There was no telling that it’d work, and there was so very much wrong with what she planned to do, but Alashiya didn’t have a choice. If the ghosts of her grove were wrong, then at least she’d know she tried everything.
Swiping her eyes with her sleeve, she put all thoughts except the need to save him out of her mind and leaned over to grab the bag. Her hand didn’t shake when she closed her fingers around the cool metal of her shears. A heavy sort of calm settled over her.
As gently as she could, Alashiya rearranged his arm so his right hand lay against her thigh. It rested there, limp, his claw-tipped fingers half-curled like he reached for her even now.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice stronger than it was before. “I’m sorry that I’m taking this choice from you. I’m sorry if you wake up tomorrow and hate me. I’m sorry that I don’t care. I can’t let you die.”
Taking the shears into her left hand, she spread the blades and pressed it into the center of her palm. Speaking loudly now, as if he might hear her better if she raised her voice, she vowed, “I swear to carry you. I swear to honor you. I swear to provide for you. I swear to warm you when the night is cold and find you when the days are dark. I swear to love you now and in the hyphae, long after Grim has returned what her father gave us.”
She always thought she’d feel it, that she’d flinch beneath the shield of her veil as the cool blade sliced her skin. But she didn’t. She felt nothing — no pain, no fear, no hesitation. Blood pooledin her hand and ran down her wrist to stain her cuffs as she placed the blade against Taevas’s palm.
“I won’t ask you to say the words back to me,” she whispered. “Just live. That’s all I need.”
Cutting him was harder than cutting herself, but she did it. One quick, shallow cut across his palm. His skin was tougher than hers, and yet it gave way under the sharp blade of her shears.
Licking her dry lips, Alashiya sent up one last prayer before she sealed their hands together.
There was no witness to bind them tightly, ensuring their blood mixed, so she had to do it herself. Alashiya bound them with the gold-embroidered sash of his robe, clumsily and without ceremony, as she pressed down hard, pinning his limp hand against her thigh. There was no cheer from friends and family. There was no levity, no relief, no thrill over what the future held.
There was only stillness. The thump of her pulse in her ears and in her hand. The nearly inaudible rasp of Taevas’s shallow, watery breaths.
A tear, pulled from somewhere deeper than the well of her grief, slid down her cheek. “Please. Please stay.”
Thunder rolled overhead again. It was loud enough to shake the SUV. Wind howled through the open passenger door and whipped heavy raindrops inside. Alashiya caught the flash of lightning through her closed eyelids.
She held herself there for so long that she lost all sense of time. She’d never done this before, but she thought she’d know if it worked. He’d be there, his essence woven into the hyphae and twined with her own. But how long would that take? She’d always thought it was immediate. Was it different for someone who wasn’t a nymph? Was he just too weak?
Did I do it wrong?
Chapter Forty-Three
As the minutesdragged on with no change, despair began to seep into the fragile weave of her hope. She dared not let go, but she couldn’t hold on forever. If her blood couldn’t help him, then she had to keep going.
Choking back the wave of dry sobs that so desperately wanted out, Alashiya pressed one last kiss to his lips before she reluctantly pulled the knot of the sash apart and peeled her bloody hand away from his.
The grove was silent. The hook in her chest had disappeared. She was utterly alone as she climbed out of the backseat and stared at the desolate stretch of road. Rain pelted her from what felt like all sides. Above her, streaks of lightning danced through the dense clouds. Blood dripped from her fingertips to soak into the wet gravel beneath her boots.
Alashiya closed her eyes.Please. Please. If anyone is listening, please save hi?—
A white light flashed through her eyelids, so bright and all-consuming it seemed to sear her all the way to the backs of her eye sockets. For a split second there was no sound — or perhaps it only seemed that way, as Alashiya’s mind struggled to process thecrack of lighting that struck the ground not six feet away from her.
She turned away instinctively. Hunching against the open door, it took her a moment to process that she hadn’t been hit, and a few more to regain her hearing and sight.
Blinking hard to clear her eyes of the dancing lights, she almost missed the voice that called out to her. “Do you need help?”
Heart lurching, Alashiya turned to gape at the woman standing where the lightning struck. Naked as a jaybird, taller than Alashiya by at least a foot, and peering at her with eyes of pure black, she didn’t seem to notice the rain — or that her bone-white hair drifted upward like a glowing, sparking banner of moonlight.
Allof her glowed. Against the gloom of the rain-soaked road, the being who stood before Alashiya appeared otherworldly in the extreme.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what kind of being she was talking to.
The woman’s angular brows swept down over her inky eyes. “I saw you from above,” she explained in a lilting, accented voice. “You parked terribly, which only bad drivers and people in trouble do. And you are bleeding. This isn’t normal for you, yes?”
A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped Alashiya, which only made the woman’s frown deepen.
Taking one fluid, almost floating step toward the SUV, she noted, “That… doesn’t sound like a happy laugh. Do you?—”
A jolt of alarm drew Alashiya’s back up. Pressing herself into the gap between the partially opened door and the frame, she bellowed, “Don’t come any closer!”
