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Up there was my home, somehow.
Those stars were mine, the moon was mine, just like the sun belonged to Runa. I’d tasted it in her golden-glowing blood. I’d sucked it deep. I’d felt it. Felt the sun’s cosmic sear and endless, white-bright light. My mortal heart had split apart beneath the primordial recognition of her.
I knew her.
I’d always known her.
We were more than this.
So, so much more than this.
I tossed Aktor to the side, watching him fall before whipping him skyward again. With barely a thought, I commanded the shadow wrapped around Aktor’s leg to release him.
The hunter fell again.
Falling,
falling,
but this time, I caught him just before he slammed against the earth.
I caught him, pinned him on his back, and fashioned a shadow as sharp and as deadly as the knife he’d used against Runa’s throat. I wrapped a shade around his neck and closed my fingers tight.
Aktor grunted as the night strangled him.
His legs kicked, and his fingers scratched at the blackness suffocating him.
But it was no use.
He couldn’t get free. There was nothing he could do to stop me from taking his life and freeing Runa so we could run as far away from these people as possible.
Back to the sky. Back to what we were.
I was done with this.
Tighter.
The shadows obeyed, crunching Aktor’s windpipe.
I closed my eyes in preparation for the rush.
The thrill of his death.
The silence of his end.
I added another pulse of strength.
The knife-shaped shadow against his throat drew first blood.
I smelled the metallic spritz of fresh red.
But then...screaming.
Male screaming.
Begging.
Pleading.
I blinked back the suffocating smog.
It was hard.
Ever so difficult to see past the darkness and focus on a world I’d almost forgotten.
I glanced to my side.
Everything ceased.
“Runa...”
Moths scattered from my shoulders, their moon-dusted wings leaving glittering wakes in the night. Solin kneeled in the grass. Syn and Zetas padded anxiously behind him while Natim bleated with terror.
And there was Runa...on her back.
Cradled by Solin.
Gasping and clutching at her throat.
Dying.
Her legs thrashed, and the deerskin rose up her thighs, revealing the sunburst mark that I’d traced and sliced, licked and drunk from.
Her eyes met mine—a dull ochre that held none of her usual lifeforce.
Fuck, what have I done?
I lost control over the night.
My shadows lost all form, tumbling into chaotic fog. Moths fluttered through my hair, soaring toward the moon above, leaving me in a funnel of wing beats.
I ran to Runa and shoved Solin aside.
The Fire Reader fell sideways, his dark face shining with worry. “I told you!” He sat up, wringing his hands as I grabbed Runa from his lap and dragged her onto mine. She hardly noticed, her white hair strewn between Solin’s knees and mine.
“I told you they were joined. I told you she would die if you tried to kill him.” Tears ran down his weathered cheeks. “I told you and you didn’t listen! You did this.”
“No, you did!” I snarled as deep and as dangerous as Salak. “You did the bind.”
“And I told you what it entailed!” He wiped away his grief with angry slashes. “And now you’ve hurt her. Just like the fire said you would.”
My insides turned to ice.
I hadn’t just fulfilled the flame’s premonitions...did I?
I would never hurt Runa.
I was trying to save her!
Frost webbed over my pounding heart.
Had the fire been right all along?
Was this how I’d hurt her?
Through jealousy and fear?
Her eyes drifted closed as her body went limp.
“Runa...” I tucked a few wayward white strands behind her ears. My hands trembled. “Please, Runa...wake up.”
I wanted to howl, curse, tear apart the universe.
Solin stayed close, grabbing Natim in a hug as the little fawn nuzzled Runa’s fingers. Syn threw herself onto her belly, a whine rising with a mournful tune.
Solin didn’t speak. He could’ve layered me in guilt or fought me to hold Runa, but he didn’t. He merely clutched the deer and never took his eyes off his adoptive daughter. He didn’t go to Aktor, who stayed motionless on the ground. And he didn’t run back to the clan and tell the hunters to kill me.
We stayed sitting silently together, our attention locked on Runa as her lips parted and she sucked shallow sips of air, her body hovering on the precipice of life and death.
Her legs had stopped thrashing.
Her awful stillness was so much worse.
My heart ceased beating as my eyes fell on her throat. No blood welled. No matching marks of strangulation. But she couldn’t swallow and winced with every breath, in tandem and horrid synchronicity with Aktor.
She’d felt everything I’d done.
Every toss through the sky and fall to the earth.
Every suffocation and cut.
The world roiled with bitter regret.
“I’m sorry,” I grunted. “So fucking sorry.”
Zetas came forward, slotting herself to my side. Her shining yellow eyes hooded with matching grief.
All my fury snuffed out.
All my rage became despair.
Aktor choked and coughed, rousing awake.
