Around us, the prison air thickens, then cools.
Inhales.
Exhales.
“Don’t go. Don’t go.”My heart begs the more he fades.
Outwardly, nothing changes. But I feel him loosening his hold on the air around me. That presence that clung to my skin the moment I saw him kneeling in his cell starts to weaken.
I can’t bear it. He can’t leave me.
Even as I know, soon I’ll be leaving with him.
My head is light while my chest is heavy. My fingers numb.
Closing my eyes, I tip my head back and plant my palm firmly on his chest. Where his hummingbird heart slows, until there is nothing but silence.
I suppose if we go, we’ll go together.
Gods, souls, and stars guide us to Sarrow.
My heart whispers to the After. To the stars. To the Fae who gave up what little life he had left for a dying girl.
There is no more pain. I no longer feel anything apart from this sizzle in my hands. This heat in my chest.
The welcoming crackle of death.
It strokes my skin. Caresses my tongue. A current of midnight rustles through me. Cool and quiet and dark. Like floating in an endless space with no stars. Just a pulse, calling out, guiding me. Through tunnels like those I wandered until I found this cell. An endless, vacant chasm.
Until I stumble upon a single heartbeat.
The pulse so strong, I taste it on my tongue. It knocks against my fingers.
I welcome you.
Drifting into the depths, I release the hold that tethers me to the prison. That holds me to Alyssium. I let go of self and become the sprinkle of a soul in an endless abyss, guided only by a single beating heart. I’m a flutter of ash that’s broken free from the pyre. Drifting so high I might see the Well itself.
Except there is nothing but emptiness and a flicker in the distance. My fingers reach for it, but it’s so far and fragile.
It must be Sarrow.
I thought the gods abandoned us, but maybe Caeces is lighting a path for me now. Welcoming me to the After.
I reach for the prick of light but am met with a thousand threads instead. Strands bind my toes. My fingertips. The stones, the darkness. They bindeverything. All shades of silver, gold, black, and red. Glowing as they weave the very fabric of the night.
My fingertips graze them until a golden strand summons me to it. It begs me to wrap my fingers around it. It’s hollow and thin, but there’s something still stirring deep within.
I’m no longer in the prison. I’m free. I’m floating. There is no containment. No cold. No winters or pain or mortality. There is only this sparkling blanket of life and death. Stretching so far that there is no beginning or end.
And that one thread is simply one of many, but I can’t let go of it.
“See through the stars.”
That whisper again.
Is it a warning or a guide? There are no stars here. No light. Nothing to see except what is inside me.
The thread slips from my fingers, and my chest empties. It starts to driftaway.
