Page 240 of May: Bloom & Bane

When they feel it—when I am no longer the only one who has ever felt this way. It will stop hurting then. It has to.

The pages curl darkly at my feet. I inhale deeply, and I am calm again. I am always, eventually, calm again.

“Forgive the mess,” I say quietly, passing my hand through the air. The flames lie down obediently, the spilled ink topples back into the jar, and the wreck sorts into something I will see to later.

Vaelu’s ears are still flat. Ryn has not loosened by a single degree.

“Come here. Both of you. I am not angry with you. You did right to tell me.”

They listen, and settle in front of me.

“The spell on the scythe,” I murmur, “you understand what it does, correct?”

Vaelu nods quickly. “Yes, Father.”

“I need to hear you say it,” I crouch, bringing myself level with him. “I need you to know I am not hurting her.”

He opens his mouth, and his teeth find his bottom lip instead.

“When it takes her, it moves her. That is all. She will arrive here, whole, unhurt, not a mark on her. She will not die. Tell me you are certain, Vaelu.”

“They won’t die,” he whispers.

“Good.” I lift my hand, and then lower it. I want so badly to soothe them, but they cannot bear to be touched. The hands that last held them were not kind, and their bodies have never forgotten.

So I give them the only comfort they will accept. I get up from the floor and reach into the shallow drawer of one of my bookcases, pulling out a small, lacquered crate I have kept tucked away just for this hour. I slide it across the smooth stone floor toward them. Inside is a heavy bundle of raw, unspun cloud-wool, the exact kind of high-pile texture they love to line the dark corners of their quarters with. Tucked into the center is a large bowl of harvest-cherries, split open and glazed in thick clover honey. Their noses twitch, and the tips of Vaelu’s ears swivel forward. He reaches out, his scarred fingers sinking eagerly into the plush wool before he lifts one of the honeyed fruits to his lips. Ryn’s shoulders drop an inch, his tail uncoiling from Vaelu’s ankle.

“Take it back to your den,” I chuckle softly, stepping back to give them the wide, open radius of space they need to feel safe. “Melt the honey into some tea. Rest. I will handle the rest of the threads tonight.”

The door drifts shut behind them, and I am alone in the dark once again—the way I always have been. I settle into my chair and fold my hands, waiting for the day none of us will ever have to be alone in the dark again.

CHAPTER 70

i’ll not take a man’s wings while he sleeps

—THERAEL

The chains feel heavier than they should be. We walk toward the meadow with the spelled star-iron coiled over my forearm. Damon walks a pace behind me, silent for once, his feathered jacket drawn tight against the winter chill. Neither of us has spoken since we crossed back through the veil. There’s nothing to say that the weight of the iron isn’t already saying.

We have it, I keep thinking. We have it now. Between Damon’s mark drawn over Sage’s heart and these chains, we can fight the pull of the curse. I never thought we’d have to travel three realms deep to find them. Every hour we were gone, I felt a wrongness gnawing at me.

I step out of the trees, and my mind simply refuses to believe what I’m seeing. The putrid scent of copper weaves through the sweet green of the meadow.

“No,” I hear myself say. “No, no, no⁠—”

The chains slip from my forearm, clattering uselessly at my feet. The very thing we went three realms to find is meaningless.

I’m on my knees beside him, with no recollection of how I got here. I have seen battlefields, I have created winters that buried armies, and nothing has ever struck me like the sight of this boy laid open in the dark.

“Ashán.” My hands hover, terrified of what I’ll feel if I touch him. “Ashán, can you hear me?”

He barely stirs.

“RUNAK!” I scream into the sky. My magic snaps like a frozen branch. A tempest swirls violently above the meadow, clouding the stars in a bruised, violet-black mass that churns so low it feels like the heavens are trying to crush the earth. The wind turns into a scream. Frost claws its way up the grass, freezing the pools of blood into red crystal lakes.

“Brother, let’s get him inside,” Damon whispers. “We can see his wounds better in the light.”

The air in front of us distorts, tearing open. The scent of something that has been waiting motionless in brackish water fills the eye of the storm. Runak steps onto the frozen clover with his typical predatory stillness. He is built like something the rivers made and never finished domesticating. His face is concealed behind a pale bone mask, leaving only his eyes visible. And those eyes are completely cold and flat, tracking the scene around us with the calculated efficiency of a soldier.