Chapter 293
Atasha’s POV
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That was enough to rip me out of whatever shock had been holding me in place.
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The moment Grace’s fingers reached for me again, my hand moved on instinct, and I drove the dagger straight into her chest.
The blade sank between ribs with a resistance that felt wrong because it should have made her scream like Grace, it should have made her stumble like a normal woman, and it should have made her panic.
Instead, she smiled wider.
A sound left her mouth that was not pain and not surprise, but something closer to satisfaction, like I had finally given her the kind of reaction she wanted.
Her eyes stayed red as she looked down at the dagger embedded in her chest, then lifted back to mine with a hunger that made my skin tighten. Blood seeped around the hilt, but her body did not weaken the way it should have.
The wound began to close around the blade.
Not fast enough to seal it completely with the dagger still inside, but fast enough to prove the point that steel alone would not stop whatever was inside her.
“Good,” she murmured, voice still Grace’s, and that made my stomach twist harder. “Now you are awake.”
I did not give her the chance to grab me again.
I drove my boot into her stomach with as much force as my legs could produce, and when her body jerked back from the impact I used it, twisting my hips and shoving off the stone to throw myself away from her reach.
The motion tore pain through my ribs where I had already been slammed and stabbed earlier, but I did not slow because pain was better than dying with my hands frozen.
I hit the ground hard, rolled, and forced my lungs to drag air in even as that pressure returned again, pressing at my chest and making it feel like the cave wanted me on my knees.
I fought it anyway.
I forced my body up and reached for a second dagger, fingers closing around cold metal just as Grace moved again with that same unnatural speed.
I saw the blur of her body, the flicker of her hair, the line of her shoulder turning, and I knew she was already on me before my mind finished the thought.
So I did not wait for her to strike first.
I threw myself toward the King instead, using momentum like a weapon, because Xylas was still down and I could not leave him there, not with beasts surging behind us and this thing wearing Grace in front of us. I could heal him and….
The plan lasted for half a breath.
Grace appeared between me and the King as if space had folded to make room for her, her lips curving again, her hand lifting like she was greeting me instead of hunting me.
Then her boot slammed into my side.
10:04 Thu, Feb 19 M
Chapter 293
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The kick hit with enough force to lift me off my feet. My body flew backward before I could even brace, the air ripping out of my lungs as I crashed into the rock wall behind me.
Stone bit into my back. My shoulder barked pain. My vision flashed, and for a second the pressure in the cave felt like it increased, as if it enjoyed watching me break.
I tried to push off the wall.
Grace did not let me.
She crossed the distance and pinned me there with her forearm across my throat, not choking me fully yet, but holding me just enough that every breath became shallow, just enough that my muscles had to spend energy fighting her instead of thinking.
My dagger was trapped between us.
Her hand locked around my wrist.
Her grip was too strong for Grace, too certain, and when I tried to wrench free, she only tightened until my bones protested.
Her face lowered toward mine, her lips parted, and saliva slid again at the corner of her mouth as she looked at my throat like she was deciding where to open me.
“I never thought,” she said softly, eyes burning red. “That I would wake up and find someone like you waiting for me.”
My skin crawled.
My healing stirred in panic, heat flaring under my ribs, but I had nothing to seal and nowhere to send it, and the uselessness of it made me feel weaker than any wound ever had.
Grace’s mouth lowered as if she meant to bite.
I forced my knee up, trying to drive it into her hip, trying to break the hold, but she shifted her weight and trapped my movement easily, as if she knew what I would do before I did it.
Then she froze.
It looked like her body had been caught by something invisible and yanked backward from the inside.
Her eyes widened slightly, still red, but the expression on her face changed. The smile faltered into something strained.
Then, her hand on my wrist loosened by a fraction.
Her fingers trembled.
A sound left her throat that was not the hungry laugh from earlier buy a harsh exhale, like someone trying to speak through a mouth that no longer obeyed.
She released me abruptly and stumbled back two steps, shoulders shaking as if she was fighting a seizure, as if something inside her was clawing at her bones.
Grace’s hands rose to her own throat.
She strangled herself.
Her fingers dug in hard enough that the skin reddened under them, and she forced the words out through clenched teeth, voice scraping like it did not want to exist.
“What a pest,” she hissed.
