Page 192 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘Seraphine.’ Her name cracked on his lips. ‘Please.’

He held her tighter, her body splayed against his heart. He willed it to beat harder, enough for both of them.

‘Come on,’ he begged. ‘Come on.’

He would not let her go, not like this. Refusing to bow to the cruel demands of fate, Ransom ripped his dragon from the sky. Pulled Lightfire from every inch of his bleeding soul until his power suffused them, bright and pure and blinding. He bathed her in it, the tide of Lightfire lapping desperately at her skin.

Fix her, he begged his magic.

Save her.

Light washed over Seraphine like a warm river, but her skin remained as cold as ice. Her lips turned blue as the last of her breath stuttered in her chest.

‘Don’t go.’ He said it again and again, like a chant. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go. ‘You’re my heart, Seraphine. You’re my soul.’

Her lids fluttered, but fate denied him one last look at those sky-blue eyes.

‘You’re my light, Seraphine. You’re my light.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you.’

I love you.

It wasn’t enough. That thread inside him was fraying. She was letting go. He bowed over her, letting his magic trickle into the rocks.

In the misting Lightfire, a figure appeared.

‘Hale.’ Versini’s voice was a rasp. ‘Give her to me.’

Ransom snapped his chin up. The Shadowsmith was so pale he hardly recognized him. His silver hair was crimson, and the deep gash across his neck meant he should be dead. By the way he listed to one side, Ransom suspected he was halfway there.

He said again, ‘Give her to me.’

‘Why?’

He crashed to his knees, coughing up a stream of blood. It splattered the rocks between them. ‘Let me make it count.’

Ransom didn’t understand. His grief was too vast. He couldn’t think beyond it.

Versini’s hands trembled as he reached for Seraphine.

Ransom moved like a shadow, carrying her towards Versini. He draped Seraphine over the Shadowsmith’s lap, and remained there, unwilling – unable – to move away.

Versini slipped his hand under her collar, covering the black thorn above her heart. His body lurched, a groan seeping from his blood-stained lips as his magic – or whatever was left of it – went to work.

Ransom looked on, suspended in a vast and silent terror as they slipped, together, into a place he couldn’t reach.

Chapter 60 Theo

Theo’s magic erupted the moment he pressed his hand against Seraphine’s dying heart; that sharp hiss inside him, the desperate yearning to take, to devour…

He didn’t want to devour Sera. To steal even a single flicker of her light. It was the cost that had become entwined with her soul that sang to him, the shadow of all that spent magic. All those saints.

Take it.

Not the soul, but the curse.