My own tears spill over. “That can’t be right—"
“Matthias is skilled,” Sol rasps. “He found a way to at least replace the blood loss, if we can only get Callan back in time. It saved his life before. But this…it has never been like this. This is the worst.”
Esme kneels on my other side. “You’re so close to home, Cal. And you’re far too stubborn to give up now.” Endless grief sits within her words as she reaches forward, a cloth in her hands that she uses to wipe away the blood that spills from his eyes, scarlet tracking down golden cheeks.
When he slumps, it’s my arms that catch him. His breathing shudders against my neck.
I can feel his heartbeat. So close that it could be next to my own inside my chest. They beat out of sync, Callan’s heart beating once for every two of mine.
This is notright.
Merrick stands, and I turn to him in desperation. But he’s not watching Callan.
He’s watching me.
“He’s not going to make it,” Rio murmurs from behind me. His voice cracks. “He needs to—to guideVolatusin. Bring it to land.”
Callan jerks. Coughs. Liquid soaks my hair, my neck. Metal and lifeblood.
I nudge him up until I can see his face. My fingers brush his cheek as I close my eyes and seek the maegis out.
It hovers, as if waiting.Can you help him?
It doesn’t work as it should. Maybe, just maybe—
It’s becoming easier, to corral it, to gather it up.What can I do?
I can feel the intention. The refusal. The maegis cannot help. Or will not.
Anger sparks as they withdraw.No.
Help him. You will help him.
It tries to escape as I reach for it. I grip it tightly, not even knowing what I’m asking for but seeking it anyway.
This is not how his story ends.
Callan Edgeborn did not let me go that day, did not follow me to the dock and watch me fall, did notfindme again, only to die with my arms around him and his blood soaking my skin.
It will take something from me, something integral. His heartbeat hastens, almost matching mine.
I have lostenough.
Enough for a dozen lifetimes. And so have those around me. I can feel their grief, feel their pain – their helplessness, forced to sit and watch and able to do nothing as Callan drowns in his own blood.
No more.
Something sparks in my memories. A shadowed, solitary figure, swaying.
My lips part on a gasp of realization.Merrick.
Merrick’s fate does not end this way. The shadows showed me, flickering and shifting as they wove his story into the air between us. Fate does not lie, and there is no escaping it.
Which means that thereissomething that can be done. There has to be, or Merrick would not be standing here. If Callan dies,Volatusfalls.
Hands try to separate us, gentle but insistent. My hands tighten. They will not take him from me. “No.”
All of them are talking at once, the noise buzzing around us as I focus on Callan’s face. His eyes are barely open now, but the faintest glimmer of bronze fixes on my face as his chest rises and falls.
