The cold smoothness of marble was a balm on Cedric's still-smoldering flesh. He forced his burning eyelids open, and the impression of a hovering figure above him swam blearily into view. Young, male, dark haired.

"Adrian…" That single, croaking word sent fire streaming down his throat. He coughed, and the pain multiplied.

A hand, slender and uncertain, grasped his shoulder to attempt to steady him. No, not Adrian.

Once Cedric's fit subsided, his vision sharpened to confirm what he knew.

"You're alive," Virolan said with palpable relief. He resembled a phantom, all pale angles and haunted eyes.

Cedric turned his head gingerly to take in his surroundings. Somehow, he was back on the topmost floor of the Citadel, splayed beneath the crystal dome.

"How…?"

Virolan's brief laugh was tinged with hysteria. "Er… the White Queen. She dragged you here, one-handed, then left without a word. Didn't spare me a glance." He ran an absent hand through his disheveled hair. "Is it all right, though? To… let her go?"

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Had Cedric been capable, he would have told Virolan that every diamond in the Vault was gone, including the one in Ayo's collar. And, perhaps more significantly, the Goddess Herself had denounced the Heirs' reign as witnessed by every living person in the world. Ayo, the last of her generation, was free of the gilded shackles of her birthright and now had the chance to make her remaining years her own.

Instead, Cedric could only nod weakly. Virolan did not seem particularly reassured.

"Help… me… up," he wheezed. "The dais, the diamonds… "

Virolan, happy to have something to do, proceeded to lever him upright. Like two stooped, ancient men, they hobbled the few steps back toward the dais, and to the four seats which housed some of the last diamonds in the realm.

Cedric slapped his palm over the black diamond and reduced it to dust. The gentle influx of dark energy cooled his veins and strengthened his limbs, which had so recently burned with the might of divinity itself. Reinvigorated, Cedric limped around the dais to destroy the rest.

"I've absorbed enough… to cloak our escape," Cedric said, then paused to catch his breath. "Just the four diamonds in the chamber door, and then… it'll be over."

Everything he'd been forced to abandon when he'd gone down to die--happiness, hope, possibility--suddenly surged up within him in a dizzying rush. He and Adrian now had decades ahead of them, as good as an eternity, in a world that was no longer doomed.

Cedric wiped his eyes with a trembling hand. "Let's go, Virolan. The world's waiting."