She smiled up at me past the blade of her knife. “Even now, you are mine. Remember that, Mara. Think of it as we take our last breaths. You are not his, and you never were.”
“You’re wrong,” said a voice beside me, hard and steady and impossibly, terrifically real. “She belongs only to herself.”
I nearly lost my grip on the Warden’s wrist as I watched the owner of this miraculous voice kneel down beside me. He smiled grimly at me, mud-spattered and bandaged but alive.
“I look worse than I feel,” Gareth said. “And fear not, my darling. I’ve brought friends.”
Chapter 45
I was dying. I was dead, and I had passed into the Great Dominion. That was the only explanation.
“Gareth,” I said, his name barely a breath. “But you’re dead.”
He blinked at me in surprise. “I’m not.”
It was the most ridiculous conversation. Everything felt so absurd that I wanted to laugh.
But the Warden had no patience for impossible reunions. My body suddenly seized, and the binding magic within me drew taut as a wire. It pushed me down toward her, pressing the knife blade deeper into her throat. Bright red blood tinged with gold trickled down her neck and into the mud. So much red and so little gold. My heart sank. I took this to mean that Zelphenia was indeed very weak, the balance between them skewed heavily in the Warden’s favor.
“Don’t look at him,” she rasped, “look atme. Kill me, Mara. We’ll die together, and we’ll both be free.”
It was something about the mad light in her eyes, the desperation with which her will suddenly pulled against mine. As I stared down at her, fighting her with all my tired strength, I saw the truth as clearly as if she were whispering it into my ear.
Zelphenia was the goddess of the unknowable, mother of demons and beguilers, specters and revenants. So much of her power lay in the realm of death. And the Warden had wanted to punish me, to summon me back to her for this very moment, this final task.
“You knew I wouldn’t come to you if he were still alive,” I whispered. “You made him appear dead to my eyes.”
“I would have killed him properly if she’d let me,” the Warden hissed. “But it was enough. Here you are, and here we’ll die.”
It was too much to bear, this betrayal. I watched her through my tears, hating that this was the final image she would have of me but unable to stop crying.
Gareth wasn’t dead—he was here, he wasalive—and still I was locked in this deadly embrace. If I relented for even a moment, the Warden would win. The knife, wielded by my hand, would cut open her throat. Every Rose would die. The Mist would fall.
But I couldn’t fight her forever. Maybe if I hadn’t spent so much of my strength helping Ankaret; maybe if I’d stayed with Gareth’s body and not run away from anyone who might see me and wish to help; maybe, maybe…
I wept bitterly. I’d done everything wrong. Everything was wrong, and I’d never again be able to touch Gareth, or even look into his eyes and see how obviously and completely he loved me. I’d killed him. I’d killed everyone.
“I love you,” I whispered, my arms trembling with the effort of pulling against the Warden’s wrist. I was drenched with sweat; my whole body shook. “Gareth, I love you.”
“Don’t do that,” he said sternly. “I hear that good-bye, and I reject it.”
He reached for me, but some kind of shield had formed around the Warden and me, and it pushed him back with a bright flash and a snap like lightning. The Warden blew out a ragged laugh. No, she wouldn’t let him touch me. Not now, when she was so close to winning.
Gareth hissed and shook out his hands, then came as close to me as he dared. “All right, Mara, I need you to listen to me. Gemma and Farrin are here, and your mother and father, and Ryder and Talan, and Alastrina, and Caiathos. And Ankaret. We’re going to help you. I just need you to hold on for a little longer.”
My mind felt sluggish as I listened to him, like I’d forgotten the familiar sounds of these words. I nodded helplessly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him hold up his hands. He was cradling something inside them, something brilliantly gold and as small as a songbird.
Listen to me very carefully, Mara, said the thing in Gareth’s hands.
I nearly burst into tears. “Ankaret,” I gasped out.
The Warden’s eyes widened, then narrowed. She let out a furious cry, and her whole body jerked under mine, pulling me closer. My arms nearly buckled; the knife’s blade sank deeper into her skin.
I’m going to move the root of her binding magic into you,Ankaret said.You will carry it now, not her. She will die, and you will live. Our own kind of transference. It is not a perfect solution, but it is what we can manage right now. Do you understand?
I shook my head. “You can’t. She won’t let you.”
