Page 32 of Slayer

I love you.

I did it.

I repeat the words silently, a promise kept. Blood loss and magic hums through my veins, heavy and soothing, a lullaby I can’t fight anymore. The world tilts. My eyelids sink closed, too heavy to lift again.

Chapter fifteen

Life & Death

The first thing I realize is that I’m dying. My eyelids feel like they’re weighed down with stone.

Silas cut far too deep, finding the perfect place to tear through my arm and open a main artery. Blood loss pulls at the edges of my vision, dizzy and relentless, mixing with the crushing exhaustion of shifting so much in too little time. Pain pulses down my arm, sharp and searing, as if the muscle has been stripped clean from the bone. My magic was at an all-time low, so my wound healing on its own is out of the question.

My throat throbs, swollen and bruised, every swallow a reminder of the hands that nearly crushed the life out of me.

I drag in a shallow breath. Then another. I force my eyes open.

A figure stands above me, their shape blurred, haloed by light. Golden sunlight spills from somewhere behind them, bright, warm, and igniting the edges of their silhouette in what looks like fire. I can’t make out a face, only the heavy presence.

The feeling of hands steals my attention. They glow faintly where they rest against my skin, steady, warm, and gentle. Saving me.

A healer.

The realization cuts through the haze, sharp enough to anchor me for a moment. I try to move, to focus and understand. Why help me? My thoughts slip and fracture before they can form fully, the answers just out of reach. The light pulses once, soft, reassuring.

And then once more, the world tilts. Sleep pulls me under again.

I find myself standing in the dead of night, alone, wading through black water beneath a cascading waterfall.

The air hums with something I can’t quite pinpoint. Power, perhaps? This place feels unreal, almost ethereal. I don’t remember how I arrived here, or where on any map such a place could exist. I can’t tell if this water belongs to the ocean, or if it exists outside the world entirely, its own realm, untouched by borders or time.

The bite of the water is cold as I move deeper, sharp enough to steal my breath. My pants cling to my legs, heavy fabric dragging against my skin with every step. I walk straight into the fall, letting it crash over me.

The impact is punishing but purifying all the same. It strips the blood from my clothes, my hands, my hair. Scarlet tendrils unfurl in the water, curling and spiraling downward like ink, swallowed by the black depths below until there’s nothing left of them at all.

I lift my gaze. The moon looms overhead, too bright and too close, its glow nearly blinding. Moonlight spills across the water like silver fire, igniting every ripple, every movement. The surface gleams and beckons.

It looks like the light at the end of a tunnel, beautiful and seductive. I can’t shake the feeling that if I wade any farther toward it, I may never come back the same.

Is this just another one of my dreams, or is it the final call for death? Am I walking willingly into the chambers of finality, ready to sleep for good?

The roar of the waterfall splits, and a familiar voice cuts through it, smooth as bourbon. My heart stops mid-beat, aching.

“Nes,” the voice whispers.

My breath leaves me in a broken gasp. I know that voice anywhere. I turn.

Maddoc stands in the water a few paces away, motionless, as if the current refuses to move him. Blood stains his clothes, and his skin is split and bruised, devastation written across his face just as it was when I found him on the shore. I take him in. Blackened eyes, split lip, blooming bruises like dying flowers across his skin. Violent deep cuts carved into what was once perfect.

My heart drops, plunging into the black depths below, and tears burn hot along my cheeks. I step toward him, the water rippling softly between us, and reach out with a trembling hand. I need to feel him, to prove this isn’t another cruel trick of my mind.

My fingers brush his arm. His skin is as cold as ice. Not dead, but not alive. In that single, awful touch, I understand.

I try to speak, to say his name, but the sound never makes it out. My throat closes around the word.

“Do you see that bright light?” Maddoc asks. I follow his gaze past the waterfall. What I thought was moonlight isn’t. It’s almost holy as it cuts through the mist. Droplets slide down my clothes like liquid glass, catching the glow as they fall.

“Yes,” I whisper.