He had a latticed heart, and that heart had to be protected.
The lattice was sewn into the heart itself. There was no linen. The muscle served as the base, dark red and slick, clenching and easing as it pushed blood up through the thick vessels at the top. The bone shards sat in rows across the organ, stitched down with black thread that pierced the flesh. The shards sunk halfway into the muscle, and tissue had grown closed around them, so that the whole pattern lifted and settled with every beat.
In the furrow that split the heart down the front, between its two halves, sat the keybone. It was larger than the rest of the shards – a single polished piece, pale and irregular, broken from something big. Stitches ran out from it to every shard around, wrapping the heart in a tight, complex lattice that couldn’t be separated without slicing through the organ.
“Tell me,” Nine begged.
“Your heart is enclosed in a lattice,” Seraphina said. “The bone shards are sewn directly into it. I’ve never seen anything like this. Never imagined it.”
“Now we know,” Idris said. “I will close you back up.”
“No!” Nine jerked on the table, his hand reaching for the front of Idris’s shirt. “Take it out.”
“Take out your heart?”
“It might be the thing that kills me,” the revenant said. “Do it.”
Idris held his unnatural, golden gaze.
“I don’t want to kill you.”
“You must. Release me. Let me rest, at last. Letthemrest.”
Seraphina reached over and placed her hand over Nine’s. He looked at her and slowly let go of Idris. She set the candle down and held the revenant’s hand between her own.
“I think you should do it,” she told Idris.
“Seraphina, it goes against everything–”
“It’s mercy. Be merciful. Do it.”
Idris closed his eyes for a moment. His lips started moving, and Seraphina knew he was praying. When he opened his eyes again, he was resolute, his jaw set.
He got to work quickly, reaching into the chest cavity with one hand to lift the heart forward. The vessels at the top drew taut. He cut through them with the catlin, then moved to the broad vessels that fed into the heart from behind. He sawed fast where the flesh tried to close around the blade. It was as if the revenant’s body didn’t want to give up its most precious part. The flesh had a will of its own.
The heart came loose into Idris’s hand, heavy and beating steadily. He lifted it clear of the cavity and laid it down on a clean piece of linen, where it went on clenching and easing against the cloth.
Seraphina felt Nine’s hand go slack. His face was relaxed, a smile tugging at his lips. His eyes drifted shut.
“You did the right thing,” he whispered as his last breath left him.
She started shaking. It took a lot of strength to control herself enough to place his hand on the table, then she was running out into the night, trudging through the snow, tears running down her face. She ran past the house, into a small orchard of bare apple trees, slipped on a patch of ice and slid forward until she crashed into a tree. She wrapped her arms around the trunk and sobbed, holding onto it to keep herself from collapsing into a heap.
She knew they’d done the right thing, so why did she feel so wretched? Why did it feel like her very soul was stained forever? She’d watched men die and hadn’t felt remorse. She’d killed two with her own hands – slit one’s throat, shot the other in the head. The Sentinel had maimed and murdered more people thanThomas Mayer and Franz Holzer, than the other three men she sought to deliver her vengeance. He’d been a weapon of mass destruction, and his demise saved lives. Hundreds of them. Why was she crying for him?
Rune.
She had to get to him. If he and Briar hadn’t encountered obstacles, they were at Saint Vivia’s Convent already. He had a latticed heart, and that heart had to be protected. She and Idris were the only ones on the resistance’s side who knew. She hadn’t been too worried about him – even knowing that he was blind – because he was with Briar. Putting aside their differences, she trusted Briar.
He was invincible, immortal.
Not anymore. Now Seraphina knew his one weakness, and suddenly, it seemed like if she’d found it, anyone could. It was only a matter of time.
“I have to… Can’t stay here anymore,” she whispered against the tree bark, her lips pressed to its cold, rough surface.
She coughed violently and spat on the ground. It felt as if she’d just dislodged half her lung.
“I’m dying… No. Rune.”
