Page 117 of When Wishes Bleed

It was terrifying. It was wonderful.

Cyril saw his intention to kill her.

Her body deflated before she regrouped. Her eyes darted from side to side. She was going to make a run for it.

“Keep her in the Center!” I managed to fight past Fate to scream to Brecan.

He cast wind around the circle that spun faster and faster around us until everything beyond it was a blur.

“Sable. Take back control of your body,” he gritted. “I can’t keep this up forever.” His wind began to weaken, the tight funnel loosening like the strings of a corset.

Tauren fought his way through the fleeing witches and fell through the weakening wall of wind, calling my name, unaware of the tiger in his midst. Cyril grabbed Tauren, using him as a shield. His defiant golden eyes met mine as he screamed for me to run.

Deep within, I struggled with Fate, trying to thrust him out. He wanted revenge. He wanted Cyril to suffer. But his ire, his uncontrolled anger, blinded him to Tauren’s presence. And I would protect him, even from Fate.

“You promised,” I reminded him. “Let me do this. I trusted you; now you must trust me! I have to save him. I love him.”

Tauren needed me. I took in the small blood stain on his shirt, then looked at the crimson dripping from the white fabric of my own. “Please,” I begged again.

Fate paused, then slowly receded, tucking himself somewhere deep within me.

Cyril laughed. “You actually did it.”

The wound on my stomach pulsed. My legs faltered as I clung to Fate’s rope, whispering an incantation he fed me. As my lifeblood dribbled from me, in penance, her magic would bleed away from her. When Tauren and I locked eyes, I flicked mine to the side and he dipped his head in understanding. When I threw the rope, he dove sideways and the loop of Fate’s rope fell over Cyril’s neck. “Let’s see how you like it, Mother.” I jerked the cord. Hard. She lost her footing, clawing at the strand that I’d transformed into a slick, black serpent.

She croaked a spell, desperation lacing her voice as she repeated the incantation again and again to no avail. Her magic was nearly depleted, as was the strength in my legs.

As I dragged her into the Center to one of the empty stakes, Brecan appeared next to me, his wind dying down. The snake coiled around Cyril, wrapping around her quicker than she could move.

Cyril’s eyes snapped to Arron, who sauntered over as if he had nothing better to do. “You betrayed me,” she accused.

“I was never bound to you,” he informed her nonchalantly. “I am bound only to the Daughter of Fate.”

“I should have killed your father when I had the chance,” she grunted to Tauren as the serpent coiled tighter around her, squeezing the air from her lungs. Her eyes bulged from the snake’s insistent pressure. Her face mottled and contorted grotesquely.

I stumbled forward, falling to my knees. With a flick of my fingertips I conjured fire, reaching out and lighting the wood piled at her feet.

25

Icould hear my name being shouted as the light began to fade.

It was on Tauren’s tongue, on Brecan’s lips. I could feel Mira’s hand clutch mine, and taste the brine of Fate’s sorrow from within. But all those sensations drifted into nothingness as I slipped into a pale gray void somewhere between this world – this life – and the next.

In death, time was meaningless. Only life gave it shape. I realized this fact within the span of a few moments as I died, and as Fate tugged me from Death’s cold clutches, gifting me a second chance and breathing life back into my lungs. He squeezed my heart until the rhythm suited him, and then bade me open my eyes once more.

I woke feeling numb, only to find that I wasn’t the only one who had danced with Death and returned to the living.

The instant Cyril died, the flames surrounding Ethne, Bay, and Wayra winked out. When Mira began to cry, the sky cried with her. Torrents of rain soaked the earth and everything on it. The droplets hissed as they evaporated off the charred wood beneath Cyril’s victims. Tauren gathered me in his arms. “You’re okay,” he breathed.

“So are you.” I couldn’t have been more thankful.

“I was so scared,” he admitted.

“I was terrified for you, too.” Terrified was too soft a word for what I felt when my mother whisked him from the Night Garden, or the events that unfolded afterward.

Dry coughing startled everyone… because it came from Ethne. Mira rushed to her. “Oh, my goddess. You’re alive.”

She untied the Priestess and helped her out of the pile of charred logs stacked around the base of the stake. Ethne blinked, took in Bay and Wayra’s still forms, and let out a shrill, keening sound I never wanted to hear again.

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