But even if Eris could manage to cross without it, there was the stardust steel manacle locked around her right wrist, keeping her trapped on this side of the mists.
The empress turned away from the sight of Safire, smiling victoriously. She’d already won.
As the Severer rose, gleaming in the rain, Eris looked to the girl across the meadow. A girl who stood weaponless in the face of the armed and swarming Lumina, staring back at her.
Safire had come for her.
And though it terrified her, Eris suddenly realized therewasone way to goAcross. But only one.
Which was why, when the Severer came down, whistling through the air, she didn’t scream. Didn’t despair.
Eris watched it happen—letit happen—before she ever felt it: the steel splitting her flesh, then tendons, then bone. She saw it split her right hand from her wrist. The hand she used to steal and spin and weave.
The stardust cuff went with it, falling to the stone. Into the blood that was already pooling.
Eris stared, stunned into paralysis, just for a moment.
And then her mother’s voice echoed in her mind.
Remember who you are.
Eris looked from her severed hand to the knife stuck in the dirt.
My daughter. Day’s hope. Your father’s heir.
Eris wasn’t alone.
She’d never been alone.
Leaning down, she grabbed the knife with her left hand—her free hand—then reachedAcrosswith her will alone. To her surprise, the mists rose around her, silver and shining, beckoning her away from the horrors of this place.
Eris walked straight into them.
Forty-Nine
The pain came all at once, bringing with it the full truth of what Eris had done. Of what she’dlost. As she stepped through the mists and into the labyrinth, she stumbled and fell. Crying out at the overwhelming shock of it, dropping the knife to the floor.
Her right hand was gone.
Gone.
It was only when someone grabbed her shoulders that Eris came back to herself. To the pain and the blood and the knife on the ground. And then: to the man standing over her.
“What have you done?” said Crow, his face white as the scrin’s chalky cliffs.
“I brought you the knife.” Eris stared at him, cradling the bleeding stump of her arm in her lap. “It was the only way.”
Crow fell to his knees, his eyes filling with tears. “Oh, my child.” And for the first time, Eris let herself hear those words.My child.She belonged to someone. She was wanted. Crowcupped her face in his hands, staring into her eyes. “This was not your burden to bear.”
I choose to bear it, she thought, remembering her mother staring down the empress with pity in her eyes, in spite of everything that had been taken from her. Remembering Day and all the others who’d borne the burden of something far bigger than themselves.
The labyrinth blurred around her. Eris felt suddenly dizzy. She tried to focus on Crow, tried to find herself in his face the way Skye found him in hers. But he was slipping away from her. Everything was slipping away from her.
She’d lost too much blood. She was going to bleed out here, far away from the world, without a chance to say good-bye....
Crow pulled her against him, holding her gently. And as she slipped a little farther, Eris thought:How nice it is to be held.
“I can’t restore it,” he whispered. “But I can give you this....”
