I swallow it down.
My heart hammers, and I remember what Wilder said that first time I saw him.
There is always a choice.
If only it were that simple. If the consequences weren’t so heavy. If this decision didn’t tear my heart in two.
Birds cut from the trees. Even they can’t stand to be here, so they fly away.
The lump in my throat swells as I turn to Malachi. His blue eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them. Nothing like the bright orbs I remember when I met him. No longer endless.
“I choose King Malachi.” The words barely make it out.
My chest aches as I burrow in on myself. Lost in the dark chasm of my mind, I seek out the thread that binds me to Wilder, and I knot it tight. I cut him off before I have to feel the expanse of his pain.
I’m a coward.
A selfish coward who can’t even look at him, much less hear the final sigh of his goodbye.
King Malachi grins. His expression feral in comparison to Hazel and Selia over his shoulder. Their mouths don’t so much asflinch. Everyone knew it would come to this. They knew that for my home, I’d choose him.
King Malachi reaches for my hand, and I slip my fingers into his palm. So smooth. Not like Wilder’s rough touch from years of fighting on battlefields.
The priestess waits while the king leads me toward the altar, and when I step onto the stone, there’s the slightest resistance. A faint tug that tries to pull me back.
To him.
I can’t look back.
I can’t go back.
The choice is made.
King Malachi leads me to one side of the staff while he takes the other. The stone is icy with the lack of magic. It bites at the bottoms of my bare feet. Wiggling my toes, I try to seek the warmth that isn’t there.
Since stepping on the altar, my magic isn’t stirring. That same empty gap between me and my heart stretches like it did when I thought I was human.
“Let us begin.” The priestess steps forward, and she’s so close to Wilder I can’t look at her, or I’ll risk looking at him.
Her toes are at the edge of the stone, barely avoiding touching it. Between me and the king, the Staff of Sarrow glows brighter when she lifts her hands. For a staff carved from the realm between here and the After, it burns as bright as any star.
“Join your hands on the staff,” the priestess directs, and I lift my hand in time with King Malachi.
I’ve feared this Rite, so if it is as simple as holding my magic against his, then it seems too easy.
The king’s palm meets the staff first, and it starts burning so brightly that it’s difficult to stare directly at it. The rivers become wide-open gaps that seem to peer into another realm. The staffhums when I near it, and when my skin connects with the wood, a pulse thrums in my blood.
A lightning bolt strikes my heart. A binding connection sears through my chest, weaving around my ribs. It wraps my heart and stretches up my shoulders and through my arms. It becomes me. Or—itisme. The fibers of my existence.
And yet, it pulls.
It pulls so hard it hurts, and not toward the king, but the other direction.
With my hand still gripping the staff tightly, I glance down to where it tugs my heart. To a thread that weaves through me and out the other side.
Stretching.
Straining.
