I nod, and Blaise coughs out a sob. She closes her eyes, straining her cheeks as she braces herself. “Just tell Nox I love him, if it’s not too much trouble.”

My hands tremble. For a moment I wonder if I’ll have the strength to do this, so I turn and look for help from the woman who’s taught me so much.

She’s so still, and it’s so wrong. It’s not right that someone so vibrant should already be draining of color, robbed of movement.

I wonder if she knew a few moments ago what she now knows about death, if she would have been afraid.

If, over a year ago, she would have sacrificed herself, marched up to the palace like she did and demanded the vizier take her as my bride in place of the people.

Something tells me yes.

So with tears streaming down my face, I gently push Blaise away.

I don’t miss the catch in her breath, the relief when I don’t end her. “Why?”

A lump swells in my throat. “Because you’re not the one who sealed Asha’s fate. You’re not even second in line. It was me, when I made that wretched decree. And it was her, when she chose everyone else over herself.”

Blaise doesn’t say anything. She just stands, legs shaking, then treads back over to Az, keeping watch over him as he slumps against the marble floor, eyes glazed over as he stares at Asha’s body.

“I love you, Asha,” I say, brushing my wife’s face with the back of my palm, hoping, praying to the Fates that I’ve made the correct choice.

I want to scream, want to burst into flames, let the anger roll off of me, but my Flame is no longer, and still the tears burn hot down my cheeks.

There is nowhere for the agony to go. Nowhere to send it. It simply burrows deeper, searing holes in my bones and tissue, devouring me from the inside, eating away at my gut.

Something about the pain sends my father’s words ringing through my head.

Don’t worry, son. Look to your gut for answers. It won’t lead you astray.

My hand finds my stomach, as though my body feels the walls of it will burst if I don’t hold them together.

For a moment, I stop breathing.

No one gasps, no one lifts a finger, no one moves, as I take the dagger from Asha’s chest and plunge it into my stomach.

It stops when it hits something firm.

I pull the bloodied knife away, slipping my hand into my wound. My muscles shake as I fight through the radiating pain, but then my fingers wrap around something smooth.

When my hand reemerges, it’s holding a stone.

Not any stone, I realize.

A leeching stone.

For a fleeting moment, I wonder if it’s my Flame, if my father never gave the bounty hunters all they asked for, if that’s why they killed him. But even as I hold it in my bare palm, I know that’s not what this is. Az has my powers.

Besides, I would feel my Flame. I would know if it was contained here. It would call out to me, I’m sure of it.

Nothing calls out to me from this stone.

It’s empty.

Leeching stones. Used to transfer magic from one being to another.

He must have carved me open, slipped it inside my body and allowed the wound to heal before the bounty hunters arrived to take me and Fin away.

But why give me a leeching stone with no powers?

If he had been wishing to help, why not give me something with which to defend myself?

Unless he didn’t want me to take.

Unless he wanted me to give.

The leeching stone buzzes to life in my hand at the thought, but I don’t know how to use it. Don’t know if this ridiculous plan that’s forming within my frazzled, anguished mind will even work.

I glance down at Asha, and I know I have to try.

“Will you help me?” I ask.

“Of course,” Blaise answers, but I’m not talking to her.

I crane my head toward the orb floating across the room.

It seems smaller than when it first rose from Asha’s chest. Like the blue flame at the tip of a dwindling wick.

“Will you help me?”

At first, I think the Old Magic isn’t planning on answering me, but then it slowly drifts, stopping a hair away from the leeching stone.

I open my mouth to explain, but the Old Magic speaks first. “I understand what you wish to do. But do you understand?”

I nod. “Of course, I’d do anything for her.”

“It might not work. Asha is dead. The power you would need to undo that would need to be immense.”

Something rises in my chest. “I know.”

“I am uncertain you will survive. It’s not been done before,” he says, but there’s no need, because I don’t care.

“I know.”

“Kiran,” Blaise says.

I offer her a faint smile. “You’ll tell her I love her? That I couldn’t imagine a world without her? That this was the best thing I had to offer the world, in giving her back?”

Tears glimmer in Blaise’s eyes, but she nods.