She ran her thumb over the glyphs on the arrowhead. It would not be a death. Not rotting, not changing. Not life, either. A still, bare existence of empty servitude. Of not wanting. Of not knowing.
She tapped her forefinger against the tip. Closer. Harder. One cut was all it would take. Just one cut.
Before it could pierce the skin, she felt something wet smeared on the back of her neck. A shudder ran through her as it soaked beneath her skin. Her wings folded; all her limbs went weak, and she felt locked in place. Frozen to her knees, she dropped her bow, and the arrow fell from her fingers to the dew-dampened ground.
“The spell will wear off in a few minutes,” said Sy, stepping around her. His voice was strange; far away. He paused, watching the panting bird as he spoke. “Don’t worry; I’ll be gone before it does.”
He kept his back to her. She watched him, breath coming in tight gasps. Eyes upon her, all night. He’d slipped her notice. This was what the curse had made of her – simple, simpering, fooled by her greed, by her lust after what she could never have, as caught as the bird she had failed to shoot. And what his debt, his desperate grasping, had made of him.
He betrayed her. Like she knew he would from the start.
No – like she’d ensured he would. He would have helped her, would have risked everything for her. This was whatshehad done, what she wanted when she lied to him, when she saw his vulnerability and twisted it like a knife – broke her own heart into pieces to steal that look away from his eyes, the look he gave her that told her she was worth more to him than any amount of gold, than any freedom, than his life.
What she’d made of them both in the vain hope of saving him, of giving him a chance – she, the greedy, boastful poacher; he the craven social climber.
And now, he repaid her in kind.
“I know the spell,” he went on. His voice was flat, but unaffected. “I didn’t before. But I’ve figured it out. They would put me in history books for this.”
Her panting breath lodged in her throat.
He stepped closer to the bird. “You see, I’ve been over every angle. What I should and shouldn’t do. The way the world is; the way I want it to be.” He lifted the net, clasped the golden bird by its neck. It squawked and flapped its wings uselessly, caught in his grip. “What I can do. What I can’t.”
Now he brandished Aquila’s skinning knife. Anya could only watch as he pressed the blade to the bird’s breast. Its wings flapped again violently, sending feathers flying.
“I cannot suffer another moment in the king’s service,” he said, over the bird’s strangled squawk as he slit open its chest. “I cannot let the king live forever. Or any king, for that matter.”
The phoenix’s labored breathing slowed, then stopped, as he carved it open. Anya’s eyes darted from the phoenix’s dead-eyed stare to Sy’s. Why had he killed it? Why was he carving it open? Her fingers strained for the fallen arrow, as if she could still pierce it in time, but his stunning spell froze her completely.
“I cannot let anyone use me to get the spell, under any circumstances.” Wiping sweat from his forehead, he tossed the knife aside. “I cannot let it leave the forest.” Then, with a pitiful, dreadful crack, like dry twigs snapping, he broke open the bird’s ribs. “I can stop all that from happening. But there is only one way.”
He plunged his hand into the bird’s chest.
Suddenly, she understood.
Her muscles strained, her throat burned with unrelieved shouting, but she still could not move or speak. He paid her invisible, silent struggle no mind. When his hand reemerged, painted a ghastly crimson, it grasped the small heart, no bigger than a cherry.
He put the heart into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
Her own heart shuddering, pulse pounding in her ears, she barely heard him sputter as he choked it down, along with any chance she had at life. She seemed to sink further into the ground.
He withdrew his pen, clicked his needle into place, drew his blood. He didn’t bother with a tourniquet. He was pale, drained; the effort, the expense, caught his breath. With another click, he expelled the needle, exposed the nib. With his back still to her, he took a deep breath, then spoke, as flatly as before.
“I worked it out. The spell. Or the forest showed me. I’m not sure which.” He pressed the nib to the back of his left hand. “I lost track of where I begin and end a while ago.”
No. The forest hadn’t shown him – it hadmarkedhim, and she hadn’t seen it. There were so many things she hadn’t seen. Again, she struggled in vain against the spell, all her muscles straining to push forward, to punch through, to stop him from what he was about to do, what he was about to take from her, all her remorse abandoned as she scrabbled desperately for life.
His breath hitched as he pierced his own flesh, as he carved a distorted mirror of the scar on his palm – the spell – into his hand.
“I still don’t know quite how it works. But I know if I speak my intention, it helps. With this spell, I break the bond upon me. In return, to keep this magic safe – to keep it where it belongs – I offer my body. My spirit. My self.”
He blew.
Slowly, the spell dissolved, and his hand dissolved with it. Not red like crushed rubies – gold like the sun, like eternity. Blinding. She wanted to shield her eyes, but she still couldn’t move; wanted to close them, but couldn’t rip them away. It was dazzling.
The light of the spell moved along his arm, crumbling, leaving gold dust swirling in the wind. Fingers turned to feathers; his arm became a wing. The swirling light continued its creep, spreading up and along his body, taking his shoulder, his neck, his chest, his face, and all was swallowed in glittering gold.
But when the light faded, he was still there; still himself. Yet, different. She had never seen him so healthy, so whole, so pulsing, full of life. Examining his left palm, he let out a small, triumphant laugh.
