From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,142

couldn’t make myself stop.

A flash of light exploded behind my eyes, and oblivion reached for me.

I fell into nothingness.

Chapter 27

Half resting on the inner ledge, I stared out the window at the torches beyond the Rise, eyes aching and weary with the pressure of tears that wouldn’t fall.

I wished I could cry, but it was like the cord that had connected me to my emotions had been severed. It wasn’t that Vikter’s death didn’t hurt. Gods, it ached and throbbed every time I even thought his name, but that was almost all I’d felt in the week and a half since his death. A sharp slice of pain that cut through my chest. No sorrow. No dread. Just pain and anger…so much anger.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone to his funeral. I hadn’t made it to any of the funerals, and there had been so many dead that ten or more were held at a time—or so I had heard from Tawny.

It hadn’t been my choice not to attend the services. I’d been asleep. I’d been sleeping a lot this week. Entire days just gone in a blur of sleep and drugged consciousness. I didn’t even remember Tawny helping me bathe away the blood and gore or how I got back to bed. I knew she’d talked to me then, but I couldn’t recall a single thing she’d said. I had this weird impression that I hadn’t been alone while I slept. There was a sensation of callused palms against my cheek, fingers brushing hair back from my face. I had the faintest memory of Hawke talking to me, whispering when the room was filled with sunlight and when it had been taken over by night. Even now, I could feel the touch against my face, my hair. It had been the only grounding connection I’d had while I slept.

I squeezed my lids shut until the phantom sensations vanished, and then I reopened my eyes.

It wasn’t until about four days after the attack on the Rite that I’d learned that Hawke had used some kind of pressure point on my neck to render me unconscious. I’d woken up sometime later in my room, unable to use my voice. The screaming…it had torn up my throat. Hawke had been there, so had Tawny, the Duchess, and a Healer.

I was offered a sleeping draught, and for the first time in my life, I took it. I might’ve kept taking it if it hadn’t been for Hawke removing the powder from my room four days ago.

It was then I learned that the attack on the Rise hadn’t been the only one that night. The Descenters had set fire to several of the opulent homes along Radiant Row, drawing guards from the Rise and the castle. That was where Hawke had been after he’d left the garden, which explained the soot on his face.

The fires had been a smart move by the Descenters. I had to give them that. With the guards distracted, the Descenters were able to move through the night, taking out guards stationed around the castle before they even knew they were there. They were able to commence wholesale slaughter before the guards who’d gone to Radiant Row could even be summoned.

No one could be positive what message the attack on the Rite had been meant to send, or even if they had been searching for me. None of the Descenters were taken alive that night, and any of those who had escaped, had slipped back into the shadows.

The Ascended had done what the Duchess said they would do. They got their hands dirty, but their assistance had come too late. Most who’d been left in that room had died. Only a few had survived, most so traumatized that they couldn’t even recall what had happened.

Well over a hundred had died that night.

Gods, I’d rather be asleep than awake.

At least when I slept, I didn’t think about the Duke burning from where he had been hung and impaled. I couldn’t think about Dafina’s one blue eye, or how Loren had tried to go back to her friend, only to be struck down. I wouldn’t remember how it had felt to crawl over people who were dead or dying, unable to do anything to help him. The metal wolf masks didn’t haunt my sleep. Neither did that smile Vikter had given me, or how he’d told me that he was proud. Asleep, I didn’t think about how the last words he’d