I go after her.
"Blaire."
She doesn't slow down. I fall into step beside her anyway, matching her pace down the corridor.
"You found a way?" I demand.
She glances at me sideways. A single nod. "I'm going to try."
"Where will you go?"
She stops then. "Astefar."
The word settles heavy in the space between us.
"The forbidden forest?" My voice lowers.
"Don't try to stop me. The old gods there might listen. They bargain. They always bargain." A flicker of something dark crosses her face. "I have to try."
I understand. But Astefar does not give without taking more.
"I'm coming with you."
She turns to face me fully and there is something in her expression that is almost gentle beneath the desperation. "You can't. It has to be me alone or it won't work at all."
I look at her for a long moment. The pack on her back. The hollowness around her eyes. The determination underneath that nothing is going to touch.
Blaire holds my gaze. "Let me go, Svenn."
She turns and continues down the corridor. At the last moment she glances back over her shoulder. "Don't worry. If there is a way to save her, I will find it. If there is a price, I will pay it."
I don't follow this time.
She's gone around the corner and I'm left standing in the hallway alone.
Astefar.
The dark forest where Rhianelle and Blaire spent their childhood, where the trees whisper and the ground desires blood. Blaire is willing to walk back into that place, to face whatever still lurks beneath its canopy, on the slim hope that ancient gods or older monsters might grant mercy.
I feel two things at once. Gratitude and shame.
Blaire is moving, doing something while I'm still here.
I make myself walk to the prison forge. The guards recognize me and step aside without question. Hrolf looks up as I approach his cell.
"Did it work?" he asks. Hope flickers in his weathered face. "The blood... did it save the lass?"
I open my mouth to answer. No sound comes out.
My throat constricts with the weight of impending loss. I came here to say thank you. To express my gratitude for the sacrifice he made. But I can't even form the words.
If I open my mouth, I might scream and never stop.
Hrolf studies my face, reading the devastation written there.
"Ah," he says quietly. "I see."
"The transfusion bought time." The words come out flat. "But not enough of it."
