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I try to focus on their soothing voice as they explain what to do. We kneel in the center of the circle, nearly knee to knee. They place the dagger in Essos’s hands, and I’m taken aback by the length. Now that it’s right there, I can see that it’s nearly as long as my forearm. I’m grateful Essos is listening, because there is only a ringing in my ears. I want to be sick; I feel clammy all over. Too hot and too cold all at once. It was one thing in the abstract, but now I’m here, kneeling with my husband in the middle of a ritualistic circle.
Sybil steps out of the circle again, and the chanting begins.
“Nothing is going to happen to you. I swear it,” Essos promises. With the knife held far away from us, he uses his free hand to grip the back of my neck and pull me in for one last searing kiss.
The candles around the circle are all lit at the same time, the flames climbing higher and higher like some fancy special effect from a supernatural movie. I grip Essos’s hand, trying to follow the ancient language. Sybil, Estelle, and Zara start chanting, and I’m impressed with Zara, not only for her pronunciation, but for how she’s able to follow along.
“I love you,” I tell Essos through gritted teeth.
I try to fight a tear, but it rolls down my cheek anyway. A matching tear runs down Essos’s face. He takes my wrist gently and turns it over. His blue eyes flick behind me, where I know Sybil stands. I don’t know their response, but Essos grips my wrist with a bruising force. He meets my eyes, an apology written in them, and digs the tip of the dagger into my arm.
I bite my lip and try not to cry out, and he keeps mouthing his apology over and over again. I reach out with my other hand and wipe his tears. My arm burns with each move the blade makes from my wrist up to the inside of my elbow. He turns my arm over, twisting my wrist down so the blood flows more freely.
I can no longer hear the chanting, only the plink of my blood dropping into the metal bowl. It starts slowly, and then I feel the blood being pulled from my veins. Essos turns the dagger over to me and holds out his arm. I don’t know how I missed it, but both his sleeves are rolled up.
I hesitate, pressing the knife to his skin and nicking him a few times before I commit, pushing the knife too deep into his wrist. He winces, but when I look up at him with apology in my eyes and on my lips, his focus is on me with grim determination. He gives me an encouraging nod, and it’s all I need to drag the knife up to his elbow. I hate the resistance I feel from his skin. It’s small, because this knife has been sharpened so well—too well.
Essos lets out a grunt when I twist his wrist the same way he did mine. There isn’t the same plink from his blood, because mine has already created a base layer. The sound is more of a drip as our blood blends.
We repeat this process again on our other arms. I’m surer of my cut the second time. Once we’re done with the second round of slices, we toss the dagger out of the circle. I don’t know if Galen’s soul could ruin the ritual, but it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Essos and I press our cuts against each other so our blood is combined as it drips.
I can’t look away from Essos even though I want to see where Callie and Xavier are. Instead, Essos and I are’ stuck nose to nose, and I can feel the magic dragging the blood from our veins.
I think there’s sweat on my forehead, but I can’t reach up to touch it. Our arms are bound with a garish red ribbon that keeps tightening and releasing to keep the blood flowing. My head falls forward onto Essos’s shoulder.
“Stay with me, my love,” he whispers in my ear, a desperate edge to his voice.
“I’m always with you,” I reply, hearing the dreamy, faraway quality to my voice.
I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but I think that the bowls of blood are lifting in the air as the chanting gets louder. I’m trying hard to keep my eyes open, but the room is so warm as the flames climb higher and higher. Either I’m spinning, or the bowls of blood are spinning, but I know that I haven’t had a case of spins this bad since I turned twenty-one.
I lift my head to look at Essos and find him looking pale. There is a thin sheen of sweat on his face. I want to brush a damp strand of hair from his brow, but I can’t move my arms. I’ve forgotten why I can’t move my arms until I glance at them and see the binding that’s forcing them to stay outstretched.
It’s raining blood, and I don’t understand why there is blood everywhere. I know I should be worried about something, but I don’t remember what. I try to focus on Essos again, but my vision is blurry.
I see Octavia close to the edge of the barrier, coming closer and closer before she kneels right at the circle. My vision gets worse, and there are two of her until it narrows and narrows and narrows and everything goes black.
CHAPTER21
“Why isn’t she waking up?” Essos’s growl is the first thing that breaks through my dreams.
“Let her rest. Her body is healing, and all this fussing isn’t helping her,” is Callie’s low reply.
I want to respond to them, tell them I’m here, I’m awake, but my mouth feels dry and like it’s glued together. I couldn’t lift my hand if I wanted to. I feel Essos close to me, brushing my hair from my brow.
* * *
The room iswarm and shrouded in darkness. I want to turn over, but the weight of the blankets is too heavy. I can’t move, and I briefly wonder when we got a weighted blanket.
“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to tell her,” Essos’s voice is anguished when he says this. I decide I don’t want to know what he’s talking about, and I let sleep pull me back under.
My dreams are plagued with flowers and Posey and people without mouths and eyes. The dead are making their displeasure known, grabbing at me, leaving me bruised. I have two long angry red lines the stretch from the inside of my wrist all the way to my elbow, but I don’t recall how I got them. A chain of flowers unfolds along my forearms, watercolors mixing with the ink on my skin.
I’m admiring them when my body feels like it’s slammed down into a box, and I have to fight and claw my way out. I’ve been buried alive, and I don’t know how to get out, how to survive this.
Hands grab me from everywhere. They hold me down and try to drag me further down and down and down. Voices keep telling me that they’re taking me where I belong, that I’ve died again, and I don’t get a second chance. Screaming doesn’t help, but then I can’t stop screaming, my throat growing raw, then wet, as if I have screamed it bloody.
