“No,” I choke out, because I’m watching Amriel’s curse solidify. Another hour or two at this rate, and his pain will become permanent. Not only that, I’ll have no way home. “No,” I say again, but it comes out weak and breathy.
He eases closer, cutting the rest of my bonds, catching me when I droop. Fiery needles swarm my hands and feet as sensation rushes back, but I ignore the burn. I hurl myself at him, clutching him around the middle, heedless of the blood and gore that smear him.
A pained grunt jets from his lips, his arms hovering mid-air as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. As if he can’t quite believe my reaction. But I don’t care. I yank his shirt aside and find his chest with my cheek, pressing my skin to his.
The bond snaps tight, stitching us together, banishing his pain. “You can’t go,” I say, shoving the words at him with both my mouth and my mind. “You can’tdie.”
Another moment of hesitation before his arms settle around me. But even the strength coiled in his limbs can’t still my trembling.
“It’s all right,” he says. “It’s just another coin toss. Heads or tails. Death or life.”
His voice remains even, but emotion surges beneath his skin, a wild tangle. His pain has faded, making room for a tide of satisfaction at seeing me safe. For savage enjoyment at having bathed his hands with the blood of those trolls. For a wellspring of fierce tenderness, all centered around me, so poignant it makes my sinuses burn.
I bury my face deeper against his chest.
And glimpse something else. Half-dead, long-buried, denied for so long that its continued existence baffles him.
But it survives, nonetheless.
Hope. Not much more than a kernel, a seed, but…shadows below, I’ve just touched him for the first time. Onpurpose. If only he can survive the journey back out of the Wildwood, escape this curse and make himself whole again, reunite with his better half, then maybe when I face those two doors, when I choose between my home and his, I’ll?—
“If I live,” he says gruffly, as if trying to stop me from following that thread to its conclusion, “my Shadow will help you through the maze. He’ll keep you safe, better than I can. But if I die, use your gyre. Go back to the castle. Someone will return you to Aethrolia. You’ll be free of the treaty. Of the Claiming. Ofme.”
“But I don’t—” I bite down so hard I taste iron. I don’t…what? Want to be free of him? Want to go home? No, I want nothing more than to see Aethrolia again. To take my vows and earn my magic.
I force a swallow, try again. “I don’t want you to die.”
Yes. That’s it. My arms twine tighter, even though every second he spends here costs us ten. Surely there’s another way. Some option that doesn’t include him gambling away his life. Or staying in the Wildwood and sentencing himself to an eternity of anguish simply because he came in here to save me.
Goddess. This is all my fault, isn’t it? If only I’d let the Shadow accompany me when he offered, I never would have gotten us into this mess.
Then again, Amriel created this whole mess in the first place.
I suppose neither of us is blameless.
“Princess. You’re overthinking this.”
I pull back to stare up into his face, breaking our connection. He winces, then recovers, and I don’t need the bond to catch the bleak determination in his eyes.
He’s going to go. He’s going to chance it.
“No!” My voice pitches upward. I turn to the Shadow, seekingsomeonewith an ounce of sense. “You have to stop him. You can’t let him risk it. Riskyou.”
The Shadow gazes back at me, his expression grim, his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s his choice.”
“But it isn’t! It’s both of yours! He’s about to kill you, too!”
The Shadow’s mouth flicks downward at the corner. “Maybe. Or maybe not.”
Tears prickle, but the intensity of my outrage prevents them from falling. How can he discuss his death so calmly? Like it doesn’t even matter? Like it wouldn’t eviscerate me the same way he eviscerated those trolls?
And yet I knowexactlywhat carrot Amriel dangled in front of the Shadow’s face to get him to go along with this. Because I’ve seen inside them both—felt their thoughts, held their hearts in my hands. I know what they want, what Amriel has admitted without the surrender of saying so out loud.
Now I spin back to him, fueled by desperation. I can’t promise to stay here, can’t give himthatmuch, but… “Kiss me.” I don’t know where it comes from. Just…anything to keep him from leaving. From bursting into pieces.
Amriel blinks, some fresh new emotion rippling across his face. “What?”
“Kiss me,” I say, louder this time. If I can grab hold of the bond, use it to show him, make himsee… “Kiss me right now, or I’ll?—”
