M ax looked like a ghost.
When Brayan left, he turned to me and asked, too calmly, “Did he
hurt you?”
As if one enraged non-Wielder man could hurt me. Even if he had, whatever scratch he’d given me was laughably inconsequential to whatever Max was going through.
“No. Are you alright?”
Of course he was not alright. He was so far from alright, and all of it was written all over his face.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, let out a long breath, paced the length of the wall. “Fuck, we— we won’t have the Roseteeth anymore.”
“We do not need to worry about that this second,” I said, quietly. “That isn’t what I asked. Are you alright?”
“I’m alright.”
A lie. I wrapped both my hands around his, squeezed tight. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that. No matter what Brayan says.”
He scoffed, and I repeated, “It was not your fault.”
Despite my best efforts, fear seeped into my voice. I was suddenly terrified. Not because of our abrupt reduction in forces. Not because of how Max’s mental state might impact his ability to gain support tomorrow. Not because of the war, or the crown, or the Orders, or the council.
But because the idea of Max, the best person I knew, in this kind of pain was agonizing to me.
“Tell me what you need,” I murmured. “Tell me how I can help you.”
He pulled me into an embrace, and I held him tightly as I felt his body shudder slightly against mine. He kissed me on the forehead, then the mouth.
“I’ll be fine. We can’t do anything but focus on tomorrow,” he said. Max was not fine.
But he was right. There was only one thing we could do. Wait.
So we waited. Hours passed. Ishqa still had not arrived. Sunrise approached, and Max and I spoke less as our collective anxiety rose. Eventually, we collapsed into bed, falling into a restless, fitful sleep against each other, not acknowledging the fact that we were waking every few minutes.
Movement outside stirred us sometime near dawn. The sky was stained with misty pink from the impending sunrise. I opened bleary eyes to see a golden, feathered blur sweep through the sky.
I quickly rose and went to the balcony, Max right beside me.
“Where the hell have you been?” Max hissed, rubbing away sleep, as Ishqa landed on the balcony. He was silhouetted, his back to us, the early morning sun painting his outline in gold.
He didn’t turn. He just stood there, swaying slightly in a way that seemed… odd.
“Ishqa?” I whispered.
I reached out for him—
He turned in one lurching movement. A strangled cry of horror leapt from my throat.
He had no eyes, the gold replaced by rotting black pits. His throat was slashed, a waterfall of putrid violet blood painting the front of his body. His limbs were too long and off-balanced, the arrangement of them grotesque compared to his usual grace.
The next thing I knew, he was against me, his claw-tipped hands clutching my shoulder hard enough to pierce my skin.
“I tried— I tried—”
A horrible, twisted version of Ishqa’s voice, desperate and pleading.
Max was trying to get him off me, but his grip was so tight, all his muscles contracting at once.
“I can’t, I can’t—” Ishqa begged. I looked down.
And that was when I saw the parchment nailed to his chest, violet soaked:
THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU. AND SO AM I.
LOVE,
NURA.
I looked up into Ishqa’s face and saw a despair deeper than centuries. “Go,” he choked out.
Blue powder spilled from his rotting mouth.
I realized too late. Saw the light start within him too late. Horror fell over Max’s face. “That’s—”
Lightning dust.
We didn’t have time to say it.
Because then Ishqa, or the thing that was once Ishqa, exploded into a smear of fire and light. The floor fell out from beneath us, and a shattering sound filled the air, and the last thing I saw was broken glass scattered through the sun-stained sky like stars.
And then we were falling.
Do something, Tisaanah. Magic. Protection. Now, now, now!
And then there was nothing.
