The mouth of the prison widens. It clamps its teeth at me and nips at the prisoner’s neck. A tongue of obsidian licks over us, andI wait for it to take us as well. For it to clear this room, or cell, or whatever it is now that there are no runes or walls.
An exhale of death trickles down my spine, and the swirl of obsidian becomes a mirror, reflecting the prisoner’s face when his back is still to me. A final glimpse before the prison closes itself, leaving us bleeding but whole.
Alive but dying.
The prisoner’s knees buckle, and he falls to the ground.
“No.” This time I’m sure I say it out loud.
I rush to the prisoner and cradle his head in my lap.
It’s probably a bad idea to be this close to him, given how easily he seems to inflict death, but I can’t let anyone else die in my name today—not even him.
I’m not worth it.
I knew what I was sacrificing when I ran in here. I accepted my fate years ago, tending to those I knew I’d be burned beside someday on the pyre. Villager and prisoner. Body beside body.
My peace isn’t here on Alyssium, even if this is my home. It is somewhere else.
He wasn’t supposed to try and save me.
“Don’t die.” I hold the prisoner’s head in my lap, patting his face, neck, and shoulders with bloody hands until I flatten my palm over his heart.
It’s beating so hard, thundering beneath his ribs. So fast, I understand why Callum said humans have hummingbird hearts. The prisoner’s heartbeat is too quick for a Fae, which tells me he must have been in this prison for a long time. Long enough for the magic to have drained. For him to have suffered the Beating.
He’s mortal, and a mortal can’t survive wounds like this.
“You’re one to talk.”
Just what I need, my grumpy, sarcastic inner thoughts taunting me about the fact that my wounds are no better. ThatI’m dying too. I glance down at my side—at the prisoner’s heart—and I feel us both fading.
His golden eyes are nearly black as they stare up at me. Swirling with the last remnants of his thoughts. And even if no words come out as he chokes out a breath, his eyes say so much. He doesn’t take them off me. Sweeping over my face.
The prisoner’s hand lifts, and he brushes his fingers over the blue ends of my hair. A razor-thin smile breaks through the darkness in his expression. Like a flicker of a thought crosses his mind. As if he recognizes something in me. Possibly death.
Or is this peace?
Acceptance?
“Don’t go. Don’t go.”
I shake my head, my eyes burning with tears. But neither of us look away. We stare into each other—so long I memorize every fleck of color in his darkening gaze. And then his hand falls. The last remnants of gold in his amber eyes flicker out, and there’s nothing but the coldest, darkest emptiness I’ve ever known.
Something inside me cracks. It splinters through my chest. I can’t breathe or think. The weight that settles is unbearable. It’s crushing me.
“You weren’t supposed to die for me.”A tear slips out.
It lands on his forehead and traces the line of his scar like a river. For a split second, I swear the water sparkles. Fragments of the After calling my spirit.
My fingers trace over one of the runes on the prisoner’s chest as more tears start to fall. I don’t understand the marks, and I don’t know him, but I cling anyway, trying to hold on for both our sakes.
A static pulse surrounds me as I watch his life slowly blinking out. Each heartbeat weaker. Each breath shallower than the last. No matter how hard I cling to him, I can’t seem to hold him tight enough.
Each inhale, I find myself fighting for breath.
I’ve tended to the dead since I was fourteen. Watched corpses get piled on carts outside the prison gates. I’ve offered blessings to hundreds of bodies. Closed so many empty eyes that they haunt me. And still, the thought of watching this male die is unbearable.
My fingers trace his runes, his shoulders. They find his heart again, and I pause, letting the steady beat of his mortality sync with mine. At least neither of us will die alone.
