Page 42 of Once Written in Gilded Blood

Alira’s gaze is no longer filled with hatred. Only sadness and heartbreak, tears that are for me, the monstrous demon. Her ruin. She hesitantly lets go of the sword. I grunt at the weight I have to use to keep it in place.

She intends for me to die. She would kill me so easily? But what about the sacred oath she took? She will die too. My eyes drift down her chest to where her mark should be on her sternum, but there’s nothing there.

Everything inside me twists and aches. Did she break the oath bond? When? Was she planning on killing me all along? My jaw trembles and the pain in my chest worsens. Or was it my secretiveness that led her on this path? Planting seeds of distrust strong enough for her to protect herself?

I don’t let my eyes move from hers, even as they are consumed with tears.

“This is farewell, Blood Knight.”

I groan as I pull the blade out. Blood gushes from my chest, and I fall over onto my chest. “Alira!” I cry out, arms shaking, and my chest warming the ground with blood. “Alira.” This time, my cry is weak and broken. My breaths become shallower with each inhale, and I watch as she walks away from me.

Get up.

I flex my jaw and force myself to my feet, pressing my palm against my chest to staunch the bleeding.

She’s walking toward the festival again, likely intending to leave Devicit now that the veil is down. Fuck. The Alzhorians can now see the kingdom, as can the gods. They’ll all be coming unless we can ward them away somehow.

My kingdom will burn.

I take a staggered step forward before collapsing. My left lung is filling with blood, and my heart is losing rhythm.

“Commander!” Nikolai’s voice cuts through the grim, cold air that’s fallen around me. I stare up at the snow that floats down as if it intends to bury the world.

Nikolai skids to a halt at my side before dropping to his knees and looking over my body in horror. “What happened? Kalel…she wasn’t in the cell and…the veil.” He presses his hands to my chest, making a sharp pain jolt through me before the glow of his magic permeates around the wound, and a wave of relief overcomes me.

I let out an audible breath as my lung clears of liquid. My eyes are closed. I don’t want to see Nikolai’s expression right now.

I know I’ve let them down. I’ve let everyone down.

“Look at me,” he snaps, voice breaking.

I look up at him through blurry eyes.

“Don’t tell me that Alira did this,” he whispers, gaze dead set on mine. There’s a burden in them, he knows, and it breaks his heart.

“She…has chosen to perish with the demigods, Nik.”

Nikolai’s magic flickers for a moment with his shock. “She really tried to kill you…” His voice wavers with grief.

“Yes, and the moment you heal me, I will stop her before she brings her kingdom to wreak havoc on ours.”

Nikolai’s eyes narrow with anguish. “You mustn’t kill her, Kalel. We will find another way. She’s not thinking straight⁠—”

“She knows about the time-loop curse… She knows about the bones we used to feed the veil.” My voice is broken. It feels like I’ll never move again. I don’t want to, if it means I have to fight her to save everyone else.

But I can’t do nothing either.

Nikolai removes his hands from my chest, palms covered in my black blood, and rises to his feet. I take a long breath and have little joy in the fact that I’m healed completely, yet my chest wrenches in ways that it shouldn’t. That of a broken heart.

“I have to. She tried to kill me… You didn’t see the look in her eyes, nor feel the power that thrummed through her veins like a thousand war songs. More god than demigod.”

I stand and clench my jaw. No ordinary sword will do. I will need to use one of our last remaining relics made of the devilstone to kill her now.

My hands tremble with the very idea of taking her life, watching the light fade from her beautiful eyes I’ve grown to know so much. I clench my jaw and close my fists. No. I have to… I cannot choose just one life over my entire kingdom.

I’m falling apart; I’m breaking into a sea of pieces that cannot be put back together. After I ensure the safety of my kingdom…I will follow my godling into Mortem. I press my hand against my chest. No creature can live with pain as aching as this. I feel a madness falling over me. Mania and grief more than can be expressed into words.

I look to Nikolai.