Todos los capítulos de The Blood Empress & Her Mortal King : Capítulo 41 - Capítulo 47

POV Natalie The memory came back with the smell of blood.Not mine. His."Stay with me." My voice, but younger, and cracked down the middle. "Adrian. Look at me. Don't you dare close your eyes."I was kneeling on the stone floor of a burned chapel, five hundred years gone, and my hands were wet to the wrist."Seraphina." He coughed, and red ran down his chin. "It's too late. Let me go.""No.""You can't save everyone.""I'm not trying to save everyone." I pressed my palm flat over his heart. It was barely moving."Just you."He caught my wrist with whatever strength he had left. "What are you doing?""What I have to.""Your magic isn't a bandage, Sera. Whatever you're about to do, it'll cost you.""Then let it."White light tore out of my hand and into his chest. For one second his heart slammed against my palm like a fist on a door. Then he gasped, and his eyes opened, and he was alive.I knew this part. I'd visited it a hundred times in meditation. It always ended right here, with

Natalie's POVI gave up on sleep at the third bell.Four nights now. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing. Adrian on the training ground, one hand pressed to his ribs, telling me he was fine.He wasn't fine. I knew it then. I had still turned my back and walked away."You are an Empress," I told the ceiling. "You do not go creeping through the palace at night for one man."The ceiling said nothing.I threw back the sheets and pulled the cloak of shadows from its hook.The outer wall was a long way from my chambers. I had made sure of that. Three days ago, I signed the order myself. Captain Adrian to be quartered in the east wall barracks until further notice.Far from me. Far from the court's whispers. Far from the way my chest tightened every time he walked into a room.It had seemed clever at the time.The cloak swallowed me whole as I crossed the courtyard. Torchlight slid right past me. I kept to

POV: Adrian "They're early."Garrick said it like I'd invited them.I didn't answer. I was staring past the wall at the dark treeline, where nothing moved. That was the problem. Nothing is ever that still unless something is holding its breath."Adrian." He grabbed my sleeve. "Say something.""Pull the watch off the east tower.""That's the only tower that sees the road.""That's why they want us looking at it." I yanked my arm free. "Do it. Now."He didn't move. Six weeks ago he'd have saluted and run. Six weeks ago I could still put a fireball through a barn door from forty paces. Now I was a man with a sword and a bad feeling, and every soldier on this wall knew it."You're sure," Garrick said. Not a question. A man looking for a reason to trust me."No." I made myself look at him. "But if I'm wrong, we lose a tower. If I'm right and we stay, we lose the wall."He swore under his breath and ran.I stayed. The night was cold enough to see my breath, and somewhere under it I heard s

POV: Adrian"Don't move."She didn't raise her voice. She never had to. Two thousand soldiers went quiet anyway.I'd been about to sit down. My legs had strong opinions about it. Instead I stood in the churned-up mud with my hand clamped over my arm, afraid to breathe wrong.Behind her, where the raiders had been, there was only a long black scar in the grass. Still smoking. Eight hundred men, gone in the time it took me to curse."Your Majesty," I said. "The field is secure. I need to see to the wounded.""You need to hold still.""I'm fine.""Adrian." She said my name flat, like something she'd been holding in