Page 84 of Ascendant King

My eyes rolled back in my head, and I felt my pulse slow. It disappeared as my vision grayed out. I was dying.

I was dead.

I stepped back, away from my own body, observing the room for the first time. It was the king’s bedroom. Cade and I had visitedit before we had fled House Bartlett. The walls were still stained with old magic.

Cade looked like himself, but I could see a shimmer over his skin where he wore the face of his father. My body wasn’t mine. My fur had never been that color; that red-brown had always been my mother’s.

I saw my father’s body to the side, discarded. We were two people reenacting a play that had happened eleven years ago—only Cade had been able to rewrite the ending. In this version, the king survived, and the emperor died.

The bedroom door opened, brilliant light flowing in. I saw my mother silhouetted. She smiled at me, although I couldn’t see her face, extending her hand.

On the ground, Cade redoubled his efforts, his magic digging in, blood flowing from my sliced throat.

Then he stumbled back, pushing away from my corpse. He stared at me, his father fading from his skin.

Blood and poisonous sap soaked the floor.

“No.” Cade’s voice was broken. “No, Miles.”

He reached out, fisting my fur in both hands. Black lines of tattoo flowed down his skin, wrapping around my throat over and over until it was as thick as a collar.

I saw sparks of light, brilliant white that were almost immediately smothered by more ink.

Cade was trembling, his eyes wide, shaking his head back and forth.

“No.”

He pressed his face forward, screaming, “No! Come back to me!”

The body under his hand gasped, red blood, sticky from sap, seeping between the lines of ink.

I looked over my shoulder, and my mother was fading, the door shutting. The decision I had to make was clear. Squeezingmy eyes closed, I stepped forward, dropping back into my own body.

I came awake almost instantly, gasping and choking, struggling to stand so I could hack out the thick poison that fell from my mouth like honey.

“We have to get that out of you,” Cade said.

His hands were still buried in my fur, and I felt his magic twist tighter around my throat, then slither up my chin, flowing between my lips, down my throat, and into my body.

“You have to use it,” Cade croaked. “I can’t?—”

I knew what I had to do. Shutting my own eyes, I felt the magic inside of me, let myself believe what was going to happen. Then, for the second time since I had met Cade, I set myself ablaze.

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Cognitively, I understood that I wasn’t actually on fire, my body wasn’t burning, the flames were just consuming the sap, the poison that pulsed through my veins.

Still, it hurt, with the searing agony of acid burning me. I was sure that if I looked down, it would have eaten all the way to the bone.

Cade gripped me tight, his voice a lone life preserver I could cling to in the storm.

“Miles. Miles you’re going to survive this. Youhaveto survive this. I know you’re going to.” He stopped, choked on some emotion, coughing until his voice was clear, and then he yanked at my fur, pulling my face up so that I was staring into his blue eyes. “BecauseI love you. Do you understand? I need you to be with me. I need you.”

The fire no longer burned. Instead, the warmth of it spread through my body, starting in my chest, until I glowed with it. Light reflected back on Cade’s pale face, and he blinked, mouth dropping open in surprise.

“Miles.” He released my fur, reaching out with tentative fingers.