“Tell me what you’re doing again,” he demanded.She sighed, but he knew she could feel how nervous this was making him.
“I’m mixing the poison.It’s mostly cyanide based—made from distilled and concentrated almonds, soy, and cassava roots.The cyanide will slow my pulse enough for my body to think it’s dead, without actually permanently killing me, and hopefully that’s enough to gain my entrance to the Everlands.”
“And the antidote?”
She nodded toward where Kaz was carefully stirring a jar Iyana had handed her.“Made out of spinach, sheep’s liver, cow’s kidney, milk from a camel—which, let me tell you, is hard to come by—and sulfuric water from a hot spring.”Iyana wrinkled her nose.“It’s going to taste terrible.”
“I’m less concerned with how it will taste, Mouse, and more if it will actually revive you.”
Her eyes softened.“I know,” she whispered.Iyana placed her hand gently on his face, and he turned into her touch.“I’ll come back to you.”
“You’d better.Or I’m coming to get you.”
Fear pierced his heart, turning his stomach, but the emotion was not his own.Iyana.She was terrified he’d follow through on that should anything happen to her.Emmeric tilted her chin up until she was looking at his face.
“If you think death is enough to keep me from you, you are sorely mistaken, Mouse.You’ve let me in, and now I refuse to let anything come between us.Whether that’s death, or stars, or gods—I’ll fight them all if I have to.”
Iyana’s gaze stared at him with an intensity he rarely saw directed toward him.He wanted to ask what she was thinking, but his mind stopped working when her eyes flicked down to his lips.Throwing her arms around Emmeric’s neck, she kissed him deeply.He wound his arm around her waist to hold her close.
Emmeric was praying to all the gods that this was not the last time they would do this.If he held onto her a little too hard or too long, it still would never be enough.Someone clearing their throat interrupted them.He broke their kiss, then smirked as he sensed Iyana’s embarrassment.Giving her hip a small squeeze, they separated to see Okab standing before them, a serious expression on his face.
“The antidote is ready,” the star said.
Iyana took a deep breath and stroked the ouroboros tattoo on her wrist.She did that often when she was about to perform healing magic, and Emmeric thought she wasn’t aware of the habit.Holding the antidote between her hands, she called upon her healer’s magic.Which, Iyana explained, was separate from the magic of the Aztia.There was no flashy fire or bright silver light.This magic was quiet, and he only knew the potion had been activated when she opened her eyes and nodded.Emmeric took the vial she offered to him, closing his fist around it.It was the only thing standing between Iyana and death, and he would guard it with his own life if he needed to.
“Remember, after an hour, pour the antidote down my throat.Plug my nose; it’ll force me to swallow.”
Emmeric shook his head.“We absolutely did not agree on an hour.I’ll give you ten minutes.”
“That’s not enough time,” Iyana argued.
“You think I’m going to let you lay on the ground of a cave—dead—for an hour?”
“Fine, twenty minutes,” she conceded.“But you need to give me that time, Emmeric.I need to find the originals and talk to them.”
Emmeric reluctantly agreed, settling on the floor with his back against the cave wall.He swallowed his trepidation as he watched Iyana drink the poison, then lay her head in his lap.She stared up at him with her large, caramel-brown eyes, and Emmeric knew he had never loved anything or anyone more.Lifting her hand, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he said.
Even though Iyana was choosing to do this, to Emmeric, it still felt like he was killing her.Her lashes fluttered closed, her breathing hitched, and Em pressed his fingers against the pulse point in her neck.Iyana’s heart beat erratically, then began to slow.He tried to shove down his panic and sent her all of his love.Should this be the last time she ever sensed anything between their bond, he wanted it to be this.Emmeric wanted her to know how much he loved her, even if he hadn’t said the words out loud yet.He’d save that for when she woke up.
Iyana
ShestaredintoEmmeric’scomforting blue eyes for as long as she could after consuming the cyanide.He was brushing her hair back in a soothing motion and sending an overwhelming amount of love down their bond.
Iyana hadn’t quite realized the extent of his feelings for her until that moment.And, suddenly, she wondered if she’d made a mistake.She wanted to open her mouth, tell him that she had changed her mind, and to give her the antidote.That they would find another way to get answers.That she was realizing she wanted tolivea life with him.She’d never told him how she felt.Other than that first day they were together, she hadn’t voiced what he meant to her.Partly because her own emotions terrified her, and she was still nervous to give her entire self over to someone after Altair’s betrayal.
But Emmeric had never pushed.He’d seen her walls and slowly chipped away at them—one look, one word, one kiss at a time.Now she realized she was irrevocably in love with him, and she had never told him.
What if this was the last time she saw him?He would never know how much he meant to her.Oh gods, she’d made a mistake.Her mouth refused to open, and her eyes fluttered closed, disconnecting her from those deep blue anchors.A deep, roiling sense of doom pierced her soul.Iyana tried so hard to tell Emmeric through their bond, but the poison was working quickly and shut down any connection she had to her Kanaliza.The sudden absence of him made her want to cry out.
Her lungs seized.Her heart stuttered.
No, she couldn’t do this.It was too much.The world and the gods asked too much of her.Iyana clung to life, focusing all her energy on keeping her heart beating and air flowing through her.But it became harder with each breath, and slowly her energy ebbed away from her, slipping through her fingers.
And then her heart stopped.
Chapter 49
