She Dreamed Her Empire Would Burn, So She Set Out to Break Four Collars novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Cost

The roots opened for them and closed again behind the last man up the tower stair.

Ashgar carried Ru.

He laid him on the sitting room rug, because Ru had gone grey and the bed was too far.

"No wound," said Brannoch, tearing the scarf away from Ru's throat. "Not a mark on him."

"Then why won't he wake up?" said Nimeriel.

She knelt and put both palms flat on his chest.

It was the thing she did best.

She let the warmth in her chest run out through her fingers.

This time she felt where it came from.

It did not rise out of her.

It came in.

A thin thread of heat ran up out of the pale wood at his throat, through his skin, through her palms, and into her own ribs, and she was only a window it passed through.

She snatched her hands back.

Ru dragged in a breath.

The color came back into his face in a rush, and his eyes opened, and he lay looking at the ceiling.

"What did you do?" said Ashgar.

"Nothing," said Nimeriel. Her voice came out very small. "I stopped."

Nobody spoke.

Iven set his harp case on the table and unfastened the lid.

He did not take out a harp.

He took out a thin grey ledger, bound in cord, with a faded eye stamped on the cover.

"Registry," he said. "Third shelf. It was under the clause, Highness. You took the vellum. I took what was beneath it."

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