A Strange Hymn by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 53

The Thief’s eyes close, his body going still.

It’s only once his life has fled him that his features revert back to those of the Green Man.

Now that the Thief no longer animates the Green Man’s body, the fallen ruler looks benevolent, kind.

Mara pushes past me, falling to the side of her dead mate. She cries over the Green Man, clutching her chest like the loss physically hurts.

I rise on shaky legs, one of my hands still pressed to my stomach.

I feel my own life ebbing away from me. That horrible darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision.

I stagger, then fall. Des catches me before I hit the ground.

“That was the Thief—”

“Ssshhh,” he says, laying me out on the ground before shucking off his shirt.

Efficiently, he rips it into strips, making a tourniquet of sorts for my wound.

It’s too late for that. I know the Thief shredded vital things when he stabbed me. The soldier in Des knows it too.

I touch his battle-weary face, gazing into his fathomless eyes. They’re like a beacon, calling me to life. But the shadows are closing in on me …

“I love you, Des.”

“You are not leaving me, Callie,” he says fiercely.

My cold hand slips from his face, and I feel myself start to descend into that final, eternal darkness.