“You need a healer,” someone called behind me.
Zandyr.
No healer could fix this.
No healer could bring him back.
Not even the gods.
I didn’t move. “Go away.”
Zandyr approached, touching my shoulder. Only then did I finally hear the blood dripping from me.
I couldn’t feel my wound.
I couldn’t feel anything except my soul breaking.
He inhaled sharply, looking down at me. And Geryll. Sweet, innocent Geryll.
I kept wiping the blood from his face, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He would have hated to meet the gods and ancestors like this.
I tried closing his mouth.
It had stiffened in that scream he’d never gotten to release.
It opened again, as if he was yelling at me from the afterlife.
Yelling for help.
I pressed his mouth closed again, sobs scratching at my throat.
He couldn’t die like this.
Not like this.
Not him.
Zandyr placed his hand on my unwounded shoulder, stilling my shaky hands.
My back heaved with sharp breaths.
“With his dying breath,” I choked out. “His father made me promise I’d take care of his son.”
The tears fell harder.
“He snuck back among the troops,” I said, voice brittle and catching on the words that shattered me.
How hadn’t I been able to tell?
Why hadn’t I checked every single warrior?
If I had discovered him, I could have protected him. I would have carried him on my back out of the battlefield even if I had to crawl him to safety.
I hugged his body to my chest again, rocking. Again and again.
“You need to let him go,” Zandyr muttered.
