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“What?”
“There’s a tunnel. A tunnel you need to…” His face turned pale and still, and for a second, Juliana thought he’d already slipped away.
“My father—”
“I’ll find him,” Juliana promised, quite forgetting to lie. “I’ll see he’s looked after. I’ll tell him you were brave and strong and true to the end, that you died a hero, that your last thoughts were of him—”
“You,” he murmured.
“What?”
“My last thoughts… you.” His eyes started to circle. “I liked you,” he whispered, voice ragged. “I could have…”
She waited for him to finish, but slowly, as the world groaned around them, she realised that he wouldn’t. Dillon would never finish that sentence. He would never finish anything again.
Tears stung her eyes. Her chest surged. Her entire body shook, rattling, numb. Hardly hers at all. Her hand was scrunched in his and she didn’t want to let go.
How could she let go? Dillon was threaded to her story. He’d been there at the beginning, chasing her through the stables when they could barely walk. Dillon couldn’t be gone. She wouldn’tlethim be gone. Not Dillon who had dragged her to the healer’s the countless times she’d hurt herself, Dillon who spoke to horses like they could speak back, Dillon who’d kissed her and looked at her like she was beautiful and had been her friend before and afterwards and should have been her friend forever—
And he would be. Because she wasn’t letting go.
His hand started to grow cold, the only warmth in his palm her own, echoing back. Dillon’s warmth, Dillon’s soul, whatever made him,him,wasn’t here anymore.
Nothing was.
“I liked you too,” she whispered, placing a kiss against his still, inert forehead. She wanted to whisper other lies to him, other wishes of what could have been in another life, a different time.
But she did not want to lie to him.
“You were one of the kindest people I knew,” she said instead. “Faerie didn’t deserve you.Icertainly didn’t. But I’m glad you liked me. I’m glad I knew you. I’m sorry if I ever caused you pain.”
With trembling fingers, she reached up to close his eyes. She drew the faerie symbol of peace on his forehead, and spoke the words given to knights of Acanthia.
“Rest easy, knight of the realm. You have served your country well. The earth is your blood now, the trees your bones. Wherever your spirit goes, a part will remain with us still. Farewell, brother-in-arms…” Her voice stalled on the next words, throat tight and aching. “Farewell, my friend.”
Shedidn’thavethestrength to bury him. She didn’t have any other choice but to leave him there in the freezing snow, sprinkling what remained of the elixir on her own wound, and crawling away to the cave where she’d stashed the rest of her supplies.
She could have tried to use it on him. She could have tried to dosomething.
But she hadn’t, and although she knew it was because it wouldn’t have helped, the thought didn’t comfort her.
I shouldn’t have gone after the grindylows. If I hadn’t, maybe, maybe I would have had enough…
Juliana doubted that was true, that Dillon could have been saved by something small enough to fit in her pocket, but the thought refused to leave.
As did the pain crackling through her body.
She crawled into the back of the cave, too weak to move, thoughts turning mushy. How much blood had she lost?
Dillon had set up a fire earlier, thinking ahead, thinking that they would come back together at the end of the day and sit here together and laugh and toast to their victory—
But there would be no more toasts with Dillon. No more laughter.
No moreanything.
Her thoughts turned ragged again, like they were being torn against a bread knife. She hadn’t examined her wound since she’d splashed it with the remains of the elixir. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.
At the back of the cave were a few vine-like roots, like the ones from back home in the palace. She moved towards them, pretending they were trembling around her, like they could offer her some comfort in this cold, dark place, where even the light of the fire couldn’t reach her.
