It was torture. Not for information. But for the sick enjoyment of it.
There’s no way Denver will survive being carried to where our horses wait. I don’t even know if he’ll survive a few more minutes in this godsforsaken cavern.
Unless…
My eyes shoot to Mirren. “You have to heal him.”
She looks to me in shock, her hand smoothing over the patches that remain of Denver’s once lush hair, her green eyes stark against her dirty face. “I’ve tried practicing but I—I’ve never been able to do it again.” Her voice wavers in shame.
Denver’s hands are misshapen, his fingers splayed in unnatural directions and the abyss rises inside me, hot and demanding. When I met him, I was dirty, bleeding and half dead and he offered me his hand. His hands weren’t callused like the soldiers and assassins I grew up with, but smooth and elegant. As I took it, I thought it was the best thing I’d ever felt. The first hand I’d ever encountered curled to give comfort, not pain.
And now, they are ruined by the same cruelty that ruined me. The Darkness has never spared anyone, but it should have spared him. He has sinned, but he has tried so hard to bring light to Ferusa. To me.
I set my jaw and dig my nails into my palm. “You can do it, Mirren. You’re strong and powerful and both of those things come from your love. Despite what the world has done to you, despite whathe’sdone to you, you walked into the Darkness for him. You are so brave and so full that nothing can stop you. That’s where your true power comes from, why the magic was drawn to you. WhyIwas drawn to you.” I hold her gaze, filling it with everything that lies unsaid between us. “You are strong enough for this.”
Her shoulders rise as she takes a deep breath. She places her hands gingerly on his chest and closes her eyes.
For a moment, nothing happens. But then, water begins to peel from the dungeon walls, beads sparkling in the air like a million tiny diamonds. Cal’s eyes widen in shock, and he reaches out to touch one of them. It dances away from his fingertips, toward Mirren. Toward Denver.
“I told you that heart of yours was going to get us in trouble,” I whisper as I kneel beside her, “but Lemming, it’s going to be what saves us all. It saved me. It will save him.”
The dungeon looks magical, each droplet glittering in the torchlight as if lit from the inside. The water comes to her, swirling softly before gliding from her skin and onto Denver’s. My throat tightens as she starts with his hands and tears fall once more, hers and mine, when the bones slide and the skin knits together until they look just like the day I met him.
Mirren may have broken her soul for me, but she is not shattered. She is still wholly wonderful, wholly herself. Instead of being overcome by the aching presence of the abyss, she fills it with wonder and magic. For the first time since we entered Yen Girene, I feel hope spark in my chest, a small flint in an endless void.
Until everything goes wrong.
I feel it before I see it. The way Mirren’s body suddenly stiffens. The small exhale of breath from her lips. I turn to her but before I can speak, her eyes roll up into her head and she collapses in my arms. “Mirren!” Did the power demand too much of her?
Max and Cal rush to my side. I try to speak, to take charge, but something in the room shifts and there is no more air. I look around wildly, clutching my chest that has suddenly become ice cold, a frozen wasteland. Even the burning of my abyss is gone, replaced by something emptier. As if even my blood has stopped flowing.
Max gapes at me as my mouth moves, but no words come.
Something’s wrong,I try to tell her.Go. Take Mirren and leave.
When the voice sounds from behind me, I understand the gaping desolation. It is a voice that sucks all warmth from the room, eloquent and cold. A voice that pierces every one of my nightmares like a glacial spire. “I suppose hello is an inadequate greeting after all these years.”
Max’s face drains of color. I struggle to breathe, clawing at my chest as if it will relieve the frigid cold that grips my lungs. My heart.
Mirren. Oh gods, I need to get her out of here.
But I already know it’s too late. I’m frozen in place as I watch a man step into the dungeon. His clothes are exquisitely made and would be out of place in the brutal landscape of a battlefield if it weren’t for his face. My features mirrored, but only if they were sharpened with a knife and honed in cruelty.
“But I find I have no other words,” the man says, stepping over the unconscious form of a soldier with a look of vague distaste, “so hello, son of mine.”
ChapterForty
Mirren
My throat is too dry to swallow and blinding pain shoots through my skull as I open my eyes. I try to push myself to sitting, but my bones scrape against my skin with every movement. Anrai is next to me, pupils blown wide. He claws at his chest frantically as if trying to tear out his own heart. Mouth drawn in a pained grimace, he drags his body across the floor and positions himself between me and the finely dressed man.
“So hello, son of mine.”
The man’s voice bounces off the cavern walls so that it sounds like an army instead of one person. I lick my dry lips, trying to think past the pounding in my head.Son?
His father is dead.Isn’t he?
Anrai struggles to stand but falls back to his knees with a groan. I want to reach out to him with my power, but when I grapple inside myself, there is no answer. Just resounding silence.
