Page 50 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

M y muscles screamed, blades lodged in my joints, and each inhale a sharp pain in my ribs.

My fingers twitched, and a groan slipped past my dry lips. I licked them, wincing at the sting and metallic taste.

I’m so…thirsty.

I tried to open my eyes, but my head spun and nausea churned in my gut. I clamped a hand over my mouth, steadying myself. Once the sickness passed, I drew in a slow breath and pressed a palm to my forehead, forcing my eyes open.

I saw a back first—a man’s shirtless back—and blinked a few times. My heart skipped a beat, my breathing turned shallow and even more painful. With a quick glance around, I pinched my lips together and carefully sat up, stifling a cry at the agony that tore through every muscle and joint.

Goddess, how long was I out? It felt like I’d lain here for weeks, my body as stiff as a corpse.

We were in a large tent with a small fire in the center, fur lining the makeshift bed. I lifted the blanket to look myself over, and heat seeped into my cheeks. My clothes were clean, no mud or blood.

Someone had changed me and put me in…a dress?

My brows furrowed, confusion wracking my fuzzy head. I slid my fingers over the delicate corset, one string at a time.

It sat atop a plain dress, too thin for winter, the sleeves barely reaching my elbows, and while it wasn’t cold in the tent, I knew it would be outside. Ice would find and bite at every bare inch of skin. I shivered at the thought, a chill running down my spine, and looked around again.

I released a breath of relief when I spotted more clothing folded in the corner, namely a thick fur.

Wiggling the toes of my injured leg, I braced for the pain to come, but when none did, or no more than was already accosting me, I pulled the blanket down farther and hiked the skirt up to my hips.

The wound had been deep; I knew it had, because that wood had hit bone, a very excruciating yet distinct pain.

Narrowing my eyes, I ran my fingers over my upper thigh and felt nothing, no raised skin or scar.

When I tossed the blanket back and leaned down to get a better look, Rogue stirred and sucked in a breath.

He must have applied the healing salve while I was out—and I once again found myself asking how long that was.

He rolled over, and I froze. Blood roared in my ears, muscles tensed to fight or flee.

I didn’t dare breathe. No, my lungs were frozen, my head and eyes, too.

I couldn’t tear them from his face. I couldn’t roll over and run.

I couldn’t force my arm to reach for a dagger and slit his throat. I couldn’t wake my magic.

I couldn’t scream.

I’d become a statue of ice as I looked at this man—this monster.

Adonis cracked an eye open, a ruddy red, the color of dried blood. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I lurched forward and wrapped my hands around his throat. His eyes shot open, his breath hitching before I squeezed hard . I couldn’t kill him, but I could crush his windpipe and suffocate the bastard. He couldn’t die, but he could hurt.

He didn’t retaliate or react.

His emotions played out on his expression: stunned, then concerned, deeply worried, but mostly, sad. My tight hands shook, and I tried to pull the life from him, but my magic wouldn’t wake.

No…

I wasn’t just empty.

There was no magic to wake, no well to empty, no energy to call.

My hands shook harder, the tremble climbing my arms until I grew too weak to hold myself up. My elbows gave out, and I rolled off him, shuffling away as fast as I could, tears stinging my eyes.

Months ago, when my curse was broken, I’d felt life rush into my body.

My magic stitched the wounds in my soul, and my comfort in the sky made sense because it was more than that.

It was my friend, my counterpart. Everything that had felt innately wrong with me was righted when I reunited with the other half of myself.

I had become whole.

Yet I’d been halved once again.

My entire body shook as hysteria climbed my throat.

It wasn’t Adonis’s voice that caressed me then.

“Breathe, love,” Mother crooned. “Fear is only temporary, as is the war.”

When her warm hand rubbed my back, I released a shaky cry and wiped my cheeks. She was younger, her skin smoother and hair longer, the red sparkling in the firelight. With a faint smile, she curled the hair behind my ear.

“Your heart is as brave as your father’s,” she said, her words barely above a whisper, but I latched onto them and tucked them away.

Brave.

I could be brave like my father, but another’s words echoed from somewhere, too.

A soft laugh pulled my attention to the man in the corner, barely a shadow, the silver glint in his eyes turned gold by the flickering flame. He saw me, too, but he wasn’t speaking to me. He didn’t seem to know I could see him.

“She’s brave like you , sun ray.” He shook his head, his voice soft as a breeze. “Every good thing… It’s always you.”

