Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

Maybe I had died, and this was just what hell was.

Pain and confusion and a voice that I couldn’t focus on.

A hand touched me.

I jerked away, my grip on the counter vice-like to keep me from falling.

I looked over, eyes wide, the black spots fading, the spinning slowing.

A pair of navy-blue eyes slowly came into focus, the male’s hands up in surrender. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

I shook my head and focused on the counter as I forced my legs to straighten. Mark, I had to get to Mark.

I looked up, blinking hard, trying to clear the confusion. Where was I? Where were we? The room started coming into view as my breathing slowed, although it still felt like my lungs weren’t filling up all the way.

Stacks of books came into view. Papers covering the walls.

The cottage.

We were at the cottage.

I turned towards Mark’s bedroom door. He had to be in there. Please let him be in there.

Cole appeared in front of me again, trying to catch my eyes. “He’s asleep, Talons. No scrapes, no bruises. He’s resting.”

The tears burned my eyes, closed my throat.Resting. My arms shook as they tried to hold me up. Mark was resting.

“You have to sit down, Kyra,” Cole tried. “You’re not healed all the way, you had fractures, severe breaks. You have to take it easy.”

“B-broken?” I mumbled, looking down only to find tendrils of shadows drifting around me. I was covered in dried Asilos Root and something else I didn’t recognize. I was wrapped up in bandages, although none of my clothes were removed.

Had he seen me?

My eyes lifted back to Cole’s, my mouth dry, the taste of copper still coating my tongue. “Did you…Did you do this?”

He shook his head, and I felt my world crack. “Trick did. His mother was the best healer in the world, his sister just after that. He learned a few things.”

The tears filled my eyes and I hated myself for feeling it. Feeling the hatred, the anger, the disappointment. This was good, wasn’t it? That he saw me. Maybe now he wouldn’t be so obsessed. Maybe now he would leave me be.

But that didn’t even matter right now because I had fucked up. Mark had seen everything, he had to have. He saw what Mom had done to me and I failed in protecting him from that.

I failed.

And he would suffer those consequences for the rest of his life.

I couldn’t breathe. My throat felt like it was closing. He had missed something. My lung. He hadn’t healed itproperly.

I grabbed my chest as Cole stepped up to me, inspecting me with worry in his eyes. I couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe? He missed something. He had missedsomething.

“Kyra, you have to calm down,” he tried.

My grip on the counter tightened, my nails digging into my shirt, feeling the bandages underneath. I was gasping, shaking my head, my panic rising. “I—I c-can’t br…”

“Yes you can,” he said, his eyes unwavering. “You—”

“You missed…s-some—thing.”

He shook his head. “He didn’t miss anything. Rose and their mother were healers, Talons. He learned from the best.”