Page 166 of Dark Night of the Soul

I didn’t remember falling asleep.

One minute I was sitting in the chair by the bed, the next I was waking up with a stiff neck and needles in my hand from leaning on it.

The room was still dark. Not yet morning. I didn’t know if Ulrich and Ludwig were still here. I wasn’t leaving the chair to find out. Because if he woke even for a second, I intended to be sitting right here. I’d only left for a brief moment to wash the blood from my hands. It was still caked under my nails.

He lay where they left him in the middle of the bed. Too still. Too pale. Stitched back together with a hope and a prayer. Bandaged and utterly unlike the man who filled an entire room with his mere presence. The antiseptic smell of bandages mixed with the copper tang of blood. His breathing was shallow but steady.

I didn’t know how either of us were going to survive this.

Because if he didn’t, I wouldn’t.

We’d been in situations like this before. But nothing ever this dire.

The doctor had said the worst part would be the waiting. Infection. Internal bleeding. Shock. A dozen quiet ways this could still kill him even after we’d escaped with our lives.

I hated that I couldn’t fight those things.

I could fight men. I could fight conditioning. I could fight destiny, apparently.

But this?

This was sitting. Watching. Hoping.

I reached out without thinking. My hand in his. His skin was warm. That mattered more than I could articulate. Feeling the faint beat of his pulse. A reminder. He was still here.

I sensed the presence before I saw him. I lifted my head to see him standing on the other side of the bed, his snowy white wings spread behind him. Those bright blue eyes I knew so well peering down at Kincade, then at me.

Cashiel.

“What are you doing here, Uncle?” I asked, my voice quiet in the hush.

“He’s holding on,” he said, “because you’re here.”

I looked from him to Kincade. Watched the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest. The way his fingers curled faintly around mine.

“I came to him,” Cashiel continued. “After the alteration.”

My head snapped up. “You did?”

“I told him what they did to you was a desecration,” he said. “I told him that he was the only one who could pull you back from the edge.”

The world tilted.

And I understood.

He stayed because he chose to. He brought me back from that nightmare because he chose. He let me become what I am—without fear, without judgment—because he chose.

My heart lurched painfully in my chest.

“And he did,” I whispered.

Cashiel’s wings stirred, a flutter of acknowledgement.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said. “I can’t fix him. I can’t fight this for him.”

His voice softened. “No. You aren’t meant to. You aren’t the warrior here.”

I fixed my gaze on Kincade’s face.