The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

I stare at our bloody hands for a long moment.

Waiting.

Expecting.

I nearly forget about the group of people huddled around us. Watching me with tears glistening in their eyes, breathing shallowly, unsure of what to say next.

But Dessin is always ten steps ahead. This isn’t the end of us. He would have anticipated that attack. He would have something up his sleeve.

I have to be patient.

I give his hand a squeeze, but it’s limp, slipping from my grasp.

Someone says my name. I shake them off. Breath will fill his lungs again. The color will return to his face. “He’ll come back to me,” I say to no one in particular. I believe in him.

Something I’ve said makes Ruth weep loudly. But I ignore it. She just doesn’t understand how his brain works. He’ll figure this out. Maybe there’s an alter that was split to withstand fatal injuries. Is that possible? It must be.

But several minutes go by. And he’s still looking up to the sky. Empty. Gone. Tears frozen down the sides of his face.

Warrose touches my shoulder, mumbling something I don’t want to hear. I shrug him off, refusing to take my eyes off of Dessin. “We just have to wait!” I tell them.

I see a group of men carrying Niles away on their shoulders.

“Is he okay?” I ask. He’s hurt because of me. I left him to free DaiSzek alone because I screamed, distracting Dessin. This is all my fault.

“He’s badly burned. We have to get him back to base,” a man says to Aurick.

My fault.

I need Dessin to wake up. Once he breathes again and squeezes my hand back, we can go help Niles. We can leave this cursed beach. We can run away with DaiSzek and go back to our lives traveling through the forest.

“Skylenna,” Ruth whimpers after several more minutes. She’s crawling through the sand to my left side. “He’s gone. You have to let him go now.” Her cries anger me. How could she have such little faith in him? He saved her when she was captured. He fought off a small army of beasts three times his size. He endured years of suffering in the asylum and Demechnef training.

“Just give me a goddamn minute!” I hiss at her.

Without letting go of his hand, I lean down to Dessin’s chest, pressing the side of my face against it. His heart will start beating at any moment. But more blood gushes around my ear, spreading over my cheek and into my hair.

Empty.

It’s as if his heart was torn out of his chest.

My fault.

Ruth uses both hands to cover her mouth, and she gasps and sobs. My face against his bloody chest is upsetting her more.

“I’m going to hear his heart beating,” I assure her.

Aurick drops to one knee in front of Dessin’s feet, staring at me with parted lips and round, glossy eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

But his heart still isn’t beating. Why isn’t he breathing again? It’s been too long! I think about the hundreds of times I’ve buried my face into his chest. Every moment I’ve heard life inside of him.

And it’s gone.

I lift my face, staring at the group of faces watching me. “He’s not breathing,” I utter, voice breaking into tiny pieces. “I can’t hear his heart beating!”

Pain wraps its strong arms around me, breaking my bones and cutting off my circulation.

“It’s going to be okay.” Aurick’s smooth voice slithers through my pounding head. And I flinch, shooting my gaze to him.

“You did this. You’re the reason he became this man. You need to bring him back!” I scream, eyes burning with fresh tears that want to be set free.

Aurick furrows his brow, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Skylenna.”

I slam a fist down into the sand, fire coursing through my veins. My head throbs from a migraine, with small scalpels cutting into my brain. “Bring him back to me!” I scream, hugging Dessin tighter to my body. “I won’t let go!”

“You have to. It’s time.”

“No!” My voice is unrecognizable as I shout like a rabid animal. “No! That’s not enough for me! We hardly had any time!” I kiss his cheeks, covered in dried blood, over and over again. My tears smearing it across his face. “Please, come back to me,” I whisper in his ear, remembering when I brought Kane out of the inner world.

“Let me help you up.” Warrose is suddenly behind me, hooking his hands under my arms to pull me away from the man I love.

“Get the fuck off of me!” I swing my elbow into his ribs as hard as I can, gripping Dessin’s body like I’m falling, slipping into the void, and he’s my only way to survive.

Warrose stumbles back, grunting at my assault.

“His body is still warm!” I shriek. “Oh god,” I gasp, looking down at my bloody hands. “Please don’t be dead!” I’m hyperventilating, gasping for air, tears streaming down my chest as more keep coming.

Aurick orders the men to pull me away and contain my hysteria, but I’m thrashing against their hands, howling in despair as the realization hits me. Blood pours over my legs. His eyes stare up to the gray sky vacantly.

The hands let me go, dropping me back down to my seated position as something like a black storm cloud slams into them, throwing the men a few feet back. DaiSzek snarls, throwing his body over Dessin. Protecting his family. Growling at anyone who would try and tear me away from him.

