his eyes and nose, but he smiled anyway, staring across the water.
For a split second, she could hear the thought in his mind.
Ava stood and started running toward him as fast as she could, barely noticing the shadow moving in the corner of her eye.
The shadow rose from the water, blue eyes gleaming in the darkness and blade glinting in the light.
Ava’s heart stopped.
Silence.
Malachi stilled as the blade pierced his spine, his eyes locking with hers.
Grey eyes wide in the darkness.
She fell. Her knees gave out.
Cold water rose to her chest.
Her mate’s mouth dropped open with a silent cry as Brage’s blade plunged in, then his face shone gold.
“NO!” Max’s voice behind her.
Gold. He was gold. Shimmering in the darkness. Beautiful. Radiant.
Malachi’s visage flickered as the dust began to rise.
Ava’s heart beat once, then she heard another long scream.
Silence as her eardrums burst. Her vision went black as the gold dust rose like a ghost in the darkness.
Then the water enveloped her and everything was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Blackness. Silence.
She heard groans and knew they came from her throat.
Her chest ached. Her ears hurt. Everything hurt.
Someone was carrying her, but it wasn’t him.
“What happened?
“Gone,” she whispered when she heard his brother’s voice.
She saw it again. Her mate’s radiant face before it dissolved into gold dust and drifted to the sky. The hollow feeling in her chest rose and enveloped her.
She closed her eyes.
Ava ran through a dark forest, thick with fog. He was there. He had to be.
Where was he?
She tripped over roots in the path and the ground rushed toward her. Black leaves slapped her face.
Darkness.
She slept.
She was in Cappadocia. She didn’t know how. They put her in a bed that smelled of him, and she slept.
Warm, wrinkled hands forced her up in the bed.
“Drink. You must drink.”
“Please, Ava.”
Small hands led her through the forest. Soft hands clutched her fingers. Childish voices whispered in her mind.
“Come back.”
“We need you to come back.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ava woke in the blackness, in the cave where they’d first made love. She was wrapped in his scent, but not his arms.
Everything was gone.
She lay still, staring at the chisel marks in the ceiling, wishing the mountain would close in and crush her.
“I know you’re awake.”
It was Rhys. She turned her head to the side and he was there, sitting in a corner of the room, staring at her with bloodshot eyes. They filled with tears as he watched her.
“Ava.”
He reached over and caught her when she started to sob. The cries wracked her body, wringing her out as he held her. She shouted into his shoulder, beating at his back, but he only gripped her closer, rocking back and forth.
She cried for hours, and then the blackness enveloped her again.
Damien was there the next time she woke.
“You need to eat, sister.”
“I don’t want to.”
“He wanted you to live.” Damien continued, even when she curled into herself, trying to shut out the words. “More than anything, he wanted you to live.”
“Go away.”
“Not till you’ve eaten.”
“No.”
“It’s been over a week. You’re dehydrated. Evren is hours away from putting you on an IV if you don’t drink something.”
“I don’t care.”
Damien knelt beside her, holding out a soft roll and a cup of water.
“Do not let his sacrifice be in vain.”
She started to cry again, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, but she sat up. Damien helped her, placing more pillows behind her back after Ava took the roll from his hands. She bit down, and it tasted like dust.
Whispered thoughts circled her mind as she stared at the mural in the library, the bucolic scene of families in the village. The ancient scribe she remembered sat across from her, staring silently with pale blue eyes.
She was his companion now.
Ava sat in the library for weeks, staring at the painting as the scribes fed her, forced her to drink. Her body grew strong again.
She slept in the bed she and Malachi had shared. The sense of him lingered for a time, and when it started to fade, Rhys showed up at the door with a blanket that held her mate’s scent. Ava silently took it and wrapped it around her before she shut the door.
“You grieve,” the ancient scribe said one afternoon as the sun lit the rich colors on the wall.
“Yes.”
