“You can’t fight!” I jam the key in the lock and twist. His other wrist is free. Now for his ankles.
But Conri is already back upon us. It is a dizzying and chaotic mix of hands and arms, bites and snarls. Evander is clearly a better fighter because he manages to keep Conri at bay, even in his human form. But Conri has speed and full mobility.
I try to stay focused on getting Evander’s legs free. One down. Evander lets out a scream, the knee of his freed leg bending as he tries to throw Conri.
The wolf king is atop him, claws digging deep into his shoulders. Conri strikes, and strikes, and strikes. There is so much blood. A rain of red splatters in the moss all around.
Leaping, I grab on to Conri’s back, trying to pull him off by throwing my weight as Conri goes for another lunge. He has both claws up and I manage to pull him away. The blur of white I saw earlier drifts through my periphery. Conri’s claws come down.
An explosion of blood is hot on my face and cheeks. A laugh cut short by a gurgle. A roar ends abruptly.
We land. I manage to twist myself out of the way at the last second so Conri’s full weight isn’t atop me. But I couldn’t get an arm out in time. I’m pinned and so close to every horrifying, gruesome detail.
Shoved through Conri’s throat is a familiar dagger.My hunting knife. The same one that I…
May I see it?Aurora had said.I’ve never been able to hold a weapon before…May I keep it?The way her eyes had gleamed, much like they are in this moment. The purpose with which sheslipped it into the boot I’d gifted her. Was she seeing, then, what she intended now?
The knife is wielded by a trembling hand, coated in blood. Fingers so slick they’re already sliding on the grip. Conri’s massive paw falls from Aurora’s shredded throat. Even as she gasps through blood and shock, she smiles.
“Die, bastard,” Aurora rasps and then tumbles off to Conri’s opposite side. As still as death.
CHAPTER 48
Conri’s eyes are wide.As if, for the first time, he was confronted with death itself—with his own fleeting mortality and the notion that he was not the god-king he so clearly thought he was. Even at the end, frozen forever in his wolfish form, he has never looked so human. For the first time, I see the man in the monster, and I cannot even manage pity. Not when he found that soul far too late.
Not when Aurora is bleeding next to him.
I wrest my arm from underneath Conri, feeling the bones stretch and tendons snap. It aches and my fingers are hard to move. But they do move. Which means I can help.
Do something, Faelyn!I scream at myself, vaulting over Conri in my scramble to get to Aurora. It barely registers that Evander is moving as well. Still slowed by the last chain I hadn’t managed to free him of. But much faster than he was.
“Aurora, Aurora please. Hold on.” My words are as frantic as my movements. Her throat has been savaged from one side down through her collar. I don’t even know where best to apply pressure to try and staunch the bleeding but I press my palm into the loose and bloody flesh anyway. Her eyes flutter and sherasps out a weak breath. I curse in frustration, at the cruelty of fate and the fear of what her injuries might mean for us all.
This body cannot be killed by natural means…to kill me would take a magical act, intent by a mortal hand.Her words return to me as horror settles upon my shoulders.
I reach for my pouch of threads but grab only empty air. That’s right, they stripped me of everything. And I was too tired to fight it. Too weary from the world to protest when they took my strongest, and only, weapon from me.
“I can fix this.” My attention darts to the wolves, all standing in shock and horror. “Get my bag of threads.” No one moves. “She’s dying. Do it now!” I shout with a rage and authority I didn’t know myself capable of. One of the women darts away.
“Faelyn…” Aurora croaks.
“Don’t try to talk,” I command. Evander is at our side. “Hold her throat, stop the bleeding.” He does as I ask. I reach for my cape, going for one embroidered shape out of a constellation of many—a heart done in crimson thread, vitality and luck. Bringing it to my teeth, I tear through the thread, frantically ripping at the stitching to pull it out.
She speaks anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Please don’t talk. I can fix you.”
“I couldn’t…earlier…I couldn’t do it earlier. I had to leave the lykin’s territory to be free of my vow. To break…to harm him.”
“You…” I still as the connection is made in my mind. But then I resume my stitch-ripping with fervor. “You knew that we would probably be caught the night we fled, didn’t you?”
“As long…as we made it out of…lykin territory.” Her eyes open long enough to meet mine and she gives me a wry smile. “I truly hoped…we would leave. But if we didn’t… It had to be me. I had to do it.”
This whole time, she was going along with our plans, hoping they worked, that they were good enough to free her. But inthe back of her mind, behind it all, she was secretly planning a backup. The hunting knife I gave her—that she kept even though it would be “useless” to her. The push for us to keep going and carry on even as Conri had Evander and she must have known I couldn’t ever leave him. Those final moments before Conri took us, Aurora continuing to step backward through that ancient town, creeping to the border of lykin territory. So badly she wanted to be free, I knew that, and I explained her every action with that.
But she also wanted vengeance. And either would be good enough.
My eyes prickle. “You shouldn’t have.”
