And Elizabeth. What happened to her now? Would she be doomed to a life without echo, without counterpart?
Forgive me, he thought—not to God, not to the land, but to her.
The earth shuddered beneath him. The seam widened further. Cold air rushed upward from the exposed hollow and struck him full in the chest, stealing what little breath he had regained. He swayed.
“Take it!” he demanded hoarsely. “If this is what you require—take it!”
He did not slice his hand. He did not perform ceremony or look to Harrowe—who was mute and stunned anyway—to recite old oaths. He simply stood there, upright by will alone, and surrendered the only thing he could—his own continuance.
The pressure on his lungs mounted. For one brutal, suspended instant, he believed it would take him whole. His knees buckled. His heart lurched violently once, twice. A roaring filled his ears. The world narrowed to a single, terrible point of surrender…
…and then it stopped.
Not eased.
Stopped.
The pull vanished as if cut cleanly away.
Air rushed back into his lungs, sharp and punishing. Darcy collapsed forward on his hands and knees, coughing up blood in his spittle. His heart slammed painfully into rhythm again, too strong, too alive. The seam in the earth did not close. The soil did not knit. The water below continued its indifferent shimmer.
Darcy tried to stand and only managed to stagger back, catching himself on his hands in the frozen grass. His palms burned with cold. His breath tore in ragged pulls. He was alive.
Alive?
The land had not refused blood because it was insufficient.
It had refusedhim.
The wind moved across the hollow, thin and barren. The crack remained—a wound without answer.
Brutus reached him first, pressing hard against his side, licking his hands, whining low and distressed. Darcy lifted his head slowly and looked at the unhealed seam cutting through the field.
He had offered everything, and it had not even wanted him.
“It answers you,” Harrowe said slowly as he lowered himself to a knee beside Darcy. “But it doesn’t accept.”
Darcy swallowed. “Then what is wanting?”
Harrowe was watching the ground with an expression Darcy had not seen before—not triumph, not certainty, but something uncomfortably close to fear.
“In the old days,” Harrowe said at last, “there were always two. One to pay, and one to receive.”
Darcy straightened with effort. “You cannot have two!” he shouted to the ground. Any thoughts of what an idiot he must seem were nothing. “This is my offering. I am here!”
The seam in the earth widened another fraction. Not enough to swallow him. Enough to promise that it could.
He stood there, breathing hard now, not from exertion but from the sudden knowledge of what he had failed to do.
Harrowe did not look at him. “You cannot answer for her. And you cannot replace her.”
Darcy closed his eyes.
He turned away from the hollow, already knowing what must come next, and despising himself for having hoped—however briefly—that it might not.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The cottage had growntoo small.
