Page 56 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter fifty-two

Zane

G one.

I should’ve leapt in with her, for what is left here but rubble and ruin? The Nest is destroyed and so is my only other purpose in life.

The ground burns the soles of my shoes as I walk to the spot she once was. What if it wasn’t her wrapped in silk? What if she’s just under these stones?

I dig into the red-hot rocks with my good hand and spindles, pulling them up. I feel that just one more overturned slab will reveal her face. That she’s down there, waiting for me to find her and bring her back to the surface.

Someone grabs my arm. I wrestle free. Just one more stone. She’s there, I know she’s there. One more.

One more.

One more.

Each rock I overturn is bloody and my gut plummets. She’s been crushed. She’s dead.

I tear into the debris and pull the stones away with flagrant abandon. More, deeper. I know she’s here. There’s blood !

I’m knocked sideways by a blow to the head and hit the ground. My shoulder aches and my hand throbs. I take a breath and feel the pain radiating through me.

“Stop digging! She’s not here!” Kazimir yells.

He wouldn’t know. He found his wife in the dirt and dug for her. Why not me?

I push him aside and drop to my knees, lifting jagged edges stained red with her blood.

“Zane, it’s your blood ,” a feminine voice calls from above.

One more stone and surely I’ll find her.

But there are no more. It’s only hot earth, seared orange by the power of the magic that was held inside her. It shimmers gold, green, and teal blue.

Someone grabs my arm and pulls me upright. Alastair holds my hand in front of my face and I see what I’ve done. Gnarled, bloodied down to the sinew, and burned.

“She’s not down there,” he says, his voice coarse and quiet.

I see the truth in his eyes, the pain of loss that I’m refusing to feel.

Because if she’s not gone, I don’t have to acknowledge the deep, hollow ache in my heart—in my soul.

I’m not just alone without her, I’m a shadow.

A husk of what could’ve been. An empty shell, shattered irrevocably, that can never again be filled.

I’m gasping for air. My lungs are too tight, too small.

I should’ve jumped in with her. I should’ve died with her.

I know what I must do.

My spindles snap out at the awkward angle required to sever my own neck. Alastair releases my hand and grabs the top two. He wrestles me to the ground, pinning the others against the hot stones .

I thrash, but he’s much heavier. Even with the power of my spindles pushing against the ground and the upper two battling his scaled arms, he doesn’t budge.

“Don’t!” he barks in my face.

The dam on my throat opens and hatred spills out. “You would condemn me to a life without her?”

“Think of your nieces! Your wife’s blood runs in their veins! You’d leave them unprotected? What would she think of you?”

“How dare you invoke her this way! Like a thing to be used! ”

I get my knee between us and shove with all my might.

He loses his grip. Fury moves me. I stagger to my feet.

My spindles slash his hard scales and come back bloody.

Alastair grips one and twists, throwing me from the ground to the wall.

My shoulder screams, but I push through the bodily pain, fueled by the one that’s deeper.

I lunge for him, my spider legs narrowed to spear tips. They pierce his armor at the shoulders and he falls against the stone.

I’m punched in the gut by some invisible force.

It throws me back and sucks the breath from my lungs.

I hit the wall with a sickening crack and stay there.

The weight on my body is unbearable. I want to scream, but there’s nothing left in me.

I have to suffer this helplessness for too many seconds, realizing who the culprit is.

Kazimir stands at the open rim of the pit, his hands twirling violet magic. I bare my teeth, the only gesture I can manage to let him know that if he doesn’t kill me now, I will kill him when I wake.

Finally, blessed darkness takes me. I hope for the very last time.

I feel the sheets beneath me before I know of anything else. It’s still cold, and my body still aches, but it’s somewhere just this side of tolerable. I open my eyes. They take a long time to focus, but when they do, I see Adrik.

His head is leaned against a cracked wall, body slumped in a way that could be death or sleep.

He’s emaciated. His muscles were nearly ruined from the potions he used to amplify his body’s power.

I told him it would happen. He told me he didn’t care.

