I climbed out of the hole and went over to her. I refused to accept that as a possibility. I put my ear against her lips, my hand on her chest.
My brother was right. She wasn’t breathing.
There was no heartbeat.
Panic filled my chest. How could that be? How could I feel her burning in my own heart when hers no longer worked?
I would breathe life into her. I had seen an old sailor do it once. I would push the air she needed into her lungs. I sealed my mouth over hers, exhaling into her. Once, twice, three times.
Still she didn’t stir.
“Xander.” Stephanos put his hand on my shoulder but I shoved it away.
No. Lia would live.
“I forbid you to die,” I told her. “And you have to obey me.”
Some part of me hoped those words would anger her enough that she would come back just to argue with me.
“What if she has water in her lungs?” one of her sisters asked behind me. I turned Lia on her side and hit her back, the way I would if she had been choking.
No water came out of her mouth.
Frantic, I picked her up and held her in my arms. She was so cold. So, so cold.
“Come back to me. Please.” Lia had taunted me about not using that word, but I would say “please” every day for the rest of my life if it would bring her back.
I rubbed her arms, her legs, her torso, trying to warm her up.
Thrax tried to reach for her. “Xander, it’s been too long. She’s gone.”
A howl of anguish ripped out of my lungs, and I shouted at him, “No! Leave me!”
I heard Io crying, and I felt the tears in my own eyes as I hugged my beautiful wife to my chest, trying to give her my warmth.
“Lia, don’t you know how much I love you? How I would do anything for you? That I have waited for you my whole life? We are going to have the most incredible future together. You will be my queen and we will rule Ilion side by side. We will have children. As many as you want. Io and Quynh will come and visit us. We will go to Locris and see your parents. We will laugh and we will dance and we will know nothing but happiness.”
I was only vaguely aware that the crying behind me got louder.
Kissing her cold lips, her cold cheek, I kept trying to coax her back to me. “I will feed you pasteli every day and hold you in my arms every night. I will keep you safe.”
My voice broke on the last word. I had promised her. Promised that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. That I would give up my life for hers.
And it was all gone.
My dreams of our future.
Our love.
Her light.
Gone.
The pain was unbearable. There was no way to survive this.
“Take me instead,” I said to no one. “Let her live and I will take her place.”
I had grown up knowing that the goddess existed. But she had been a more nebulous concept. Something I hadn’t concerned myself with because, as far as I could tell, she didn’t affect my everyday life.
