Lor (Monstrous, #7)

by Lily Mayne

“Many wouldn’t be able to tell between yavra and saffin, but a salyik can.” They nodded at the glass. “That is not yavra leaf. That is saffin. Poison.

“Then perhaps someone is trying to poison you.”

what is the cure? Will the effects fade if he stops drinking the water?” “It depends on how long he has been drinking it.” I swallowed, my voice hoarse as I said, “Weeks.” Talimuth’s expression changed minutely. “Then no.”

If I was going to die, I wanted to be with Lor.

Jugs arrived that night through the void and never left.

I knew why he was staying. I could see it. He’d given up.

“Chins up, councillors. Or you’ll look rather guilty.”

Part of the public gardens had been turned into a display of all the poisonous plants Lyri’s soldiers had procured. There was nowhere else to put such a vast collection,

NO I FUCKING REMEMBER THIS FROM WYN AND NOW I HATE THAT I KNOW WHY

Citizens who visited simply thought it was a new, thrilling display—a sign of Thinir’s might and wealth, to have such a frivolous collection of exotic plants from all corners of the world. None of them knew why they were really there.

Spending every moment I could with Jugs, because he was getting weaker, and sicker, and the light was fading from his eyes more and more every day as he realised, even as he still tried to ignore it.

It was ten days after Jugs came and never left that he finally stopped pretending everything was fine.

I can feel it… I can feel something happening.” A tear rolled down his flushed cheek as his mouth trembled. “I’m scared, Lor.”

“When I’m gone, I don’t want you to blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault. P-please don’t—please don’t feel guilty. Please don’t—Just make sure you’re happy, okay? Enjoy your life. Don’t waste it.”

“I love you,” he said tearfully. “I want you to be happy after this.” “I won’t be happy without you,” I sobbed. “I won’t be able to bear it.”

I’m just… some weird dude from another world who fell into your big palace one day.” “No,” I choked, clutching his hand to press my mouth to his palm. “You are everything to me.

“Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. But at least we had a little time together, right? At least… at least we managed to meet, against all the odds. I’d say we did pretty well.”

“I love you, Lor. I don’t regret any of it. And that… that helps. It helps me accept what”—his breath shuddered out of him—“what’s going to happen. It was all worth it. I love you.” They weren’t words that vints generally said, but I could hear—and feel—the meaning behind them. They were special. So I got enough control over myself to whisper back, “I love you, Jugs.”

The next morning, he didn’t wake up.

“He won’t wake up,” I got out just as Seis pushed open the door behind me. “He won’t wake up.”

I had already said my last words to Jugs. When the realisation hit me, I almost fell to my knees.

the strange, huge glass case on a low stone pedestal.

“Essentially, we’re preserving Jugs until we can cure him.”

“You have promises to keep. You have people who miss you. I miss you,” he choked out. “I miss you, Lor. Please. Just please step away for a few hours at least. Jugs will still be here when you come back this evening.”

And if he ever did wake up, I wanted him to wake up in a world that was better. Kinder than the one that had treated him so cruelly, with empowered old crones snatching his young life away and thinking of him as nothing but a problem to be dealt with.

I was going to make Jugs proud of me, even if he wasn’t here to see it.

“I think they mean that they wish to be sitting up in the hyll. They clearly fancy themselves some kind of ruler.”

Moth's progenitor?

the preacher—Malomar in’ya Konikt—had left the city with nothing more than a heavy bag of fabrics and clothes.

the old telyth who had lived there for eons, his nest buried deep in the rock.

MY BABY WYNNY

Jugs was still a secret to the rest of Thinir. The rest of the entire world.

I asked Lilimar to pierce my lip. To show the world that there was one person—a single person out there—who was mine, who I would never speak ill of, who would be the only one to ever feel the touch of my mouth.

a human in the forest had shot at them with a strange small canon in his hands, spraying hard metal balls over the trees they had ducked behind as he shouted in terror. They hadn’t gone back since.

I was the Moric, truly now for the first time, doing right by the people in my fiefdom and slowly chipping away at the inequality that had been rife under the former council’s rule. But it had cost me everything else.

I couldn’t truly grieve, because he wasn’t dead. But I couldn’t let myself hope, because there was still no cure. I was stuck. Waiting. Waiting.

I wasn’t going to let myself feel like that again. I wasn’t going to let myself feel anything.

Another void. It was another void.

And… and the rycke.” He whispered the word. “The rycke was there. Watching.”

BABY AURY

The rycke was an awful legend, a terrible nightmare from a forgotten age.

They were flooding Jugs’ world. Some of the most awful creatures to exist were pouring through that void and into Jugs’ world. Where five billion humans lived.

“One that is now being flooded with terrible beasts.” Turning to Seis, I gazed up at him fearfully. “Humans are vulnerable. Their skin is soft, their teeth are blunt. They have no claws or tails or… Seis, they will be slaughtered.”

Lyri, who knew everything, who was always calm and confident and assured in the face of any kind of danger, quietly said, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we can find peace between the two worlds. And then… and then when you wake up, you won’t have to be a secret.”

Lyri had bigger things to worry about, but to me, nothing was more important than Jugs.

Fifteen years since I had lost Jugs. Almost a third of my life spent in this in-between place where I couldn’t feel and I couldn’t move on and I couldn’t truly grieve.

Ronod Rayan.

Lmfaoooo

Lyri shot us a final grin, his eyes filled with a blend of determination and excitement, and then stepped out of sight into the otherworld.

Lyri never came back.

Noooooo

My twin, the other half of me, was gone. Jugs was still a lifeless body in the hyll—a

I couldn’t even bring myself to speak to him anymore, to hope that he could hear me, wherever his mind was. I only had terrible things to say. I had nothing good to tell him.

“Because it feels like I will die if I let myself feel anything.”

Thirty years.