Kyra

Chapter Fifty

Kyra startled awake with a burning sensation in her lungs. A fire, like each breath she sucked in was a walk through hot charcoal. She clutched her chest, struggling to steady her breathing.

The grenade she'd carried was gone which meant she must've done it.

And now what?

Now her body was in healing.

She forced one eye open, then the other, scared to assess the damage.

Not as bad as she thought it'd be. Her breastplate, metal, had withheld the fire. Some of her skirt had too, metal lined. As for her body, it was grey with the dusting of fire. Her body was gooey with drying blood, ashy.

But I'm alive.

Her body was rapidly healing itself, even without its usual power.

Wheezing, she pushed herself up from the ground. The structure around her was crumbling, flaking and giving way. She stumbled over to the spot where Nadine had been and bent down to her side.

The coat the fate had been wearing was burnt to nothing. With it, the contents were fried, the contract destroyed.

It's over.

Nadine was in a worse state than Kyra was, dead. An enemy defeated.

Kyra squatted down beside the body. This was her therapy.

When she lowered her head she thought she heard... breathing?

There's no way.

Nadine couldn't have survived that blast, could she?

Unless...

Dark magic always comes with a consequence.

Ronan said he'd cursed her to mortality. But what if the spell hadn't gone down as so?

She realised with a sick stirring of her stomach what had happened.

Nadine wasn't dead. She wasn't mortal either. But she wasn't healing. Any injury she got—hellfire or not—would stay with her. Would she heal at all or would she heal like a mortal?

Kyra stumbled back.

Nadine was going to be stuck like that. Charcoaled and mutilated. Forever.

Kyra couldn't look any longer. Feeling like she might be sick, she turned away. She wanted to lean against something for stability but feared it'd come with consequences. Would it collapse on her?

She couldn't tell a soul what'd happened. People would ask but she'd never be able to say that she knew what'd happened to Nadine. What'd happened to the prisoners.

Leave—now.

She couldn't stand here and look at it all any longer.

She hurried out into the courtyard where the Gods still laid unconscious. Eros would be waking up soon but Ares would more than likely be out for a while. She staggered over to him, wanting nothing more than to wait here for him to wake up.

But she couldn't.

Kyra couldn't people right now. She couldn't bear to have people look at her. To ask her what'd happened. To know how she did it.

She couldn't listen to the monarchs debate what'd happened in the vampire realm. She couldn't look Angie in the eye and search for a way to make her feel better.

What about Leda?

Wearied, Kyra's knees hit the floor.

Had Leda died?