and immediately spilling blood. Bleeding on the ground and held by a fae guard, he still reached for Nella, his love and terror clear. If heartbreak had a face, it was his.

I had to be stuck in a nightmare. This couldn’t be real.

“One of you mortal scumbags is working with the rebellion. I will find out who, or every last one of you will die in this room right now!” The king stopped his pacing in front of Nella. “Starting with this one!”

Time had been moving so fast before, but now it cruelly slowed down, every second lasting a lifetime.

The guard holding her to the ground lifted her to her knees to face the king.

And then Caedryn drew his sword.

Her blue eyes found mine, and they were wide with fear.

“I love you, Naci,” she mouthed to me. Or maybe she spoke the words aloud, but I couldn’t hear over the hammering of my heart.

I tried to stand, to run to her, but my feeble strength was laughable against a fae male. I screamed and screamed at the king to spare her, feeling like my throat was tearing each time, but I didn’t stop screaming. Not when he reared back, sword gripped in both hands, nor when he plunged the blade deep into her chest.

Nor when Halden’s screams joined mine.

Or when the screech of a crow, who was too late, came through the broken glass window.

I didn’t stop until Caedryn pulled the sword from her, blood flowing down her laundry uniform way too fast. The horrified silence was louder than all the screams that had just stopped, pressing in on my ears. Everything faded away except her and me. She gave a small cough that left a bubble of blood at the corner of her mouth before her eyes left mine to look down at the gaping wound.

She fell to the floor, the mass of deep red spreading underneath her tiny body.

I tried again and again to get away from the guard, but his grip was too strong. I reached out for her. She was so close by, yet so far away.

“Release her,” Caedryn said to the guard. He obeyed and released me, and I crawled the few paces to where Nella lay.

Caedryn wanted me to watch her bleed up close, feel her fleeting life.

“Nella, no, please, stay with me,” I screamed, her face distorted through my steady flow of tears. I pressed a hand to the gaping wound in her chest and held her hand with the other. Her fingerswere cold and shaking while the wound was hot and pulsing in time with her slowing heartbeat.

A lifetime of memories flashed before my eyes, remembering every smile, every laugh, every “I love you” we’d ever exchanged. The games we played, the quilts she’d made, all the times she’d braided my hair for me…it all flitted through my mind.

She hadn’t spoken, just gurgled around the blood staining her lips and teeth.

I had no idea what was happening around me, or where anyone was except my Nella. Noxie may have been speaking in my mind, but I couldn’t comprehend.