Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,10
His gaze moved past my face, down to my sword hand. “You’re hurt.”
“Just a scratch.” My whole body was beginning to shake.
“What happened?” His voice was low and controlled. He was trying to hide his emotions from me.
“It … it was terrifying. Some sort of sorcery that made me hallucinate. I saw … I saw …” Flashes of what I’d seen surged up: Iker, Rafe, my family lying dead around me — when it was really my friends and allies. The acid in my stomach surged up into my throat.
I turned away from Damian to look back at the general and Lenora. Tanoori now knelt beside her friend. She held Lenora’s limp hand in hers, pressing it to her tear-streaked cheeks.
Pulling free from Damian, I walked over to where Lenora lay, silent and still. When I touched Tanoori’s shoulder, she jumped and looked up at me with wild eyes.
“It’s all right, it’s just me. It’s over now.” I tried to comfort her, even though the remnants of horror still lingered in my own veins, making my legs weak beneath me as I knelt beside Tanoori.
“I heard her screaming. I heard her … but I thought I was in that … that place again. I thought the men were coming for me.” Tanoori’s voice cracked, and she crumpled into my lap, her shoulders shaking with sobs. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t … I couldn’t …”
“We need Lisbet,” I heard Damian say from behind me. “She’s going into shock, and there are others who are injured. Mateo, you and Asher go find help to prepare the bodies. We will honor them tonight at sunset.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the other guards murmured, but I didn’t look up. I just wrapped my arms around Tanoori and held her, trying to hold back my own tears.
It seemed as though almost the entire palace had gathered in the courtyard, but despite the mass of people, there was a hush as Deron lit the torch and slowly moved his way down the funeral pyres. There were more than three — Manu had left a trail of bodies on his way to the throne room, starting with the new keeper of the keys, found with his throat slit in the cell Manu had been locked in. First one, then another, and another, and another, down the row until Deron finally reached General Ferraun’s. I stood next to Damian in a clean uniform, my forearm wrapped because there hadn’t been a chance for Lisbet to heal it yet. She’d been too busy taking care of Jerrod and Tanoori, sedating them both with an herbal concoction because they were so distraught.
She’d also worked on Eljin a bit more, healing him enough that he was able to get up and move around. But he’d chosen to sit with Tanoori until the time came for the funerals. Now he stood beside me, his mask still missing. Two scarred sentinels beside our stoic king.
Damian had hardly said a word since the attack. He stood stiffly now, staring at the flames as they rose higher to meet the last dying streaks of sunlight across the sky of Antion, above the massive palace wall and the jungle beyond it. His face had set into a stony facade, reminding me more of the Damian I had once known — or thought I’d known, before he revealed his true self to me. The firelight flickered across his face, sending his eyes into shadow, making the gold of his crown flare in the falling darkness. With a shiver, I looked forward again. The sight of the burning pyres was almost too much; it brought back the memory of another night, another time I’d stood here, watching the flames take away all that remained of someone I loved.
Damian suddenly unsheathed his sword and lifted it up in front of his face, pointing it high, to the stars that had begun to flicker above us. The scrape of hundreds of swords being pulled from their scabbards sounded around us as I, the rest of the guard, and all the soldiers gathered did the same. Tears burned my eyes as the smoke billowed up into the oncoming night.
Only I was close enough to see how Damian’s hand trembled slightly and the way a muscle in his jaw ticked.
General Ferraun had been his ally and friend — the man who had taught him how to fight. There were very few people in Damian’s life who he felt he could trust, and now