(LIAM'S POV)
"What is this?! Why is there a curse in your body?" Vaelion's hand tightened at my back, not hurting me, but hard as stone. "Who dared curse my son?!"
I tried to answer. What came out was more coughing, more blood, hot and thick against my lips, and I watched it spatter the gold of his sleeve and felt a strange, distant horror that I had bled on a god. Vaelion did not even look at it. He only looked at me, waiting, and for the first time in this whole terrible day I saw it — the thing I had told myself did not exist. Pain. The pain of a father looking at a wounded child.
I laughed. It came out wet and broken, but it was a laugh all the same.
