Page 41 of A Blade of Blood and Shadow (The Ravaged Kingdom #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

S oft wingbeats roused me from death, and Death had not been what I’d expected.

It wasn’t a monster lurking in the darkness. It was a warm, comforting embrace that smelled like burnt cedar and cool night air.

Death brushed a hand down my cheek, bringing me back to my broken body and the stabbing pain in my gut.

Gods, Death had to be better than this . I wanted to sink into that warm embrace and never have to feel again.

But Death’s dark, magnificent wings were carrying me farther from that sweet relief. Through my haze of semiconsciousness, I became aware of a steady, thunderous melody. The sound of a beating heart.

I squinted at the wings in my periphery — at the talon that pierced each tip.

Demon wings.

Fear curdled my insides as I realized it wasn’t Death that held me. The touch was one I’d felt before — one that stoked a fire within me that I longed to put out but couldn’t .

Gripped by a sudden panic, I thrashed against my captor’s hold, and the arms around me tightened.

I knew it was useless. My body was weak from my fight with Silas and whatever remaining power the blood demon had siphoned. The arms that held me were as strong as iron. Utterly inescapable.

Then something soft grazed my temple, and cool fingers brushed back a strand of my hair.

I sighed. It had been years since anyone had touched me like that. The last had been my mother.

I allowed that thought to comfort me as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Those strong arms swept me through the cool night air, toward a spire that pierced the velvety sky.

Then I was hit by a wave of magic — stronger than the magic that had bound me in the bargain with Caladwyn. I felt as though I was being flayed alive — blown to pieces by the strength of that power. The magic tore at my very soul as we hurtled into an aching void.

Total oblivion — that was what it felt like. A place with no wind, no color, no sound, no magic.

I screamed, but it was completely silent. This was a place where nothing could survive. And still those warm arms held me.

I curled in tighter around myself, willing it all to be over.

And then, just like that, it was.

Light and sound and pain rushed in, overwhelming my senses. I sucked in a breath, but my lungs burned, feeling as though they’d been shredded along with the rest of me.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt just to exist .

I allowed myself to fade back into that place of Death and darkness and dreams.

Slow, steady wing beats created a soothing rhythm, but then we alighted, and my eyes flew open.

Golden light momentarily blinded me, and then I was being carried down a long hallway painted with a mural in colors I’d never seen before — colors that didn’t exist in my world.

Low hisses followed me down the corridor, and I glimpsed a long pale hand protruding from the sleeve of a threadbare linen cloak.

Monsters. And yet, I wasn’t afraid. I’d battled true monsters and lived.

At least, I thought I was alive. I was in too much pain to be dead.

There wasn’t a single inch of me that didn’t feel as though it had been beaten and stabbed. The wounds went deeper than muscle and bone. My very thoughts felt feeble, as if the demon who’d invaded my mind had caused irreparable damage.

A door creaked open, and more whispers filled my ears. This voice did not belong to a demon or the wraith in the cloak. It was fussy — motherly, even — though the male who held me dismissed her with a protective hiss of his own.

Gently, so gently, those arms that smelled like leather and cedar laid me down on something soft and solid. I whimpered as my battered muscles sank onto my bones, and a featherlight touch ghosted across my cheek, so faint I might have dreamed it.

I sighed against the softness that curved around my body and close my eyes, dreaming of talon-tipped wings.