But I had no words to give to them, no apology that would compensate for everything that I had done.
So, I turned them away.
“Stay with me, witch,”he whispered against my neck.
But staying was hard. Going was easy.
I have failed everyone in my life.
I could hear his heartbeat. I could feel it in my bones. “Did you ever consider that they were the ones who failed you?”
I did not choose to leave my coven. I was cast out.
“You told me that before.” His heartbeat sped up. He pressed something cool to my forehead. “But you did not tell me why.”
I did not have the words, not even now as I danced the line between life and eternal death. I had only the weight of my own failures in my chest. I longed for the block of ice instead.
More than anything, I longed for him.
What made you attempt the gates?
He would not answer. He could not. After all, this was nothing more than a fever dream. I was not even speaking. My voice had ceased working days ago. Or maybe weeks.
But cinnamon and destiny burrowed into my senses as he exhaled against my neck— “Duty.”
CHAPTER 57
“Living shouldn’t hurt so much.”
“You deserve it for scaring us like that.”
I couldn’t turn my head. That was how badly it hurt. Or maybe it was the exhaustion. They felt pretty damn similar.
I opened my eyes enough to see that it was evening. The treetops overhead were bare. We were no longer in the thick fir forests that characterized the central part of Velora’s only mountain range.
I had no idea where we were. After the endless fever-driven delirium, I was surprised that I knew my own name.
Footsteps crunched through the frost to my left, only to be replaced by a soft swish of air.“Where are you going?”
“To get your bonded. He is the only reason you are still alive.”
My bonded.
His face came before his name. I could see it even with my eyes closed, the lines of him etched somewhere deeper than I cared to acknowledge. But swift footsteps followed the beats of Isanara’s wings, and then he was there, more than just a memory.
He searched my face, his eyes moving too quickly for me to make eye contact. I blinked up at him, afraid that if I tried to use my voice, I might break him. Despite the fact that every muscle and tendon in my body ached, it was the agony lining his face that hurt the most.
He knelt down, moving each limb with a deliberate slowness that confirmed I really was as badly injured as I thought.
“You scared me, witch,” Garrick said. His voice awoke the parts of me that still lingered on the precipice. That telltale divot appeared between his silvery brows, but I lacked the strength to reach up and smooth it, even though, in that moment, the feeling of his skin against mine was the only thing I desired in the world.
Garrick seemed to know.
“May I touch you?” he said softly.
I opened my mouth, knowing this next part would hurt. “If you don’t, I think I might die,” I said, my unused throat burning as I forced the words out. Garrick flinched away—at the words or the sound or both. I cringed. “Too soon?”
“It will never be time for jokes about your death.”