I glanced back at the bed, but it and the man lying in it were gone. Instead, there was a row of cots, each occupied by a soldier. There were no empty beds.

My breath hitched, and it brought the horrifying, metallic scent of war—steel and blood. Thick red liquid soaked through the beds and dripped to the floor, where dark footprints tracked from one bed to the next.

My gaze jerked back to the shadow man. He’d felt safe, but he was gone, and other sounds filtered in.

The clashing of swords, men and women screaming, the pounding of horse hooves, the unnatural roar of a Fae creature—it was a distant chorus playing in the background, and the blood pooling around me was simply one instrument in an orchestra of panic.

The war.

My hands cupped my ears, and I tucked my head between my knees. I tried to breathe through my mouth to escape the smell, but there was so much blood, it saturated the air, and I tasted it on my tongue.

I barely had time to move before my gut wrenched, and I vomited on the floor of the tent, my mother’s hand still rubbing small circles on my upper back.

“Calm, love. Can you name three calm things?”

I shook my head, gasping, but that inhale only forced more stomach acid up.

“Two?” she asked.

I shook my head again.

“Certainly you can name one.”

There was nothing calm left in this world.

It had all been destroyed, beaten to death, bludgeoned, crushed, trampled beneath man or horse or beast. The calm had been skewered on another’s blade, scorched in fire, and returned to the nothingness it came from.

It was eaten by life, wrapped in vines and thorns, and punctured.

Briers everywhere…in the skin, beneath the skin, in the eyes, throat, winding through organs.

Anything calm had long since fallen to nightmares and…and magic.

All that remained was chaos.

Chaos and death and terror.

Constant terror.

And her, the only steadiness left in my world and the closest I had to calm.

I dragged my gaze from the floor up to hers. I couldn’t stand that I did this, troubled her with my weakness. Men and women were dying, and I dared to take her healing hands from them.

I retched again, stomach acid and shame.

“Look at that,” she whispered and pointed past me.

I followed her finger and found one of the medical tent’s walls rippling in the wind. The frayed end of the rope whipped where it’d torn loose. Each gust whistled through the opening, tearing it open farther until the gray sky was visible, and below it, a foggy forest, alive and soaked.

It wasn’t winter. It was spring.

Bright emerald leaves tore from their branches, swirling in the wind. Soft pink whirled among them. Wiping my mouth, I crawled forward and squinted.

“What is…” My throat burned, and I swallowed with a wince. “Pink leaves?”

“Not leaves,” she breathed, lacing her fingers through mine like she suddenly needed my support instead. “Petals.”

A beam of sunlight sliced through the clouds and landed on the forest before us, on one tree. Straight ahead and perfectly framed by the gap in the tent sat a short tree speckled with faint pink flowers, glowing in the sun ray, swaying in the storm.

“Oh, it’s an apple tree,” I said.

Mother sank to her knees.

I glanced at her, but she was no longer here. Her body was, but she was gone, lost to a memory—or rather, haunted by one. Whatever the memory was, it visited her often. I’d seen this look before, but not since the war started.

I squeezed her hand, and a tear slipped past her lashes. She harshly wiped her cheek, cleared her throat, and plastered a smile on her face that didn’t reach her eyes.

When a petal swirled in through the gap, dancing around her, her hand tightened in mine. It landed on the ground between us, but she didn’t look at it. She didn’t look away from me, her lip quivering despite her smile, another tear falling.

This time, she didn’t wipe it away. It dripped from her chin to the floor below and disappeared in a puddle of blood—the very same one the petal sat atop as it slowly stained red.

I blinked once, twice.

I followed the trail up Mother’s body with growing horror until I found her chest flayed open, her beating heart bleeding out.

This was a memory.

A dark, distorted, warped memory.

We’d seen that apple tree that day. She’d talked me down from a panic attack when an influx of injured soldiers were carried in, and I’d seen her fight her demons so I wouldn’t have to fight mine alone.

All of that had happened, but she hadn’t been injured like this…except she had, hadn’t she? I just hadn’t seen it back then, hadn’t known of its existence.

Her demons weren’t demons at all.

It was heartbreak, as sharp and painful as any blade. At least a physical wound either healed or put the injured out of their misery.

My mother lived with an unseen dagger lodged in her chest—a permanent dagger that sliced ever deeper into the muscle and sinew of her heart with each reminder and memory—and we couldn’t remove it.