He fumbled for the hilt of his dagger. Despite his hand slickened with blood, he finally seized it. Praise all the gods andfates and every fucking good thing that had ever happened to him.
Vesper struck.
The dagger embedded in the Graver’s fleshless skull. Bone crunched beneath his fingers, and it stilled. Fell limp against him. He threw the body off him, but as he did, its teeth tore his neck like peeling skin from an apple.
Vesper hissed at the searing pain and clamped a hand over the wound. Blood saturated his glove and dripped onto the ground.
The images burst through and transported him.
Cold tile floor, warm blood surrounding him, the bolt in his chest, and blood bubbling from the wound in his neck. Emmery’s trembling hands gripping his throat, trying to thrust the blood back into his body. Her tears. The pain, his chest spasming, and then he was ice cold and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe,couldn’t fucking breathe—
A hand on his shoulder yanked him from the vision. Nef’s puffy eyes met his, her face pale, gold hair splattered with blood, and face painted in fingerprints of dirt and tear tracks. She helped him sit up, though his head swam.
“Dimitri,” she sobbed and smeared the dirt. She nodded at his still body on the ground. Unmoving.
Then she doubled over and coughed so hard, she nearly collapsed. Vesper clambered to his feet and wrapped his arms around her to hold her upright, while his eyes darted around the cave. Kaida’s flame engulfed the cavern.
Gaelan kneeled at his brother’s side, Dimitri’s hand clutched in two of his. His shoulders shook but he made no sound. As if he could shield him from this inevitability, from this fate, he folded over his brother's body.
With Nef in tow, Vesper stumbled to Dimitri before he fell to his knees. Death had already whisked the rider away.
Vesper shut Dimitri’s eyes before he whispered a prayer to Deimos to take him gently to the Hollow. Nef’s golden hair lifted in the swell of shadow fire as she sank to Dimitri’s side beside Gaelen as chaos rained around them.
Vesper hauled himself up, and gripped his neck harder, though it still bled like a bitch. Kaida bellowed fire, stronger than ever before, and drained blood from the wounds to his neck and ribs.
Too fast. The world spun and Vesper staggered.
The entire cavern lit in an obsidian blaze, the air practically boiling. At some point, Thorrin had released the prisoners, too.
Vesper’s head whipped in search of Kyrith. Black flames licked at the skin houses as they shrivelled and crumpled to the ground, everything aflame, but only one thought screamed through his head.
Where is she, where is she, where is she—
Chaos and heat and panic enveloped him as he staggered through the smoky haze.
“Kyrith!” he tried to yell, but his voice cracked, stone on stone.
He beckoned Kaida, and the dragon’s red eyes snapped to him. She faded to shadow as she disappeared back inside him. In one hand he clutched his battered ribs, and his neck in the other. A sigh of relief rushed out of him when he caught sight of that luscious burgundy hair.
A man with reddish-purple hair like hers and a tear-stained face lay in her arms. Streaks of dirt coated them both. And she just stared down at him with a gut-wrenching helplessness, much like Gaelen with Dimitri. The man’s closed eyes and still chest meant only one thing.
In fact, all the bodies in the cages had grown rigid, falling back to the peacefulness the Graver’s had taken from them. They no longer remained captive, refusing the frigid sigh of death, though their lives had been stolen.
Vesper caught sight of the man’s bare chest. He glanced at the other bodies, and his world stilled. A deep, dark reality needled him.
Hollows. Every one of them, marked with acavae.
Vesper dragged himself to Kyrith and released his ribs to place a tentative hand on her shoulder. Her eyes remained locked on the man in her arms, his face serene in death.
“We need to bury them,” she choked. “One final time.”
She shed no tears, but when she finally glanced up at him, pure agony lingered there. And it did something to him. Splintered something inside his chest. Something vital. Irretrievable.
As the flames died down, and Vesper ensured Kaida irreversibly burned the enchanted grave plot, one by one, he, Kyrith, and Thorrin carried their bodies outside the cave clouded in death and decay. They found a peaceful strip of land shaded by a copse of trees to bury these weary souls.
Vesper numbed to his wounds as they gave a final goodbye to these poor souls. He burned each of their faces into his memory so he wouldn’t forget, not that he could forget what he’d seen here. What he needed to put an end to.
For some time, Kyrith sat by the man’s grave and piled rocks in an arch. A rainbow, maybe.