Chapter 3

Theron had been gone less than five minutes when the chamber door opened again.

Elowen. Alone this time.

She stepped inside, wrinkling her nose at the blood on the floor. The trembling lip from earlier was gone. The teary eyes were gone. What was left was calm, flat, and faintly amused.

"Still awake?" She sounded almost disappointed. "I figured the Blight would've knocked you out by now."

I didn't answer. I didn't have the strength.

She crouched next to me, smoothing her white dress over her knees like she was sitting down for tea.

"I wasn't sure he'd actually go through with it, you know. The transfer." She picked at something on her sleeve. "So I touched the curse source on purpose. Just to see."

She let that sit.

"And every single time it came down to a choice — me or you — he picked me."

I stared at her. My mouth tasted like rust and rot.

"You should've seen his face when he carried me out." She tilted her head. "He didn't even look at you. Not once."

She reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out a small vial. The liquid inside was dark — almost black — and it moved like something alive.

"Corrupted blood extract. Speeds up blood core decay." She held it up, turning it in the dim light. "Theron's worried you'll last long enough to complicate things. He didn't use those words, of course. But I always know what he needs."

"Don't —"

She tilted my head back and emptied the vial down my throat.

It hit instantly. The Blight, which had been a slow fire, erupted into something I had no name for. My blood core shrieked — I could hear it, actually hear it tearing itself apart inside my chest.

Elowen stood, wiped her fingers on her hem, and walked toward the door.

"For what it's worth," she said without turning around, "I'll take good care of him."

The door shut.

I was alone.

The pain was beyond the ritual. Beyond the silver. Beyond anything I thought was possible while still being conscious. But the Blight kept me awake. It wanted me to feel everything.

My hand found the communication crystal in my coat pocket. Maren had pressed it into my hand the night before I was locked in — standard procedure between hunting partners.

I didn't know if the signal would reach through the failing wards. I squeezed it anyway.

A flicker. Static. Then Maren's voice, ragged and frantic.

"Sera?! The containment wards spiked — I've been trying to get through for hours. Where are you?"

"Maren." I barely had a voice left. "Listen."

"I'm coming to get you. Just tell me —"

"You can't." I felt the blood core splintering, piece by piece, like a glass ball cracking from the inside. "The Blight is finishing it. There's nothing left to save."

"Don't say that. Don't you dare say that to me —"

"When it's done, the curse will burn my body down to ash." I had to get through this before the words stopped coming. "Let it. And whatever's left — burn that too. Use sanctified fire. Every grain. Every speck."

"Sera —"

"Don't leave anything for Theron." My throat was closing but I forced it. "I don't want him to mourn me. I don't want him to hold onto a single piece of me."

A choked sound from the other end. Then, quietly: "OK. I promise."

"There's a pregnancy contract in my records at the archive."

Silence.

"I was three months along. I never told him." I pressed my palm flat against my belly. Empty. Quiet. "Keep it. When the time is right — make sure he sees it."

"Sera..." Maren's voice shattered.

"And tell him —" Blood filled my mouth. I swallowed it down. "Tell him I will never forgive him."

"I will." She was sobbing now. "I swear I will."

I let the crystal slip from my fingers. Its glow died on the stone floor.

The blood core cracked one last time — quiet, almost gentle, like something that had been holding on for too long finally letting go.

Heat flooded through me. My fingers were dissolving, turning to fine gray ash that drifted upward in the stale air.

I closed my eyes.

The last thing I heard was the faint hiss of my own body burning away in the dark, beneath the house where my husband slept.