Brood of Vipers by Maggie Claire (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

hateful words breaks my heart for Cyrus. While I’d heard about the terrors he’d faced, nothing could prepare me for how terrible it was in reality. Rising from my bedroll, I race over to Cyrus’s curled up form, hoping I can find a way to bring him back to the present. “Cyrus! Wake up!” I cry, attempting to rip the sword out of his clenched fist. It’s a wonder he hasn’t run himself through with it. His fingers are like long ice crystals, so rigid I fear they will snap when I try to pry them open. “Give me the sword, Cyrus!” I beg, reaching up to touch his face. I keep my voice gentle, hoping I can calm him with my soothing words. “It’s okay, Cyrus. I’m here. Please, let me—”

The feel of my fingers only agitates him more. “Get away! Get away!” he screams, his arms flying out in an effort to push his ghosts away. “You’re not real! You can’t be real!”

The sword bites deeply into my throat, my blood spraying into his face and eyes. The sudden onslaught of warmth seems to pull Cyrus out of his terrors. It takes him a minute to shake the dream out of his mind, but I see the look of horror as he recognizes what he’s done. The sword clatters to the stones as I fall to my knees. “Suryc! Siri!” His voice crackles with the force of his cries. “I need you now!”

I try to speak, but only a gurgling sound churns from my gaping neck. My fingers slide on my blood as I attempt to hold the skin closed, but I know it is a useless gesture. Every second is a step closer to death. My spine gives way, and I slump to the side, rolling onto my back. Immediately I choke on the blood pooling in my mouth, racking coughs lifting my body with their force.

Cyrus slides down to the ground, hoisting my upper body up to rest on his chest. I do not choke, nor do I breathe more than the faintest rustle. “Iris! Use my strength! Heal yourself, now!” Cyrus begs, his fingers entwining with mine as he puts pressure on the wound. “My gods, what have I done?! Iris! Keep breathing!”

My limbs quake and grow colder with every heartbeat. Despite Cyrus’s pleadings, I cannot feel the mental connection that would allow me to heal myself. And even if I could, I wouldn’t use it for fear of killing him in the process. Already I have slipped too far into Death’s grasp. My vision turns gray and dim, and I hear my body’s wheezing gasps slowing down each passing second.

This is what Hawk must have felt, I realize, my past deeds playing through my mind like a highlight reel of all the good and bad I’ve done. I know that when I reach the end of them, I will be dead. It is a helpless feeling to slowly strangle on your own blood. He begged for such a fate from me; it’s only fitting that I die in the same manner. And Warbler. My gods, what she must have endured! This is nothing compared to her sorrows.

Iris? What’s wrong? Siri whispers through my thoughts, and I can tell she is running in the tunnels. Suryc heard Cyrus’s cry, and I can feel your agony. Talk to me!

Creeper, my mind continues its litany of the damned, heedless of Siri’s pleas. I earned this death for everything I put him through. But I don’t regret it. I see his miserable face every day, and I remember how it felt to watch him breathe his last, but I stand by my actions. He deserved exactly what he got. It was justice for all the things he stole from Warbler.

Siri, I suddenly call out to my Ddraig as my vision turns black, tell Cyrus I’m sorry I took so long to see that he was the better man. I blamed him for a great deal of things that were really beyond his control. Tell him I forgive him. Keep him safe. And tell him…that in the end…I….

IRIS, Siri wails, and I faintly hear the thundering of her feet as she enters the cavern where I lay dying.

I’m sorry, my friend. You were the best thing that ever came into my life. A light appears in my vision, a glorious warm pinprick of whiteness that grows ever closer.

“Iris,” Cyrus moans, wiping my face with his bloody hands. “Stay with me, Iris!”

But by now, the light is calling my name, and I’m too far gone to care for the problems of this world.

***

“I won’t do it! I won’t let another slave die so I can be healed,” Helena rasps from the infirmary bed, her head jammed into a pillow as if she can somehow escape the clutches of the slave approaching her side. His face is a mask of resigned acceptance, completely devoid of any traces of sadness or fear. He doesn’t even try to fight it. Helena shivers as the healer’s hand reaches for her wrist.

“It’s not your choice to make,” Ithel barks from his vantage point beside her, motioning for the slave to proceed.

“How many have died already?” Helena presses, shrinking away from the healer’s touch. “How many more—?”

“As many as it takes to get you ready for the tunnel! Or have you forgotten your impending trial?” Ithel snarls, hating himself for the way terror colors his words. The sight of Helena’s broken body filled Ithel with so much guilt that he’d attempted to give his own life force to heal her. While she’d drained most of his strength, an inner barrier shielded him from giving too much. Probably something the king did when he connected guardians to prisoners, to make sure we don’t die until the day of his choosing.

Helena says nothing as she watches the healer slave’s eyes glaze. A tear slips down her face when his body drops to the ground, already dust