“Yes. All it did was spread to the transfused blood. I couldn’t give him enough to save him. Our magic is unique to us, my blood with my magic couldn’t reverse what had overtaken his.”
“Yes, your blood. However, blood without magic would be able to.”
“You can’t mean yours! You’re a completely different species! His body will still reject it.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m an alchemist with control over the chemical makeup and can transmute it into something that his body will accept.” Hellebore was already using her free hand to write the formulas.
“But that doesn’t solve the problem of it spreading. This could kill you! You could just end up taking on the rot yourself.”
“I’m aware. Haruko, reach into my belt, please.”
Haruko didn’t need to be told twice. She dug through Hellebore’s belt, finding the transfusion materials. With a few instructions from Hellebore, Haruko had it ready, slipping the first needle into Taiyo’s arm. She turned to Hellebore and asked, “Are you certain? You’ll really risk this to save my brother?”
“Yes.”
Haruko slipped the second needle into Hellebore’s arm. Her red blood filled the first tube. His black blood filled the second. She activated the formulas.
Hellebore pushed her blood into Taiyo as she pulled his corrupted blood into her veins, simultaneously purifying the blood still in him from the rot. She adjusted the chemical makeup of her blood as it entered Taiyo’s veins until it resembled his and his clean blood accepted it to replenish his. She also had to keep pulling the separated rot out of Taiyo before it tried to re-corrupt his blood.
It was a miracle she was managing any of this, much less those three crucial things at the same time. But as it was…
It meant she had no ability to do anything about the rot corrupting her blood.
The eclipse took over an hour to reach totality, and when it did, Hellebore still hadn’t been able to purge all the rot. She closed her eyes as the world went dark. All that mattered to her was the thrumming sun magic in Taiyo that kept his heart beating and the blood she was cleansing so it would continue to beat.
Taiyo’s eyes blinked open as the totality began to pass and the sun and moon began to part. Hellebore’s heart started to slow, struggling to keep her blood pumping as she simultaneously poured hers into Taiyo and took his thick, poisonous blood into her, eating away at her life.
“Hell—” He blinked, rasping as more and more of the rot left him, either by being dragged out from the wound on his side or into Hellebore’s blood. “Hellebore, what…”
Haruko was at his side, hands on his shoulders, keeping him down. “It’s alright, Taiyo. Everything is going to be fine.”
“What is she doing?”
Thanks to the transfusion, Hellebore had made excellent progress. Making her blood match the blood from the vial she’d injected in him and using it to replace his corrupted blood was far faster than just cleansing his. She could feel the strength of his magic coming back, filling his blood again as the next hour passed and the sun slowly returned. She gasped as the sun magic in Taiyo’s corrupted blood in her began to burn even as it clogged her heart.
“No. No! Haruko, let go—stop her! She’s killing herself!”
But it was too late. She’d cleaned the rot from his heart.
By destroying her own.
The needle ripped out of her arm, and her hands fell as red blood began to pour out of the incision on Taiyo’s side while black blood poured out of the spot where the needle had been on her arm. She was gasping and choking as her heart began to slow to the tempo of the sluggish beat she had memorized as Taiyo’s.
Arms wrapped around her as she was gathered into his lap. Taiyo’s face filled her vision while the two celestial bodies parted above them. His hand cupped her cheek and she looked up at him to see tears welling up in his eyes as his voice came out rough and desperate. “Why did you do that? What could ever possess you to do this? How could you do this to me? How could you force me to live after you’re gone?”
She reached up and put her hand over his heart, its beat now steady and sure and strong.
She whispered, “There. My heart. It’s right there.”
His eyes widened but then she slid her other hand to the back of his neck, pulling him down so she could press one last final kiss to his lips. When she pulled back, she could feel blood coming up her throat. “Take good care of it for me.”
“No. Don’t you dare—”
“Your Highness, we found one!”
Hellebore’s eyes rolled in the back of her skull, and her little human heart wasn’t strong enough to keep pumping the sludge of her blood a moment longer.
Chapter 28
