Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

But then an arm reached around the guard and an already bloody blade slashed his throat, creating a wide crimson line that spilled onto his green uniform.

The guard dropped his sword, staggered backward, and clutched at the gaping wound on his throat before falling to his side in a heavy, twitching heap.

Cleo dropped the dagger and it clattered against the smooth, cold floor.

“That,” she said, her voice brittle and shaking, “makes us even. All right?”

Magnus stared up at her, utterly stunned. “All right.”

She held his gaze for a moment longer, and then ran to Nic, who’d watched everything from across the temple in a state of shock. He grabbed hold of her and pulled her to him in a tight hug.

It seemed that Magnus had escaped death in the exact moment he’d been ready to accept it.

How unexpected.

He pushed himself up to his feet using his uninjured arm, and glared in the princess’s general direction. “We need to find Lucia. And we need to get that crystal back from Amara.”

Nic gave Ashur’s body a final, pained look before he and Cleo left the temple. Magnus watched as the princess passed him, more annoyed now than he’d been before.

“What?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” he growled in return. “Stop wasting time. Let’s go.”

Magnus had come to a horrible realization. One he knew would cause him nothing but pain and suffering from that day forward.

But there was no changing the truth of it.

He had fallen in love with her

CHAPTER 36

LUCIA

LIMEROS

Lucia spent every last coin she had on a carriage to bring her to the Limerian palace. Her one true home. On the way, she’d used her earth magic to heal her wound. The pain of it was only a memory now. She could heal herself, but she couldn’t heal Alexius.

I tried, she thought. I’ve never tried harder for anything. I’m sorry I failed.

By the time she arrived at the palace, it was nearly dawn.

The pitch-dark granite spires stretched up into the sky—black on black. She walked past the palace, ignoring the warmth it might offer her, and moved along the shadowy pathways winding through the still and silent gardens, so different from the light-filled, lively ones at the Auranian palace.

Both so different, but so stunningly beautiful in their own ways.

She was drawn to the cliffs that looked out upon the Silver Sea, lit now only by moonlight. She stood at the very edge and looked down at the glistening black water crashing against the rocky shore.

She held Alexius’s dagger at her side. It was still coated in his blood.

His body had vanished from her arms in a flash of light only moments after his death. If it hadn’t, she never would have left the temple; she would have stayed right there by his side for eternity. But there was nothing there for her anymore.

Just before he’d taken his last breath, he told her to come here and to wait.

So she waited.

Suddenly she heard the snow crunch behind her, signaling someone’s approach. But Lucia didn’t turn around. She just focused on the water, on the horizon far in the distance as the moon sank lower and lower.

“Quite a night.” A woman’s voice, calm and melodious.