And it’s the way he guards us, the way he bears down and shields the body soaked in his own blood, the way he howls in despair that has me looking down at the lifeless eyes in my lap again.

Dessin. Kane. Greystone. Aquarus. Foxem. Syfer. Kalidus. Dai.

Dead.

They’re all dead.

“I’ve lost them…” I utter, staring down at him in shock. “I’ve lost them all!” I bellow, my screams shredding through the forest line, clashing with the angry waves. My cries are loud and heart wrenching, a plague cast to all who can hear me. My devastation infecting every vessel, every organ.

The group stands back as DaiSzek’s howls turn into whimpers, like that of a puppy. And I’m not the only one who feels the loss. He looks back at me with large cinnamon eyes, telling me he knows. He senses that their souls are gone.

We’ve lost them all.

We sit there for what feels like hours.

And I can’t move. I can’t fathom leaving this moment. The moment I let them pull me away is the closer I’ll get to never seeing this man again. He’s in my arms, growing colder by the second. And my tears don’t stop falling. I feel I’ve lost my mind. This is my own personal hell. Maybe I never left Albatross’s cage. Maybe this is all a trick.

But his dried blood makes my fingers stiff, and I know this is all really happening. The understanding numbs my insides. And I am a lifeless doll, a poisoned pawn, sitting with a dead body in my lap, caressing his hair absently.

“I love you so much,” I whisper, eyes glazed over, looking at nothing in particular.

I look down at DaiSzek, who is resting his big head over Dessin’s waist, whimpering softly every few minutes. And then, my gaze lands on each person surrounding us, waiting patiently for me to come to terms with this.

“I don’t know how to let him go,” I weep.

Ruth inches closer, careful to stay away from DaiSzek. “We can help you.”

I glance back at Warrose, who is still staring at my hand wrapped around Dessin’s. His eyes are red rimmed, tired, and devastated.

“He’s dead,” I say to him, voice raw and raspy. “He’s not coming back.”

Warrose doesn’t meet my eyes. “I know.”

“I don’t know—how to let him go,” I say again.

He seems to snap out of the trance he is in. “You’ll hold on to me, okay?” He leans closer. “Let go of him and wrap your arms around my neck, Skylenna.”

This makes me cry harder. But I nod, slowly unclenching my hands, sliding them away from his hand and chest, sobbing uncontrollably at how hard it is to part ways. To no longer be connected.

Warrose guides my arms around his neck, scooping me into his strong embrace.

But the second my hands touch his skin, I fall. A quick slip into the darkness, into an endless hole. Air is knocked from my lungs, and my entire body clenches tight, preparing for gravity to crash into me.

But I don’t land. I’m standing upright in a dark room only lit by a candle. Two boys sit in a corner, holding a gas lamp and a book. One is older with long dark hair, and the other one is—the boy from Ambrose Oasis.

“Kane,” I gasp.

Young Kane.

Warrose and Kane.

My mouth falls open.

“And he conquered the ocean,” Warrose reads, voice less deep and husky than usual. “Destroyed his enemies and ended the war.”

“Where am I?” I ask them.

Little Kane smiles, tears collected on his high cheekbones. “I want to be just like Aquarus one day.”

How is this happening? This was the childhood story. The fictional character he based that alter on. Warrose was the one that read him that story.

But how am I here? It’s real. My feet are planted on a cold stone floor. And I can feel the warmth of the flickering gas lamp against my cold skin.

“Warrose,” I mutter.

I fall again, quicker this time, a dip of my stomach, and I’m back on the beach, clutching myself against his broad chest. Tasting tears and the balmy air on my tongue.

I blink, looking around at the people staring at me. Only one person stares back in shock, in disbelief. Aurick steps forward, pointing a finger at me.

“What did you just see?” he asks, a slight tremble to his tone.

I blink my sore, burning eyes at him.

Warrose clutches me tighter. “She’s in shock.”

Aurick’s crystal-blue eyes bounce between us, then turn to his men as if looking for verbal confirmation. He turns back to Warrose. “You didn’t see it.”

Ruth steps up behind me, running a hand over my hair.

“We need to get her back,” she says quietly.

“We’re not leaving him here,” I retort, squirming in Warrose’s arms.

“It’s okay. He’s coming with us.”

But Aurick is still staring at me. Like I’m a piece of the puzzle he didn’t see before. And I want to scream at him. Throw my fists into his chest.

I want to kill him.

Because although I know this is my fault…

It’s his too.