Page 82 of The Sins of Silas (The Otacian Chronicles #2)

Chapter Eighty-Two

SILAS - THIRTY DAYS AGO

M y vision was blurring, the pain from my wound radiating from where my chest was impaled down each of my limbs.

I had no concept of time; I believed I was going in and out of consciousness.

Lena…

The pain from this injury was agonizing, and not from the blade that had been thrust into my chest, but from the curse circulating through my body, destroying all my life essence slowly but surely. I supposed the only comfort I had was that I would not turn into one of Ulric's servants. I would be dead any moment.

I wanted to save my kingdom. I wanted to save my mother. I wanted the life with Lena I had always dreamed of.

But this was it—my end .

I supposed I didn’t deserve those things, not after the sins I’d committed, not after all the innocent lives I had taken. The irony of dying in this temple was not lost to me.

Lena had forgiven me for all of it. In a way, I couldn’t understand how. But no sin she could commit would make me not love her, either.

My Soul-Tie.

I had never believed in such a thing. Even when Merrick first mentioned it, and I learned of the bond gifted by the Goddess Celluna, I had trouble accepting such a thing was real.

But Lena…there was no doubt she and I were fated, no doubt that our paths were meant to cross.

I groaned at the growing pain, my eyes fluttering shut.

There was still so much to be done. So much that had been put on my lover’s shoulders. Out of all the reasons I wished I could live, helping and supporting her in all she would endure took precedence.

My heartbeat quickened, more sweat beading at my hairline at the thought of what Ulric would do if he found out what Lena had meant to me, what he would have done to her.

Fuck! If he subjected her to even a fraction of what he did to me…

I attempted to lift my arm to pull the sword out of my chest, but I shrieked at the pain the second I touched the hilt.

Godsdamn it.

Lena was strong. Stronger than me. She could make it, overcome. But I knew my death would be one of no peace, knowing there was nothing I could do to fucking stop what was to happen to her.

I cried. I cried and cried, years of built-up emotion finally releasing as I lived my final moments .

I didn’t know how much time passed until my weeping died down…until my eyes became so heavy that I knew my last minutes were approaching.

I was fading when a girl and a man came into my peripheral, and when I glimpsed upward, I blinked rapidly. Part of me debated yelling for help, but the curse had touched me. There was nothing that could be done now.

The girl quickly ran and kneeled at my side, swearing when she took in the sword that had me pinned to the altar. Her jet-black hair spilled past her shoulders.

“We need to get him home—to the healers,” she said with urgency to the man behind her, her voice lilting and elegant. I’d never heard such an accent before.

“How will they be able to heal such a thing?” the man panicked, his accent a mix of the unique one and of the people of Tovagoth. “The others are one thing—”

“Look.” She pulled my shirt to the side. “It hasn't spread.”

I slowly glimpsed into the man’s worried grey eyes, and as my blurred vision finally began to focus, I saw a man whom my mother had loved.

A man whose name I used when I first explored my kingdom.

“Quill,” I rasped, and Quill's eyes widened.

“Silas, how long ago were you attacked?” the girl beside me pressed, her hand grasping my shoulder.

I blinked over and over, my vision getting hazy again until my gaze finally settled on the girl’s eyes.

The same golden ones as mine stared back at me, and I knew then exactly who she was.

“Aria?” I whispered.