10:04 Thu, Feb 19 M
Chapter 293
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Her nails bit deeper as her body jerked again, and for a moment she looked like a woman drowning on land, fighting for control with nothing but stubbornness.
Then she lifted her head and looked at me.
The red was gone.
Her eyes were Grace’s again, wide and wet and terrified, and the sight hit me harder than any kick.
“Atasha,” she breathed, and it was her voice this time, not the thing that wore her. “Run.”
I did not move.
My legs would not obey immediately because my mind was trying to catch up with what it was seeing, because relief and horror slammed into each other inside my chest until I could not tell which one was stronger.
“Grace,” I whispered, and the name finally sounded like it belonged to her again.
She shook her head hard, almost angry with me for wasting time, almost frantic.
“I cannot hold it long,” she said, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides as if she was physically holding something back with sheer force. “It is inside me, and it is angry, and it is fast. You need to go now.”
My throat tightened. “I can help you.”
Her mouth trembled, but she forced the next words out anyway as if they were a knife she had to swallow.
“It is too late now,” she said, voice breaking on the edges. “I will die no matter what happens next, and I would rather it be on my terms than on its teeth.”
She took a step closer. I saw how hard she was shaking, how her shoulders kept jerking like something was trying to drag her back into that red–eyed hunger.
Then she looked past me, toward the King, toward the path we had come from, toward the sound of beasts flooding the
tunnels.
She swallowed, eyes shining, and when she looked back at me there was a strange steadiness there, like she had already accepted the end.
“I am glad,” she said, and the words were quiet but clear. “That I can still do one thing right for you.”
My stomach dropped.
“Grace, no-“”
She did not listen.
She snatched the dagger from where it had fallen near the wall, gripped it with both hands like she was afraid she would lose control before she finished, and drove it into her own heart.
My eyes widened as her body jerked, and for a second she stood there with the dagger buried to the hilt, eyes wide and locked on mine as if she wanted me to remember her like this instead of the monster.
Then her knees buckled.
She fell.
The moment her body hit the stone, the pressure in the alcove shifted, not easing, but changing, like something had been cut off mid–reach and was now turning its attention elsewhere.
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Chapter 293
I stared at her.
My vision blurred.
My chest felt too tight.
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I wanted to crawl to her. I wanted to press my hands to the wound and force my healing into her and drag her back the way I had dragged the King back.
But I felt it immediately.
The difference between my healing and what had been inside her.
This was not a wound that could be sealed.
This was a choice that had already closed the door behind it.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Then I heard the King’s strained breath behind me, and the sound snapped me back into the only thing I could still do.
I turned.
Xylas was still on the ground, one hand pressed against his chest, trying to sit up, trying to recover enough to move, but his face was pale and his breathing was uneven, and the shaking from the cave had not stopped.
The beasts were still surging.
The core was still feeding.
Cassian was still somewhere behind stone and rubble and whatever nightmare had opened up deeper in this mountain.
And I was here, with my hands empty and my body failing.
So, I crawled.
My elbows scraped against stone. My knees protested. The pressure kept pressing at my lungs, and my healing kept flaring uselessly until I forced it down into focus.
I reached him after what felt like too long.
My fingers closed around his boot first, because my arms were shaking too badly to aim higher, and the contact grounded me just enough to push.
“Stay with me,” I rasped, though I did not know if I was speaking to him or to myself.
Then I poured everything I had left into him.
Heat rushed out of me in a violent wave, strong enough that my vision darkened at the edges immediately, strong enough that it made my stomach twist and my throat burn as if my body knew I was spending something it could not replace quickly.
I forced it anyway.
I pushed it through his legs, through his torso, into the damage beneath his armor, into the strain in his lungs and the weakness in his pulse, refusing to stop even as the world tilted.
The cave shook again.
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Chapter 293
Dust fell.
A roar echoed somewhere close enough that it vibrated through my ribs.
I kept pushing.
The stone beneath my palms felt farther away, like my body was floating above it instead of resting on it.
I felt Xylas’s boot shift under my hand, felt his leg tense as if he was trying to rise.
I did not get to see if he succeeded.
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Because the darkness finally caught up to me, sliding over my vision until the last thing I could register was the heat still pouring out of my hands.
But just before my consciousness left… a loud explosion rocked my body.
Then it was all darkness…
田
