“Sanora,” his voice turned pleadingly soft again. “If you stay in there too long, you won’t be able to come out again. Come out, please.”
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I turned away from him, heart splintering as I tried to shut out his voice—the voice I loved more than life—and forced myself back into the cavern.
In the dream, the ground had been stone. But here, it was sand. I frowned, trying to remember if Kalimetryna had shattered the earth as she burned, but my memories slipped like water.
A pin.
I could see a pin in the ground.
Right where she had lain.
The same pin from centuries ago was in the same spot Thrax had driven it into her, but I hadn’t known it had sunk through her and into the ground.
He had come here for years. Why hadn’t he removed it?
“Sanora, please come out,” his voice begged again.
I blocked him out, kneeling, reaching for the pin. My fingers closed around the cold metal and I pulled, teeth gritted, but it would not yield. My body screamed in protest, dizziness washing over me. Carefully, without dislodging the knife in me, I sank into the sand and sat.
Any second now and I would shut down. I could feel it.
Tears blurred my vision as I blocked out Thrax’s relentless pleading and pulled harder.
With everything I had.
Pain ripped through me, but I didn’t let go. I dragged every last fragment of strength from my dying body, tears burning my eyes, until finally—finally—it shifted. Barely.
A cry tore from my throat as it continued to move, slowly and agonisingly. Blood gushed from my wound with the effort, spilling down my shirt as a wet cough exploded from my chest, crimson flying everywhere.
The instant my blood touched the floor, the pin shot free, flinging me backward. Last minute, I managed to hold myself from landing on my back, stunned.
My blood was the key.
My blood had released it.
I stared at the base of the pin. The part buried in the ground was rotten and corroded. Not silver, but blackened, eaten away, though the shaft above still gleamed silver.
I didn’t know if it was because of the time it had spent buried in there or if it had something to do with why Thrax had been coming here all these years?
Either way, I didn’t wait to think.
I lay down, in the exact place Kalimetryna had.
I had no clue how this worked, but nothing exactly screamed I was doing the wrong thing. And if this pin could take a life, maybe it could give one back.
Maybe it could give life to Thrax.
Tears streamed down my face as I let his voice in. I let it be the last sound I heard. His voice was a tide pulling me under—begging, breaking, threatening to drag me back to life himself and kill me all over again, then pleading again, whispering he couldn’t live without me.
I can’t live knowing I did nothing to help you, I wanted to say, but blood filled my throat, cutting off air, cutting off words.
In that moment, a strange peace washed over me. His voice—even angry—was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I clung to it, smiling weakly, because if this was the last thing I heard, then at least it was him.
I lifted the pin.
Thrax’s voice broke against the barrier behind me, pleading with a desperation that shredded my heart.