If it meant protecting the people he loved, he would die.

My throat tightens and I wonder if Kazimir is nearby, ready to choke me again if I lose my mind.

I call on my power, and sure enough, it’s blocked.

I can’t feel where they’ve put the enchanted copper.

Too much of my body hurts to move and find the shackles.

So I sit in painful consciousness, looking at the ruined room of the Nest. It’s obvious Lily has been mending things, but with speed and inaccuracy.

How long has it been?

“Five days.”

Alyse’s presence shouldn’t surprise me, but her voice makes me flinch.

“You’re not well enough yet. Sleep.”

Fucking bitch .

I groan as I open my eyes. The room looks better, and I have a new guest.

Cecillia.

She’s mending something dark and bloodstained.

“Finally awake,” she mutters. “While you’ve been cooling your cheeks, we’ve been working our tails off.”

“I’d much prefer…” My voice is hoarse, barely serviceable. I power on anyway. “Prefer working than cooling.”

“I hear you’d prefer death, actually.”

My heart hammers a furious beat. “I would, if you’d grant it.”

She snorts. “You’re still an idiot.”

“I’ve lost all reason to live, and so I want death.”

“All reason?” she asks in a shrill tone as she sets down her work.

I grit my teeth against the sound that tries to shred my ears. “Yes, all.”

She slams her fists down on the bedside table. “You’ve lost one thing!”

“And Scarlett was everything!”

Cecillia’s eyes glisten and she swallows her tears. “So, you’ll deny your kingdom strength and leadership because you’re too sad to go on?”

“Don’t patronize me,” I snarl.

She sits back with a huff, picking up the cloth and returning to her work.

She threads with quiet annoyance, her fingers flicking and her lips twitching as if she’s having a silent argument in her mind.

Scarlett used to do it, too, when we’d fight.

She’d close herself off and continue the discussion in her mind, waging a war against her imagined version of me.

“Leave,” I say, the lump in my throat threatening to strangle me just as effectively as Kazimir .

“I can’t,” she says.

“Are your legs broken?”

“No, you’re to be watched at all times, and this is my shift,” she says.

I lay back and close my eyes. The binds on my ankles are dampening my power projection. My hand is wrapped in an immobilizing cast, and my ruined shoulder is slinged across my chest. Fighting my way out is ill-advised.

Fuck off, Alyse.

“Just trying to give you some good advice.” She projects her words into my mind.

No, you’re trying to fucking puppet me. I can feel your meddling. It smells like sickly syrup.

“You’re not well and bedrest is required. Your hand may never work again.”

Without my wife’s face to caress, why would I need it?

She’s quiet for a long time and I sink into the rhythm of my breathing. I must nod off, because when I open my eyes again, Alyse is in the chair at my bedside.

The swell of her stomach strikes a chord of envy in my heart. I wanted that with her .

“I know.” Alyse closes her book and sets it on the table. “I’m sorry.”

“A useless word. You can’t comprehend my sorrow. Why try to apologize for it?”

Her eyes shimmer with gold light, and it’s gone. The weight on my chest. The ache in my soul. The yearning. Missing. Needing. Hoping. Loving. Hating…

All gone.

I gasp at the taste of true freedom .

“I can make it like this always, if you want, but there is no escape from your duty. You’re not allowed to die. You either live with your pain, or you live without it.”

Scarlett moves through my mind. I watch her smile in the tub as she traces my jaw with slippery, lavender-smelling fingers. There’s nothing in me that wants that back. Nothing in me that cares it’s gone. I want to hate myself for not missing her, but no hate comes.

“Give it back,” I say.

She holds out her hand. There’s a lightning brand around her wrist, and it shimmers as gold magic infuses her skin. “Swear to me you won’t take your own life.”

“Swear on what? I have nothing.”

She pauses for a fraction of a second and I can see she’s conferring with the others. Her eyes dart to the door and back to me. “Then I’ll keep you like this forever.”

She stands and a sense of urgency blooms in my gut. There’s no desire behind it, but an impetus to return to the way I was.

