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Riven picked me up and sat me on the horse. I toppled over in pain, but he slid in behind me, cradling my stomach. I was soaking his arm in my blood as we galloped away from the scene. Pain flared with every step. I leaned back into Riven, my head hanging loosely on his shoulder.
“Did we do it?” I asked him in a whimpering breath. I couldn’t see the damage with all the smoke. I hoped I wasn’t in so much pain for nothing. I hoped those Shades had not died for nothing.
He nodded stiffly, looking down at my face and biting his cheek. I started to tilt my head down, wanting to see the state of my body, but Riven stopped me. A gentle hand, softer than the first flakes of snow, held my chin. He didn’t want me to see. It must’ve been as bad as it felt.
My mind swirled with cloudy images. Nikolai’s leg. Riven grabbing me along the wall. The first bits of shrapnel burying themselves into my skin. My head bounced against Riven’s shoulder, even his thick scent of birchwood and dew couldn’t clear my mind. I tried to steady myself by focusing on my breath, but each inhale tore into my lungs and each exhale was a weak whistle. The buildings beside us blurred together. Riven was riding too fast and I was seeing too slow to know where we were. My heavy lids closed. When I opened them, the buildings had turned into a blur of moonlit beige.
A field?I thought, unable to tell. I blinked again, and we were surrounded by trees. My head lolled into Riven’s jaw. He pressed his cheek against my hair or maybe his lips. I couldn’t tell. I wanted to sleep. Fall into oblivion so I didn’t have to feel the pain anymore.
My eyes were heavy. I didn’t care where we were going. I knew what Riven was too scared to admit. I was dying. The pain in my legs had already begun to disappear. I couldn’t feel them any longer. Soon I wouldn’t feel anything at all.
I could hear Riven’s heart hammering in his chest. His heavy breaths pushed into my back. I lifted a hand to my chest, expecting to feel the same rapid pulse, but my heart was slow. Calm.
I was ready.
Riven must have seen my eyes closing because he shook me with his arm. “Stay awake, Keera,” he said loudly in my ear. I flinched. The ringing had died down enough for his shouts to hurt.
“I’m tired,” I whispered.
“Just a little longer,” Riven urged, digging his heels into the horse, trying to make it run faster.
“Riven. I’mtired.” I was pleading with him. Begging him to let me fall asleep. Leave me on the side of the road in peace. My body was broken. I’d already lost so much blood and I was sure my legs were shattered. I titled my face to look at him, but my vision blurred. Red spots covered Riven’s face. My heavy lids fell, and I was too tired to fight it.
“No!” Riven shouted, shaking me until my eyes opened again. “You can’t sleep, Keera. Stay awake. I’m taking us to someone who can help you.”
“I don’t need help,” I argued.
“Now is not the time for your pigheaded independence,” Riven teased, though his voice carried a hard edge.
“That’s not what I mean,” I slurred, my eyes focusing on the arch of his nose. Riven turned to look at me, his eyes were wide and glazed. I tried to lift my hand to his cheek, but my arm fell limp at my side. “Just let me die.Please.”
The admission broke whatever resolve I had left. My chest loosened as my limbs went slack. I was tired of fighting. Tired of killing. My body was searing from my wounds, but it was nothing like the decades I’d spent trying to forget faces of people, of children. The innocents whose names I took, as if that was a true penance.
I didn’t want to do it anymore.
“I’m tired,” I said again, hot tears rolled down my face leaving amber streaks. Riven stared at me, the line between his brow deepening as he shook his head. I felt his hand squeeze my waist even tighter, as if he could hold me to life by sheer will. His arm shook my torso as we rode through a wood. My eyes would not stay open wide enough to see the trees. I could only smell the damp earth and the scent of my blood.
Riven let out a deep breath, his voice cracking against my hair. “I will tell you anything you want to know, but you need to stay awake, Keera.” It was a bargain.
I peered through my lashes at his face. His jaw twitched and his eyes were framed in red. An amber circle covered his cheek from where his face had touched my head. Why couldn’t he see how broken I was? Why didn’t he realize I wasn’t worth saving?
“I can’t,” I whispered.
He swallowed so hard I felt it against my head. “You have to,” he said, his voice splitting. I looked back up at him. His head was cocked to one side as he focused on the road. I didn’t see any blood on him other than my own, but Riven was breaking too.
I could play his game for a little while if it meant he didn’t break completely. “How old are you?” I asked, too weak to smirk.
Riven inhaled a shaky breath and chuckled against my hair. “I was born just over ninety years ago. I am the youngest of our kind, born of a Fae named Laethellia Numenthira.”
The name stirred something in my memory, but my head ached too badly to retrieve it. I let my face fall forward, bouncing with the gait of our horse, until Riven pulled me in to the crook of his neck.
“She was beautiful,” he whispered, eyes flicking down to make sure I was conscious. I tried to smile but my cheeks hurt, like the skin around my lips was raw. “ She was a wonderful singer and archer. Her favorite flowers were dew roses and that is why Aralinth is littered with them. Feron made sure his gardens were full of them each time she visited. Now he keeps them year-round in her memory.”
I nodded, closing my eyes as I remembered the fresh scent of the navy roses. It was the same dew that covered Riven’s skin.
“She was gifted,” he continued, jostling me awake. “Even for a Fae. They say she had the ability to turn herself into an owl.”
I blinked. Still able to feel shocked through the pain. “A shapeshifter?” I murmured.
