Page 299 of Blade of the Nightking

"Awful stuff. We should never eat honey again."

I laugh so hard tears spill down my cheeks.

And we laugh and we laugh and we laugh.

Later we sit together beneath a patched blanket in front of the fire, our shoulders pressed together as the flames crackle in the hearth. Father tells me another story, one about an evil Fae and a friendly giant, but somewhere in the middle I stop following the words. His voice is warm. The fire is warm. His shoulder beneath my cheek is warm.

Outside, the wind whistles softly against the walls, but its bite never reaches us despite the cracks that need patching.

Right now, the whole world feels safe. There are no Infected. They don't exist. I'm not special. I don't have a gift. Here, no one dies. We get presents and shoot bows for fun and eat sweets.

Right now, with Papa, I'm happy.

Sleep steals over me before the story is finished.

That's all right.

Tomorrow he'll tell it to me again.

The last traces of his magic slipped quietly from my mind, withdrawing with the same infinite care with which they'd entered. They left behind something I'd thought was gone forever. A piece of me I'd surrendered and never imagined I'd hold again.

My happiest memory.

A trembling breath escaped me as my eyes fluttered open, the knot in my throat so tight I couldn't swallow.

The silver blazing through Rìan's irises was already fading, like starlight retreating before dawn, leaving behind those rich, expressive brown eyes fixed on mine, unguarded and achingly open.

His hand rose between us, fingertips trembling as they brushed lightly across my cheek. When he drew them away, they shone with tears. I hadn't even realized I was crying.

I couldn't speak. What could I possibly say?

My heart felt full and painfully tender, bruised like overripe fruit.

That flash of silver I'd glimpsed when the Spinner had sunk its teeth into me.

The presence I'd felt in my mind, silent and watchful, as I surrendered the memory.

It had been him.

He’d slipped into my thoughts in those final moments and witnessed it all. He'd made the memory his own before the Spinner could fully claim it, carrying it where the creature could never follow. Keeping it safe inside himself all this time.

But why?

"I meant to give it back sooner."

He looked uncertain, like my father the day he'd given me the bow—quietly hopeful, self-conscious, as though he wasn't sure whether his gift would be enough. As though what he'd done had been anything less than a miracle. As though preserving the most precious piece of my childhood—the one perfect day I'd clung to—and giving it back when I'd believed it lost forever was somehow something to apologize for.

Something inside me gave way.

Emotion swelled inside me in powerful, pulsing waves, rising until I thought my heart could hold no more. The Eidra uncoiled at once from the shadowed corners of my soul, drawn to it with familiar, ravenous hunger. It descended upon the feeling.

It fed.

And fed.

Yet this time, the well within me refused to empty, its depths beyond even the Eidra's reach. However fiercely it drank, it could not find the bottom.

Rìan's gaze dropped to the light spreading through me, my skin aglow like a distant moon. Resignation flickered across his face, followed by something quieter. Sadder. As though he were bracing himself for the moment the Eidra would empty me completely, until there was nothing left of me but the body it wore.