“Wait, I’ll swear on her memory,” I say.

I want to see her face and feel the love I used to feel. This emptiness is worse than death.

She unhooks one of my manacles and grabs my bandaged hand. Our magic collides and battles in an icy storm, then finally settles as a dagger on our forearms: teal with a golden hilt, and sharp enough to pierce bone.

A trickle of feeling comes back to me. My heart palpitates at the sensation.

“More. All of it,” I say, gripping her tightly.

“It’ll overwhelm you. Slowly is the way.”

Alyse says nothing as she unshackles the rest of me, then leaves. Long, uncomfortable minutes pass as everything I once felt flows back into me. The chest-crushing love and the agony of its loss comes last. Tears stream down my face and I take deep gulps of air to quell them. It’s no use.

The pain is so great it fills every corner of me, taking up all the space. I can’t hold it any longer. I can’t bear it.

But I promised I would…

Frustration barrels up my chest and bursts from my throat. I bellow my pain to the ceiling until there’s no air left in the room, and darkness takes me again.

“Wake up,” a familiar, gruff voice says and a hand pushes my shoulder.

It hurts, but the pain is manageable. I open my eyes to see Gareth standing over me. A pang of relief and a wash of hope fills the hollowness of my being.

“I see you didn’t shuffle off,” I say, my voice raw and quiet.

“Not yet,” he says, then scratches his beard thoughtfully. “Lost a couple of my copies, though.”

I scowl. “That’s possible?”

He smirks. “Nah.”

“How long has it been? What’s been happening?” I ask, the desire to know what’s gone on outside this room burning through my other thoughts.

Gareth plops into the seat beside my bed with an old man’s groan. “It’s been eight or nine days. Some of the wealthy Upper Kingdomites tried for a power grab…grabbing what, I don’t even know. The palace is in shambles. Most of the city is too .

“The princesses are going by queens now, as are their husbands, and they’ve named you a king, too.

They’re out and about, doing all the goings on of fixing a kingdom.

Liliana is actually fixing the kingdom. She’s been teaching classes to the Spiders on how to rune-write in the air, helpin’ her to clean up the city for repairs. Let me know if you need me to stop.”

I shake my head. “Keep going.”

“Adrik’s okay, Emillia’s a little worse for wear, but serviceable. Lost a leg—crushed by the stone monster. Kazimir is making prosthetics. Lots of people lost something or other. Still haven’t found some people, so we’re presuming they're gone. I can have a list sent up to you if you want.”

He falls quiet, and in the silence is the revelation that hurts the most.

I’m not the only one suffering. I’m not the only one who’s lost. Limbs, lives, homes, loves.

And Scarlett would’ve wanted me to help them.

“Zane?” Gareth draws my attention back to him.

“A list is fine. I’ll review it.”

“We’ll need to make modifications to squadrons, send letters to the families, the like…It would be nice if they could see you.”

I nod. “Of course. I’ll hand deliver them.”

“The others too. They’ve been worried about you.”

My throat aches and my windpipe seems to narrow. I clear my throat. “You can tell them I’m fine. Fucked up, but fine.”

“Good,” Gareth says and bobs his head a few times. “Are you, though?”

Of all the people I’d want to spill my guts to, I’d trust Gareth the most. But I also don’t want to burden him with my pain or show him the weakness I can’t overcome .

“I miss her,” I say. “It hurts.”

He nods again, his eyes shiny. “It’d hurt if you were gone. I’d miss you.”

“Well, despite how I felt about it a few days ago, I’m not going anywhere,” I say.

His throat bobs and he nods more furiously, sniffling and dropping his gaze. This damn old man. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and fall into him. He wraps his arms around me with a gruff, barking sob.

“You stupid, idiot boy,” he says, his words muffled by my shoulder.

I pat his back. “I know.”

“Don’t you ever…” He hiccups a sob. “Never again.”

My eyes catch on the glowing teal dagger running the length of my forearm.

“I won’t.”