I vividly imagined Marshen’s body shattered alongside mine on a white, icy floor stained with a gory splatter of red. Would they leave our limp bodies there? Or would someone come later to discard them?
I pressed my eyes together. Perhaps now was the time I would finally join them.
I was ready. I was ready to meet my end—to meet them. A small part of me embraced the fall even. Perhaps the Seer was right; my deepest desire was not only to remember them, but to be forever reunited with them.
Will I remember them?
Will they remember me?
Behind the darkness, my last prayer, to whichever god I was not sure, echoed, “Let me remember them and let them remember me. Please.”
A cool surge surrounded me, some force of power enveloping me. I was sure I felt it.
Was my final prayer heard?
But then I heard him roar out my name.Aegir. And when I opened my eyes, I saw him, diving headfirst towards me.No.
I had never seen his face like that. Frantic. Grave. He grunted, his arms reaching towards me, but it seemed that no barrier could keep me from my fall.
A jolt of fear pulsed through me and I found myself trying to grasp and claw my way towards him. I reached and reached but I kept falling.
And when I was certain that I would soon find a floor made of thick ice ready to snap my bones, I was instead welcomed by an inviting bed of frigid seawater. Aegir’s doing, surely.
It let me in.
It greeted me.
It consumed me.
And so I kept falling.
And the more I fell, the lonelier it became. I was surrounded by cold obsidian, trapped in eerie silence.So. Cold.
The splitting pain in my head told me that I had opened my eyes, but blackness was all there was. I desperately searched the drowning void for him.
I wished I had the immortal flame; yet again, I wasn’t sure if I would have had the strength to use it. My bones, they feltsofrozen.
The sea pulled me deeper and deeper into its cold depths, my lungs beyond the reach of air. I could do nothing but let the gelid darkness swallow my broken body as it pleased. Black waters embraced me and I kept falling…
But then I felt him. I felt him grab me by my waist, and I knew it was his touch and no one else’s. I felt his grip tighten, felt my chest against his own. And I could tell that we were no longer in the endless frigid water—I felt us soaring up.
Yet I couldn’t stop my fall.
His panting breath brushed my ear. I knew that he was rushing, still holding me close as he moved us in the crunchy snow.
I kept falling. Was I breathing?
Beyond his caress, the cool warmth of his healing power, I could hear one broken word, over and over. “Please.” Was it an echo or a repetition?
Then I heard voices, unfamiliar ones. The questions that lingered seemed those of concern.
“What happened?” someone asked.
“Get to my room. Light the hearth, heat the bath. She needs warmth.”
Footsteps.
The too-many voices murmured.
