While the world slashed and burned around us and the enormous borgon lurched closer to finish the rest of us off, she pinched her eyes closed.
I could feel her call in power. She laid her hand on my abdomen and a subtle burn seared into me as she shoved the energy my way.
But something inside me, something deeper and insidious, continued to bleed.
With a feral snarl, she drew in more power and blasted it around me. I’d bet anything she was trying to flit us to the castle healers.
The cobblestones beneath me kept biting into my spine.
“A healer,” she shrieked, her head spiraling around. “We need a healer now. Please!” Facing me again, she leaned close and kissed my neck. “Stay with me, Merrick. Please. By the fates, don’t leave. You can’t die.” She cupped my cheeks, turning my head to make me meet her gaze. “You hear me? You’re going to stay with me. Get off that ass and stand beside me. I’ll get you out of here. We’ll run far away and find a place that’s safe.”
Such a place didn’t exist, but I didn’t want to tell her that. Fate had caught up to me, and it would not let me go.
Most of all, I hated that she’d watch two men she cared for die.
“Didn’t want this,” I whispered. “Wanted so…much more.” Love. A lifetime. A chance to be something for this woman alone.
The borgons stomped closer. Reyla had to get up and protect herself or she’d be lying beside me.
“Go.” I tried to nudge her with my hand, but it flopped uselessly onto my belly, making blood squirt from my wound. “Run. Leave. Don’t let them get you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she growled. “And neither are you.” The crack in her voice widened, and her pain spilled out. “Please, Merrick. Please. Stay with me. I need you.”
“I love you.” I coughed, gagged, struggled to get the words out through the curse. Forbidden to tell her, I’d had to hold the words back.
Now I let them blaze.
“I love you.” I said it again. Whispered it, actually, because my throat was closing off and my blood… Well, that was draining from memuch too quickly. It was rather ironic that this would do what the curse couldn’t.
“I will always…love you, Wildfire,” I croaked. “Please. Remember me?”
“Merrick.” Fresh, bitter tears poured down her face highlighted in the golden glow of my last sunset. “You can’t leave. I love you. You hear me? I love you. Always.”
The sun slipped away…
…And so did I.
37
Reyla
Merrick’s body shimmered as the change set in, but all I could focus on was the blood of the man I loved still gushing from his wound.
“A healer,” I shouted. “Please, bring a healer!”
Lorant lay so still, not whispering to Merrick, not meeting my eye. He could not be gone already.
“A healer!”
But if there was one around, they were too busy. So many lay dying on the ground. Too many of my people.
And the man I loved.
Time warped. Too much and never enough.
He finished the shift, and Lorant stared up at me, pain twisting thescar on his face.
Still dying.
