I awoke gasping.
Invisible fingers were strangling me, sharp winds biting into my lungs and choking me from inside. As my human pulse thumped, the length between each beat grew longer, longer, until—
No!
As my eyes shot open, the shadows disappeared, the fingers pressing down on my throat—gone. In their place I saw the shore, the first rays of dawn cutting across the lake, Edan beside me. It had all been a dream.
I sucked in a desperate breath. It burned, and I groped at my neck, shock rippling through me at the touch of my own skin, cold as death. Worse yet, the numbness in my chest had returned.
Careful not to wake Edan, I untangled myself from his arms and sat up. My fingers were like ice. Horrified, I saw that my nails had hardened, the beds brown like dried blood, the tips sharp and pointed.
I shoved my hands into the sand.
My heart thudded, deafening over the calm of the gently lapping lake.
I was still turning into a demon. I hadn’t ended my transformation by defeating Bandur and destroying the isles; I had merely delayed it.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, battling every new breath, before Edan stirred.
“Good morning,” he said sleepily. On his lips rested a lazy smile, so endearing it pricked my heart to see it. “How long have you been awake?”
Hearing his voice, I tensed. I twisted to face the lake before he could glimpse me. My amulet, tucked under the folds of my tunic, throbbed against my ribs. Without looking down, I had a sinking feeling it was still black as night.
“Not long,” I managed.
“Listening to the water?”
His question, so simple and innocent, made my chest ache. He sounded happy. “A little.”
“Is something wrong, Maia?” I felt Edan’s hands on my shoulders, his shadow melting into mine in the sand. “You sound distressed.”
I dug my fingers deeper in the sand. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t even know how. “What will happen to future enchanters now that Lapzur is gone?”
Edan tore his gaze from the glittering waters before us. For what felt like a long time, he considered my question. “The sun and the moon will continue to meet once a year, and the stars will bleed when they come together. But now that the well of the blood of stars is no more, never again can an enchanter drink from it and bind himself to an oath of a thousand years. A new generation of enchanters will emerge.”
“But you said the oath prevents them from becoming too greedy. That magic corrupts.”
“That will always be true,” he replied. “In Kiata they used to ban magic, and anyone born with it was exiled. Other lands never encouraged the tradition of oath taking. It is better this way, I think.” At my silence, he gently teased, “They’ll be singing songs about you in a thousand years, about how you destroyed the Forgotten Isles of Lapzur armed with nothing but a pair of scissors.”
I mustered a smile, but it faltered as I remembered Master Tsring’s story about my ancestor, the Weaver. “I wish I hadn’t lost them.”
“Is that why you are melancholy?”
“They belonged to my family for a long time,” I answered indirectly. “Funny, I used to resent their magic helping me sew. But now that they’re gone, I miss it. Their magic was a part of my past. Without them…”
I fear I’ll be lost.
Gently, he thumbed sand off my cheek. I knew he sensed something more was wrong, but his concern was tempered by the joy from last night. He still believed that Bandur’s death and the destruction of Lapzur might have reversed my change into a demon.
If only I didn’t have to disappoint him.
For, now as I listened to my heart, I could hear myself breathe between each thump, the rhythm so relentlessly steady I wondered if anything would ever make it race again, whether I would ever feel again.
It would beat slower and slower, until one day soon, it would stop. And I would no longer be human.
No longer Maia.
Hope shriveled inside my chest, but I plastered on a smile. Let Edan think I was better, at least for a few more hours. Let us be happy for a few more hours.
