Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)
Betrayer: Chapter 51

I scream over and over again, but the wind still doesn’t answer. Gabriel doesn’t answer.

This isn’t what I planned. None of this is what I planned.

Shouts pierce the air, vibrating through my body. I rock forward, clutching the man in my arms tighter against me and will my strength into him, my life.

Gabriel can have it. I don’t need it anymore.

Those shouts keep carrying closer. Someone screaming my name.

“Sol!”

I shudder as the rider breaks through the line of buildings and encourages his gelding to where I kneel. Luc bounds from the horse’s back before it even stops and shoves me away from Gabriel.

“What have you done?”

I stare down at my hands, seeing Gabriel’s blood, seeing the proof I caused this.

No. No. No!

Please wake up.

Wake up!

Luc presses his fingers to Gabriel’s neck and darts his wild eyes to me.

“If he dies, I’ll kill you myself.”

Fire scorches my throat, my lungs, my heart.

Gabriel cannot die.

“He…” I swallow the fire scorching my throat. “…I thought he was Hector.”

Luc rips open Gabriel’s surcoat and exhales at the sight of the throwing knife lodged deep within his chest. “He is.”

Trembling overtakes me as I move closer, needing to see life, needing to know there’s hope.

Luc’s words pierce through the fog and ricochet through my body. “He is.”

No. Luc didn’t say that.

He couldn’t have said that.

I gasp as Luc grabs my hands and shoves them against Gabriel’s chest.

“Heal him.”

Jagged breaths escape me as I rip my gaze over Gabriel’s face, needing to see proof he is Roland’s son. He may have the same-colored hair, and his eyes may be blue, but they are vibrant, kind, caring.

Roland’s were dead.

I inhale sharply as Luc stares at me with enough fury to murder me where I sit.

“Heal him, Kyanite. Or I will slice your throat.”

Heal Hector?

My heart shudders at the reality, the truth. I can never give Mother the peace she deserves now.

I’m too weak. Too vulnerable. Too drawn to the man lying in the grass.

Before, Hector was an enigma. A shadow. A target.

He wasn’t the man in front of me. He wasn’t Gabriel.

Forgive me, Mother.

I dig deeper into the world of Kyanite magic. Drawing from a different ancient verse—one capable of more powerful healing. The Kyanite healers, who trained me, rarely used it since it always took so much from them.

The words slip from my lips, the utterance a plea to Olah. To the ground beneath us. To the trees wavering. To my heart, pounding against my chest.

I chant them over and over again, begging Olah for a reprieve from my folly. I don’t deserve his grace, his redemption. I plead for it anyway.

For Gabriel.

No, for Hector.