I saw neither—not the falls, nor the flower.
Shadows crowded in around me, along with the croaking of nighttime creatures. I didn’t know what they were called, only that they congregated around the water and made a throaty noise I found innocuous. What would it be like to die here along this river? Not the worst death, listening to clean water flowing by my head.
But the poison was already swelling my airways. That part would be fucking unpleasant.
My feet kept moving whether I willed them or not. My hand once again went to the breast of my jerkin, over my mother’s journal, as ifit were a lodestone. Maybe it was she who brought me along to the falls. I’d felt like I could drop for hours, but I hadn’t.
Maybe it was her who brought me along to the falls, finally. For hours it had felt like I could drop at any moment, but I hadn’t.
Virellan Falls began as a low, almost inaudible hum. But it soon grew, and I moved faster as I recognized what the sound meant. Eventually the river widened into a huge pool, and the crashing of the water over the rocks above me was a violent, terrific sight in the almost-darkness.
It drowned out all other noise. It blotted out everything else from my vision.
I’d arrived. Somehow, I’d gotten here.
The path behind the falls was past a thicket, just as Dorian had said. This bush had soft leaves that tickled me as I pressed past it, and then my boots tapped on rock.
All at once, I was encased by darkness behind the waterfall.
I brought out the small purple crystal from my belt. Its light grew, painting the space in a trembling glow, revealing an empty cave. No Dorian. Just me, my strawhole breathing audible in my ears past the thundering of the waterfall.
A thought came, unwilling:
This is it. The place I die.
Then, a return panic. A desperation so human and natural that my hand rose to my throat like I could scratch the poison out with my fingernails.
My eyes traveled the cave floor, darted place to place.
Something small and white caught my eye. I lifted my shaking hand and the crystal toward the crevice where the cave’s wall met the earth at its mouth.
There, tucked like small offerings in the dark, were three heads of a flower. White petals, yellow faces. Solacebloom.
I satagainst the cave’s wall and carefully used the pommel of my sword to crush up the blooms I’d gathered into my palm. It was no doubt the worst mortar and pestle to grace this court, but I was breathing loudly now, my throat feeling more and more the width of a blade of grass.
Once the blooms were a mash, I shoved half of them into my mouth and chewed. I struggled to swallow, so I swigged at my canteen and, with eyes pressed shut, spent half a minute working them down my throat. I choked and coughed and spat them up, then stuffed them back in my mouth again.
Three times I did that, until some went down.
I spread the rest of the mash over my face. It was an indelicate, desperate job, and I wasn’t sure at first if it made any difference. My face went on throbbing, my breathing hoarse beneath the thundering of the falls.
When I had done all I could and there was nothing left but for the antidote to work, I sat back with my head against the cave wall and the crystal lay beside me, casting its purple glow. My breathing remained audible and difficult, and I fought to stay awake.
I had to wait for him. I had to stay awake.
My eyes fell shut, anyway, and my mind wandered on its own. It wandered back through the forest, the long trek, the manic run. It retraced the steps we’d taken through that tunnel and brought me back into that cottage.
Once again, I was seated on that low chair with Dorian standing above me. This time, his hand passed over my cheek, fingers threading into my hair, and he took hold of my head and urged my face up.
A dream. An urge I hadn’t acknowledged.
Now it rose up. It rose up, and he descended.
His lips came over mine, hot and claiming, and his arm went around me and he pulled me up from the chair, pressed me tight against his body. My arm went around his neck, and his tongue slid past my lips.
Fuck, why was I thinking of this? Here, dying in this cold, dark place, my brain was seeking something.Somethingsoft, warm, alive. That was how far gone I was.
I forced my mind elsewhere.
